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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The United States Since The Civil War, by 
+Charles Ramsdell Lingley
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The United States Since The Civil War
+
+Author: Charles Ramsdell Lingley
+
+Posting Date: November 12, 2011 [EBook #9868]
+Release Date: February, 2006
+First Posted: October 25, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNITED STATES SINCE CIVIL WAR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon, Beth Trapaga
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE UNITED STATES
+
+SINCE THE CIVIL WAR
+
+
+By
+
+CHARLES RAMSDELL LINGLEY
+Professor of History, Dartmouth College.
+
+
+TO MY WIFE
+
+
+1920.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+To write an account of the history of the United States since the
+Civil War without bias, without misstatements of fact and without the
+omission of matters that ought to be included, would be to perform a
+miracle. I have felt no wonder-working near me. I can claim only to
+have attempted to overcome the natural limitations of having been
+brought up in a particular region and with a traditional political,
+economic and social philosophy. I have tried to present as many sides
+of every question as the limitations of space permitted and to look
+sympathetically upon every section, every party and every individual,
+because the sympathetic critic seems to me most likely to discover the
+truth.
+
+It used to be believed that history could not be written until at
+least half a century had elapsed after the events which were to be
+chronicled. It is of course true that only after the lapse of time
+can students gain access to ample documentary material, rid themselves
+of partisan prejudice and attain the necessary perspective. Unhappily,
+however, the citizen who takes part in public affairs or who votes in
+a political campaign cannot wait for the labors of half a century. He
+must judge on the basis of whatever facts he can find near at hand.
+Next to a balanced intelligence, the greatest need of the citizen in
+the performance of his political duties is a substantial knowledge
+of the recent past of public problems. It is impossible to give a
+sensible opinion upon the transportation problem, the relation between
+government and industry, international relations, current politics, the
+leaders in public affairs, and other peculiarly American interests
+without some understanding of the United States since the Civil War. I
+have tried in a small way to make some of this information conveniently
+available without attempting to beguile myself or others into the
+belief that I have written with the accuracy that will characterize
+later work.
+
+Some day somebody will delineate the _spiritual_ history of America
+since the Civil War--the compound of tradition, discontent,
+aspiration, idealism, materialism, selfishness, and hope that mark the
+floundering progress of these United States through the last half
+century. He will read widely, ponder deeply, and tune his spirit with
+care to the task which he undertakes. I have not attempted this phase
+of our history, yet I believe that no account is complete without it.
+
+I have drawn heavily on others who have written in this field--Andrews,
+Beard, Paxson and Peck, and especially on the volumes written for the
+American Nation series by Professors Dunning, Sparks, Dewey, Latané
+and Ogg. Haworth's _United States in Our Own Time, 1865-1920_, was
+unfortunately printed too late to give me the benefit of the author's
+well-known scholarship. Many friends have generously assisted me. My
+colleagues, Professors F.A. Updyke, C.A. Phillips, G.R. Wicker, H.D.
+Dozier, and Malcolm Keir have read the manuscript of individual
+chapters. Professor E.E. Day of Harvard University gave me his counsel
+on several economic topics. Professor George H. Haynes of the Worcester
+Polytechnic Institute, Professor B.B. Kendrick of Columbia University,
+Professor W.T. Root of the University of Wisconsin, and Professors L.B.
+Richardson and F.M. Anderson of Dartmouth College have read the entire
+manuscript. Officials at the Dartmouth College Library, the Columbia
+University Library, and the Library of Congress gave me especial
+facilities for work. Two college generations of students at Dartmouth
+have suffered me to try out on them the arrangement of the chapters as
+well as the contents of the text. Harper and Bros. allowed me to use a
+map appearing in Ogg, _National Progress_, and D. Appleton and Co. have
+permitted the use of maps appearing in Johnson and Van Metre,
+_Principles of Railroad Transportation_; A.J. Nystrom and Co. and the
+McKinley Publishing Co. have allowed me to draw new maps on outlines
+copyrighted by them. At all points I have had the counsel of my wife
+and of Professor Max Farrand of Yale University.
+
+CHARLES R. LINGLEY.
+Dartmouth College, June 14, 1920.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+    I RECONSTRUCTION AND ITS AFTERMATH
+   II IN PRESIDENT GRANT'S TIME
+  III ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS OF THE NEW ERA
+   IV POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND OF THE NEW ISSUES
+    V THE NEW ISSUES
+   VI THE ADMINISTRATION OF RUTHERFORD B. HAYES
+  VII THE POLITICS OF THE EARLY EIGHTIES
+ VIII THE OVERTURN OF 1884
+   IX TRANSPORTATION AND ITS CONTROL
+    X EXTREME REPUBLICANISM
+   XI INDUSTRY AND _LAISSEZ FAIRE_
+  XII DEMOCRATIC DEMORALIZATION
+ XIII THE TREND OF DIPLOMACY
+  XIV THE RISE OF THE WAGE EARNER
+   XV MONETARY AND FINANCIAL PROBLEMS
+  XVI 1896
+ XVII REPUBLICAN DOMINATION AND WAR WITH SPAIN
+XVIII IMPERIALISM
+  XIX THE BEGINNING OF A NEW CENTURY
+   XX THEODORE ROOSEVELT
+  XXI POLITICS, 1908-1912
+ XXII ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL TENDENCIES SINCE 1896
+XXIII LATER INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
+ XXIV WOODROW WILSON
+  XXV THE UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD WAR
+
+INDEX
+
+
+
+
+MAPS AND DIAGRAMS
+
+The growth of the United States from 1776 to 1867
+
+Popular vote in presidential elections, 1868 to 1896
+
+Economic interests, 1890
+
+Relative prices, 1865 to 1890
+
+The New West
+
+Railroad mileage, 1860 to 1910, in thousands of miles
+
+Map of the United States showing railroads in 1870
+
+Map of the United States showing railroads in 1890 (The maps showing
+the railroads are from Johnson and Van Metre, Principles of Railroad
+Transportation, by courtesy of the publishers, D. Appleton & Co.)
+
+Financial operations, 1875 to 1897, in millions of dollars
+
+Total silver coinage, 1878 to 1894, in millions of dollars
+
+Net gold in the treasury, by months, January, 1893, to February,
+1896, in millions of dollars
+
+The presidential election of 1896
+
+The Philippines
+
+The Spanish-American War in the West Indies
+
+Campaign about Santiago
+
+The chief foreign elements in the population of the United States
+
+The cost of food, 1900 to 1912
+
+Morgan-Hill railroads as listed shortly after 1900
+
+Daily newspaper circulation, 1918
+
+Election of 1904 by counties
+
+Caribbean interests of the United States
+
+Election of 1916 by counties
+
+The Western Front
+
+Strength of the American Expeditionary Force, July 1, 1917, to
+November 1, 1918
+
+The United States--1920
+
+The cost of food, January, 1913, to January, 1920
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+RECONSTRUCTION AND ITS AFTERMATH
+
+Abraham Lincoln in the presidential chair was regarded by many of the
+politicians of his party as an "unutterable calamity"; and while the
+news of Lincoln's assassination was received with expressions of genuine
+grief, the accession of Vice-President Andrew Johnson was looked upon as
+a "Godsend to the country." As the Civil War came to a close, Lincoln
+opposed severe punishments for the leaders of the Confederacy; he urged
+respect for the rights of the southern people; he desired to recognize
+the existence of a Union element in the South, to restore the states to
+their usual relations with as little ill-feeling as possible, and in the
+restoration process to interfere but little with the normal powers of
+the states. Johnson, on the contrary, "breathed fire and hemp."
+"Treason," he asserted over and again, "should be made odious, and
+traitors must be punished and impoverished. Their great plantations must
+be seized, and divided into small farms and sold to honest, industrious
+men." For a time it seemed that the curtain would go down on the tragedy
+of Civil War only to rise immediately on the execution of the
+Confederate leaders and the confiscation of their property. A large and
+active group of Washington politicians believed in the necessity of a
+stern accounting with the "rebels." Lincoln's gentleness seemed to these
+bitter northerners like a calamity; Johnson's vindictiveness like a
+Godsend to the country. In the conflict between the policy of clemency
+and the policy of severity is to be found the beginning of the period of
+reconstruction.
+
+Andrew Johnson was a compact, sturdy figure, his eyes black, his
+complexion swarthy. In politics he had always been a Democrat. So
+diverse were his characteristics that one is tempted to ascribe two
+personalities to him. He was a tenacious man, possessed of a rude
+intellectual force, a rough-and-ready stump speaker, intensely loyal,
+industrious, sincere, self-reliant. His courage was put to the test
+again and again, and nobody ever said that it failed. His loyalty held
+him in the Union in 1861, although he was a senator from Tennessee and
+his state as well as his southern colleagues were withdrawing. His
+public and private integrity withstood a hostile investigation that
+included the testimony of all strata of society, from cabinet officers
+to felons in prison. Later, at the most critical moment of his whole
+career, when he had hardly a friend on whom to lean, he was unflurried,
+dignified, undismayed.
+
+Although Johnson was born in North Carolina, the greater part of his
+life was spent in eastern Tennessee. His education was of the slightest.
+His wife taught him to write, and while he plied his tailor's trade she
+read books to him that appealed to his eager intellect. When scarcely of
+voting age he became mayor of the town in which he lived and by sheer
+force of character made his way up into the state legislature, the
+federal House of Representatives and the Senate. President Lincoln made
+him military governor of Tennessee in 1862. In 1864 many Democrats and
+most Republicans joined to form a Union party, and in order to emphasize
+its non-sectional and non-partisan character they nominated Andrew
+Johnson as Lincoln's running mate. And now this unschooled, poor-white,
+slave-holding, Jeffersonian, states-rights Democrat had become President
+of the United States.
+
+It was scarcely to be expected that a man who had fought his way to the
+fore in eastern Tennessee during those controversial years would possess
+the characteristics of a diplomat. Even his friends found him
+uncommunicative, too often defiant and violent in controversy,
+irritating in manners, indiscreet, and lacking flexibility in the
+management of men. The messages which he wrote as President were
+dignified and judicious, and his addresses were not lacking in power,
+but he was prone to indulge in unseemly repartee with his hearers when
+speaking on the stump. He exchanged epithets with bystanders who were
+all too ready to spur him on with their "Give it to 'em, Andy!" and
+"Bully for you, Andy!" giving the presidency the "ill-savor of a corner
+grocery" and filling his supporters with amazement and chagrin. The
+North soon looked upon him as a vulgar boor and remembered that he had
+been intoxicated when inaugurated as Vice-President. Unhappily, too, he
+was distrustful by nature, giving his confidence reluctantly and with
+reserve, so that he was almost without friends or spokesmen in either
+house of Congress. His policies have commended themselves, on the whole,
+even after the scrutiny of half a century. The extent to which he was
+able to put them into effect is part of the history of reconstruction.
+
+The close of the Civil War found the nation as well as the several
+sections of the country facing a variety of complicated and pressing
+social, economic and political problems. Vast armies had to be
+demobilized and re-absorbed into the economic life of the nation.
+Production of the material of war had to give way to the production of
+machinery, the building of railroads and the tilling of the soil. The
+South faced economic demoralization. The federal government had to
+determine the basis on which the lately rebellious states should again
+become normal units in the nation, and the civil, social and economic
+status of the negro had to be readjusted in the light of the outcome of
+the war. Most of these problems, moreover, had to be solved through
+political agencies, such as party conventions and legislatures, with all
+the limitations of partisanship that these terms convey. And they had
+obviously to be solved through human beings possessed of all the
+prejudices and passions that the war had aroused: through Andrew Johnson
+with his force and tactlessness; through able, domineering and
+vindictive Thaddeus Stevens; through narrow and idealistic Charles
+Sumner and demagogic Benjamin F. Butler; as well as through finer
+spirits like William Pitt Fessenden and Lyman Trumbull.
+
+In their attitude toward the South, the people of the North, as well as
+the politicians, fell into two groups. The smaller or radical party
+desired a stern reckoning with all "rebels" and the imprisonment and
+execution of the leaders.[1] They hoped, also, to effect an immediate
+extension to the negroes of the right to vote. It was this faction that
+welcomed the accession of Johnson to the Presidency. The other group was
+much the larger and was inclined toward gentler measures and toward
+leaving the question of suffrage largely for the future. Lincoln and his
+Secretary of State, Seward, were representative of this party. The
+attitude of the South toward the North was more difficult to determine.
+To be sure the rebellious states were beaten, and recognized the fact.
+There was general admission that slavery was at an end. But careful
+observers differed as to whether the South accepted its defeat in good
+faith and would treat the blacks justly, or whether it was sullen,
+unrepentant and ready to adopt any measures short of actual slavery to
+repress the negro.
+
+In theory, the union of the states was still intact. The South had
+attempted to secede and had failed. Practically, however, the southern
+states were out of connection with the remainder of the nation and some
+method must be found of reconstructing the broken federation. President
+Lincoln had already outlined a plan in his proclamation of December 8,
+1863. Excluding the leaders of the Confederacy, he offered pardon to all
+others who had participated in the rebellion, if they would take an oath
+of loyalty to the Union and agree to accept the laws and proclamations
+concerning slavery. As soon as the number of citizens thus pardoned in
+each state reached ten per cent. of the number of votes cast in that
+state at the election of 1860, they might establish a government which
+he would recognize. It was his expectation that a loyal body of
+reconstructed voters would collect around this nucleus, so that in no
+great while the entire South would be restored to normal relations. At
+the same time he called attention to the fact that under the
+Constitution the admission into Congress of senators and representatives
+sent by these governments must rest exclusively with the houses of
+Congress themselves. In pursuance of his policy he had already appointed
+military governors in states where the federal army had secured a
+foothold, and they directed the re-establishment of civil government.
+The radicals opposed the plan because it left much power, including the
+question of negro suffrage, in the hands of the states. A contest
+between Congress and the executive was clearly imminent when the
+assassin's bullet removed the patient and conciliatory Lincoln.
+
+Lincoln's determination to leave control over their restoration as far
+as possible in the hands of the states was in line with Johnson's
+Democratic, states-rights theories. Moreover, the new executive retained
+his predecessor's cabinet, including Seward, whose influence was
+promptly thrown on the side of moderation. To the consternation of the
+radicals the President issued a proclamation announcing a reconstruction
+policy which substantially followed that of Lincoln. Like his
+predecessor he intended to confine the voting power to the whites,
+leaving to the states themselves the question whether the ballot should
+be extended to any of the blacks. Wherever Lincoln had not already
+acted, he appointed military governors who directed the establishment of
+state governments, the revival of the functions of county and municipal
+officials, the repeal of the acts of secession, the repudiation of the
+war debts, and the election of new state legislatures, governors,
+senators and representatives. The Thirteenth Amendment to the
+Constitution, abolishing slavery, was ratified by the new legislatures
+and declared in effect December 18, 1865.
+
+During the last half of the year, the President's policy met with wide
+approval among the people of the North, where both Republicans and
+Democrats expressed satisfaction with his conciliatory attitude. The
+South was not unpleased, as was indicated by the speed with which men
+presented themselves for pardon and assisted in setting up new state
+governments. Nevertheless there were disquieting possibilities of
+dissension. Northern radicals could be counted upon to oppose so
+moderate a policy. There was a reaction, too, against the great power
+which the executive arm of the government had exercised in war time.
+Congress felt that it had been thrust aside, its functions reduced and
+its prestige diminished. It could be looked to for an assertion of its
+desire to dominate reconstruction. Finally when ex-confederates began to
+be elected to office, many a northerner shook his head and wondered
+whether the South was attempting to get into the saddle once more.
+
+When Congress convened in December, 1865, its members held a wide
+variety of opinions in regard to the best method of restoring the
+confederate states to the Union. On one point, however, there was some
+agreement--that Congress ought to withhold approval of executive
+reconstruction until it could decide upon a program of its own. Led by
+Thaddeus Stevens, the radical leader of the House, a joint congressional
+committee of fifteen was appointed to report whether any of the southern
+state governments were entitled to representation in Congress. For the
+present, all of them, even the President's own state, were to be denied
+representation. With Stevens as chairman of the House Committee on
+Reconstruction and Johnson in the President's chair, a battle was
+inevitable, in which quarter would be neither asked nor given.
+
+Unhappily for themselves, the southern states played unwittingly into
+the hands of Stevens and his radical colleagues. The outcome of the war
+had placed upon the freedmen responsibilities which they could not be
+expected to carry. To many of them emancipation meant merely cessation
+from work. Vagabondage was common. Rumor was widespread that the
+government was going to give each negro forty acres of land and a mule,
+and the blacks loafed about, awaiting the division. The strict
+regulations which had surrounded the former slave were discarded and it
+was necessary to accustom him to a new regime. "The race was free, but
+without status, without leaders, without property, and without
+education." Fully alive to the dangers of giving unrestricted freedom
+to so large a body of ignorant negroes, the southern whites passed the
+"black codes," which placed numerous limitations on the civil liberty
+of "persons of color." In some cases they were forbidden to carry arms,
+to act as witnesses in court except in cases involving their own race,
+and to serve on juries or in the militia. Vagrancy laws enabled the
+magistrates to set unemployed blacks at work under arrangements that
+amounted almost to peonage. It is now evident that the South was
+actuated by what it considered the necessities of its situation and
+not merely by a spirit of defiance. Yet the fear on the part of the
+North that slavery was being restored under a disguise was not
+unnatural. Radical northern newspapers and leading extremists in Congress
+exaggerated the importance of the codes until they seemed like a
+systematic attempt to evade the results of the war. As Republican
+leaders in Congress saw the satisfaction created in the South by the
+President's policy, and discovered that northern Democrats were rallying
+to his support, the jealousies of partisanship caused them still further
+to increase their grip on the processes of reconstruction. A disquieting
+by-product of the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, also began
+to appear. Hitherto only three-fifths of the negroes had been counted in
+apportioning representation in the House of Representatives. As soon as
+the slaves became free, however, they were counted as if they were
+whites, and thereby the strength of the South in Congress would be
+increased. It was hardly to be expected that the North would view such a
+development with satisfaction.
+
+The first action of the leaders in Congress was the introduction of a
+bill to continue and extend the powers of the Freedmen's Bureau, a
+federal organization which supervised charitable relief given the
+negroes, protected them in making contracts for labor and assumed a sort
+of guardianship over the race in making its transition out of slavery.
+The new measure was intended to continue this federal tutelage of the
+blacks. The President's veto of the bill, February 19, 1866, served to
+widen the breach between him and Congress and thereby postponed still
+further the admission of the representatives of the southern state
+governments. Three days later Johnson addressed a crowd which collected
+before the White House. In the course of his speech he lost control of
+himself to such an extent as to indulge in undignified remarks and
+personalities, and even to charge leaders in Congress with seeking to
+destroy the fundamental principles of American government. Thoughtful
+men everywhere were dismayed. In the meantime a Civil Rights bill was
+pending in Congress, the purpose of which was to declare negroes to be
+citizens of the United States and to give them rights equal to those
+accorded other citizens, notwithstanding local or state laws and codes.
+The President objected to the bill as an unconstitutional invasion of
+the rights of the states, but it was promptly passed over the veto.
+Scarcely any members of Congress now supported him except the Democrats.
+The conservative or conciliatory Republicans were lost to him for good.
+Throughout the North it was felt that protection must be accorded the
+freedmen against the black codes, and when the President opposed it he
+lost ground outside of Congress as well as in it. "From that time
+Johnson was beaten."
+
+Stevens in the House and Sumner and others in the Senate were now in a
+position to press successfully a stern, congressional reconstruction
+policy to replace that of the executive. The first item in the radical
+program was the Fourteenth Amendment, which passed Congress in June,
+1866, although it did not become of force until 1868. It contained four
+sections: (1) making citizens of all persons born or naturalized in the
+United States and forbidding states to abridge their rights; (2)
+providing for the reduction of the representation in Congress of any
+state that denied the vote to any citizens except those guilty of
+crimes; (3) disabling confederate leaders from holding political office
+except with the permission of Congress; and (4) prohibiting the payment
+of confederate debts. The first section was, of course, designed to put
+the civil rights of the negro into the Constitution where they would be
+safe from hostile legislation. The second sought to get negro suffrage
+into the South by indirection at a time when a positive suffrage
+amendment could not be passed. The third was to take the pardoning
+power out of executive hands.
+
+At this point there came a halt in the controversy until the country
+could be heard from in the congressional elections of 1866. Both sides
+made unusual efforts to organize political sentiment. Both attempted to
+demonstrate their thoroughly national character by holding conventions
+attended by southern as well as northern delegates. Each angled for the
+soldier vote by encouraging conferences of veterans. Late in July
+occurred an incident which the radicals were able to use to advantage.
+A crowd of negroes attending a convention in New Orleans in behalf of
+suffrage for their race became engaged in a fight with white
+anti-suffragists and many of the blacks were killed. The riot was
+commonly referred to in the North as a "massacre," the moral of which
+was that the negroes must be protected against the unrepentant rebels.
+But it was Johnson himself who furnished greatest aid to his
+adversaries. Having been invited to speak in Chicago, he determined
+upon an electioneering trip, "swinging around the circle," he called
+it. Again he was guilty of gross indiscretions. He made personal
+allusions, held angry colloquies with the crowd and at one place met
+such opposition that he had to retire unheard. It mattered little that
+the greater part of his speeches were sound and substantial. His lapses
+were held up to public scorn and he returned to Washington amid the
+hoots of his enemies. It was commonly believed that he had been
+intoxicated. Probably no orator, _The Nation_ sarcastically remarked,
+ever accomplished so much by a fortnight's speaking. There could be
+little doubt as to the outcome of the elections. The Republicans
+carried almost every northern state and obtained a two-thirds majority
+in each house of Congress, with which to override vetoes.
+
+As if impelled by some perverse fate the southern whites during the fall
+and winter of 1866-67 did the thing for which the bitterest enemy of the
+South might have wished. Except in Tennessee, the legislature of every
+confederate state refused with almost complete unanimity to ratify the
+Fourteenth Amendment. Natural as the act was, it gave the North
+apparently overwhelming proof that the former "rebels" were still
+defiant. Encouraged by the results of the election and aroused by the
+attitude of the South toward the Amendment, Congress proceeded to
+encroach upon prerogatives that had hitherto been considered purely
+executive, and also to pass a most extreme plan of reconstruction.
+
+The first of these measures, the Tenure of Office Act, was passed over a
+veto on March 2, 1867. By it the President was forbidden to remove civil
+officers except with the consent of the Senate. Even the members of the
+Cabinet could not be dismissed without the permission of the upper
+house, a provision inserted for the protection of Edwin M. Stanton, the
+Secretary of War. Stanton was in sympathy with the radical leaders in
+Congress and it was essential to them that he be kept in this post of
+advantage. General Grant, who had charge of the military establishment,
+was made almost independent of the President by a law drafted secretly
+by Stanton. On the same day, and over a veto also, was passed the
+Reconstruction Act, the most important piece of legislation during the
+decade after the war. It represented the desires of Thaddeus Stevens and
+was passed mainly because of his masterful leadership. At the outset the
+new Act declared the existing southern state governments to be illegal
+and inadequate, and divided the South into five military districts. Over
+each was to be a commanding general who should preserve order, and
+continue civil officers and civil courts, or replace them with military
+tribunals as he wished. Under his direction each state was to frame and
+adopt a new constitution which must provide for negro suffrage. When
+Congress should approve the constitution and when a legislature elected
+under its provisions should adopt the Fourteenth Amendment, the state
+might be readmitted to the Union.
+
+The Reconstruction Act was remarkable in several features. The provision
+imposing negro suffrage was carried through the Senate with difficulty
+and only as the result of the tireless activity of Charles Sumner.
+Sumner and other radicals were determined that the blacks should be
+enfranchised in order that they might protect themselves from hostile
+local legislation and also in order that they might form part of a
+southern Republican party. Even more noteworthy was the military
+character of the Act. The President had already exercised his
+prerogative of declaring the country at peace on August 20, 1866, more
+than six months before the Act was passed. In the decision in the
+Milligan case, which preceded the Act by nearly three months, the
+Supreme Court had decided that military tribunals were illegal except
+where war made the operation of civil courts impossible. Military
+reconstruction was illogical, not to say unlawful, therefore, but
+Congress was more interested in a method that promised the speedy
+accomplishment of its purposes than it was in the opinions of the
+executive and judicial departments.
+
+Despite his dissent from its provisions, the President at once set
+military reconstruction in operation. When he mitigated its harshness,
+however, where latitude was allowed him, Congress passed additional
+acts, over the veto, of course, extending and defining the powers of
+the commanding generals. Armed with complete authority, the generals
+proceeded to remove many of the ordinary civil officers and to replace
+them with their own appointees, to compel order by means of the
+soldiery, to set aside court decrees and even to close the courts and
+to enact legislation. In the meanwhile a total of 703,000 black and
+627,000 white voters were registered, delegates to constitutional
+conventions were elected, constitutions were drawn up and adopted which
+permitted negro suffrage, and state officers and legislators elected.
+In conformity with the provisions of the Act, the newly chosen
+legislatures ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution,
+sent representatives and senators to Washington, where they were
+admitted to Congress, and by 1871 the last confederate state was
+reconstructed.
+
+The commanding generals were honest and efficient, in the main, even if
+their stern rule was distasteful to the South, but the regime of the
+newly elected state officers and legislators was a period of dishonesty
+and incapacity. Most of the experienced and influential whites had been
+excluded from participation in politics through the operation of the
+presidential proclamations and the reconstruction acts. In all the
+legislatures there were large numbers of blacks--sometimes, indeed, they
+were in the majority. Two parties appeared. The radical or Republican
+group included the negroes, a few southern whites, commonly called
+"scalawags," and various northerners known as "carpet-baggers." These
+last were in some cases mere adventurers and in others men of ability
+who were attracted to the South for one reason or another, and took
+a prominent part in political affairs. The old-time whites held both
+kinds in equal detestation. The other party was called conservative or
+Democratic, and was composed of the great mass of the whites. Many of
+them had been Whigs before the war, but in the face of negro-Republican
+domination, nearly all threw in their lot with the conservatives.
+
+Not all the activities of the legislatures were bad. Provisions were
+made for education, for example, that were in line with the needs of
+the states. Nevertheless, their conduct in the main was such as to
+drive the South almost into revolt. In the South Carolina legislature
+only twenty-two members out of 155 could read and write. The negroes
+were in the majority and although they paid only $143 in taxes
+altogether, they helped add $20,000,000 to the state debt in four
+years. In Arkansas the running expenses of the state increased 1500
+per cent.; in Louisiana the public debt mounted from $14,000,000 to
+$48,000,000 between 1868 and 1871. Only ignorance and dishonesty could
+explain such extravagance and waste. Submission, however, was not
+merely advisable; it presented the only prospect of peace. Open
+resentment was largely suppressed, but it was inevitable that the
+whites should become hostile to the blacks, and that they should
+dislike the Republican party for its ruthless imposition of a system
+which governed them without their consent and which placed them at the
+mercy of the incompetent and unscrupulous. A system which made a negro
+the successor of Jefferson Davis in the United States Senate could
+scarcely fail to throw the majority of southern whites into the ranks
+of the enemies of the Republican organization.[2]
+
+One step remained to ensure the continuance of negro suffrage--the
+adoption of a constitutional provision. In 1869 Congress referred to the
+states the Fifteenth Amendment, which was declared in force a year
+later. By its terms the United States and the states are forbidden to
+abridge the right of citizens to vote on account of race, color or
+previous condition of servitude.
+
+While radical reconstruction was being forced to its bitter conclusion,
+the opponents of the President were maturing plans for his impeachment
+and exclusion from office. By the terms of the Constitution, the chief
+executive may be impeached for "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes
+and Misdemeanors." Early in the struggle between President Johnson and
+Congress a few members of the House of Representatives urged an attempt
+to impeach him. Such extremists as James M. Ashley of Ohio, and Benjamin
+F. Butler of Massachusetts, believed that he had even been implicated in
+the plot to assassinate Lincoln. A thorough-going search through his
+private as well as his public career failed to produce any evidence that
+could be interpreted as sufficient to meet constitutional demands, and a
+motion to impeach was voted down in the House by a large majority. So
+indiscreet a man as the President, however, was likely at some time to
+furnish a reason for further effort. The occasion came in the removal of
+the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton.
+
+Stanton, although of a domineering and brusque personality, had ably
+administered the War Department under Lincoln and Johnson. During the
+controversy between the President and Congress, Stanton had remained in
+the Cabinet but was closely in touch with his chief's opponents and
+had even drafted one of the reconstruction acts. Johnson had tolerated
+the questionable conduct of his Secretary, despite the advice of many
+of his supporters, until August 5, 1867, when he requested Stanton's
+resignation. The latter took refuge behind the Tenure of Office Act,
+denying the right of the President to remove him, but yielding his
+office at Johnson's insistence. This episode had occurred during a
+recess of Congress and, in accord with the law, the removal of Stanton
+was reported when it convened in December. The Senate at once refused
+to concur and Stanton returned to his office. The President now found
+himself forced, by what he regarded as an unconstitutional law, into
+the unbearable position of including one of his enemies within his
+official family, and once more he ordered the Secretary to retire. But
+meanwhile the House of Representatives had been active and had on
+February 24, 1868, impeached the President for "high crimes and
+misdemeanors."
+
+The trial was conducted before the Senate, as the Constitution
+provides, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court acting as the
+presiding officer. The House chose a board of seven managers to conduct
+the prosecution, of whom Thaddeus Stevens and Benjamin F. Butler were
+best known. The President was defended by able counsel, including
+former Attorney-General Stanbery, Benjamin R. Curtis, who had earlier
+sat upon the Supreme Court, and William M. Evarts, an eminent lawyer
+and leader of the bar in New York. The charges, although eleven in
+number, centered about four accusations: (1) that the dismissal of
+Secretary Stanton was contrary to the Tenure of Office Act; (2) that
+the President had declared that part of a certain act of Congress was
+unconstitutional; (3) that he had attempted to bring Congress into
+disgrace in his speeches; and (4) that in general he had opposed the
+execution of several acts of Congress. The President's counsel asked
+for forty days in which to prepare their case. They were given ten,
+although members of the House had been preparing for more than a year
+to resort to impeachment. The trial lasted from early March to late
+May.
+
+As the trial wore on, it became increasingly evident that the House had
+but little substance on which to base an impeachment, and that the force
+back of it was intense hatred of the President. It was made clear to
+senators who were inclined to waver towards the side of acquittal that
+their political careers were at an end if they failed to vote guilty.
+The general conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church even appointed
+an hour of prayer that the Senate might be moved to convict. The lawyers
+for the defense so far outgeneraled the prosecutors that one who reads
+the records at the present day finds difficulty in thinking of them as
+more than the account of a pitiful farce. At length on May 16 the Senate
+was prepared to make its decision. The last charge was voted upon first.
+It was a very general accusation, drawn up by Stevens, and seemed most
+likely to secure the necessary two-thirds for conviction. Fifty-four
+members would vote. Twelve of them were Democrats and were known to be
+for acquittal. The majority of the Republicans were for conviction. A
+small group had given no indication of their position, and their votes
+would be the decisive ones. As the roll was called each senator replied
+"Guilty" or "Not guilty," while floor and galleries counted off the vote
+as the knitting women clicked off the day's toll of heads during the
+days when the guillotine made a reign of terror in France. The result
+was thirty-five votes for conviction and nineteen for acquittal. As
+thirty-six were necessary, Johnson had escaped. A recess of ten days was
+taken during which the prosecution sought some shred of evidence which
+might prove that some one of the nineteen had accepted a bribe for his
+vote, but to no avail. When the Senate convened again there was no
+change in the vote on the second and third articles, and the attempt to
+convict was abandoned.
+
+For the first time in many months Johnson enjoyed a respite from the
+attacks of his foes. Stanton relinquished his office, and the integrity
+of the executive power was preserved. The race of the dictator of the
+House had been run, for Stevens lived less than three months after the
+trial.
+
+The continuous controversies of the Johnson administration almost
+completely pressed into the background two diplomatic accomplishments of
+no little importance. The more dramatic of these related to the French
+invasion of Mexico. During 1861, naval vessels of England, France and
+Spain had entered Mexican ports in order to compel the payment of debts
+said to be due those countries, but England and Spain had soon withdrawn
+and had left France to proceed alone. French troops thereupon had
+invaded the country, captured Mexico City and established an empire with
+Archduke Maximilian of Austria as its head, despite the protests and
+opposition of the Mexicans under their leader Juarez. The United States
+had expressed dissent and alarm, meanwhile, but because of the war was
+in no position to take action.
+
+As soon as civil strife was finished, however, Johnson and Seward took
+vigorous steps. An army under General Sheridan was sent to the border,
+and diplomatic pressure was exerted to convince France of the
+desirability of withdrawal. The occupation of Mexico was, apparently,
+not popular in France, and in the face of American opposition the French
+government sought a means of dropping the project. Accordingly the
+invading forces were withdrawn early in 1867, leaving the hapless
+Maximilian to the Mexicans, by whom he was subsequently seized and
+executed.
+
+While the Mexican difficulty was being brought to a successful outcome,
+the government of Russia offered to sell to the United States her
+immense Alaskan possessions west and northwest of Canada. Secretary
+Seward was enthusiastically disposed to accept the offer and a treaty
+was accordingly drawn up on March 30, 1867, providing for the
+acquisition of the territory for $7,200,000. The Senate, however, was
+far less inclined to seize the opportunity. Little was known about
+Alaska, and the cost seemed almost prohibitive in view of the financial
+strains caused by the war. Nevertheless the inclination to acquire
+territory was strong and there was a widespread desire to accede to the
+wishes of Russia who was understood to have been well-disposed toward
+the United States during the war. Under the operation of these forces
+the Senate changed its attitude and ratified the treaty on April 9,
+1867. By this act the United States came into possession of an area
+measuring nearly 600,000 square miles, and stores of fish, furs, timber,
+coal and precious metals whose size is even yet little understood.
+
+It was not long before it became apparent that radical reconstruction
+had been founded too little upon the hard facts of social and political
+conditions in the South, and too much upon benevolent but mistaken
+theories, and upon prejudices, partisanship and emotion. It was
+inevitable that there should be an aftermath.
+
+At the close of reconstruction in 1871, the southern negro was a citizen
+of civil and political importance. As a voter, he was on an equality
+with the whites; he belonged to the Republican party and his party was a
+powerful factor in the politics of the South; his position was secured,
+or at least seemed to be secured, by amendments to the federal
+Constitution. Legally and constitutionally his position appeared to be
+impregnable. In the minds of the southern white, however, the amendments
+vied with military reconstruction in their injustice and unwisdom. To
+his mind they constituted an attempt to abolish the belief of the white
+man in the essential inferiority of the black, to make the pyramid of
+government stand on its apex, and to place the very issues of existence
+within the power of the congenitally unfit. To the discontent aroused by
+war were added political and racial antagonism, which blazed at times
+into fury. The southern whites began to invent methods for overcoming
+the power of the freedmen in politics and for insuring themselves
+against possible danger of violence at the hands of the blacks.
+
+The most famous device was the Ku Klux Klan or the Invisible Empire, a
+somewhat loosely organized secret society which originated in Tennessee
+during the turmoil immediately after the close of the war. In theory and
+practice its operations were simple and effective. Its chief officials
+were the Grand Wizard, the Grand Dragon, the Grand Titan. Local branches
+were Dens, each headed by a Grand Cyclops. The Den worked usually at
+night, when the members assembled clad in long white robes and white
+masks or hoods, discussed cases which needed attention, and then rode
+forth on horses whose bodies were covered and whose feet were muffled.
+The exploits of the Klan expanded, in the exaggerated stories common
+among the negroes, into the most amazing achievements. The members were
+thought to be able to take themselves to pieces, drink entire pailfuls
+of water, and devour "fried nigger meat." Usually the person about to be
+"visited" received a notice that the dreaded Klan was upon him. He was
+warned to cease his political activities or perhaps to leave the
+neighborhood. If the threat proved ineffective, whipping or some worse
+punishment was likely to follow.
+
+In 1872 Congress unintentionally aided in the process of overcoming
+negro domination by the passage of the Amnesty Act, which restored to
+all but a few hundreds of the former Confederates the political
+privileges which had been taken from them by the Fourteenth Amendment.
+Under the latter the great majority of former southern leaders had been
+deprived of the right to hold office. On the restoration of this right
+such men as Alexander H. Stephens, former Vice-President of the
+Confederate States, and Wade Hampton, one of the most influential South
+Carolinians, could again take an active part in politics. With their
+return, the cause of white supremacy received a powerful impetus.
+
+In taking this step, however, Congress did not intend to allow the legal
+and constitutional rights of the blacks to be waived without a contest.
+Reports reached the North concerning the activities of the southern
+whites--reports which in no way minimized the amount of intimidation and
+violence involved--and in response to this information Congress passed
+the enforcement laws of 1870-1871, generally known as the "Force
+Acts."[3] These laws laid heavy penalties upon individuals who should
+prevent citizens from exercising their constitutional political
+powers--primarily the right to vote. As offences under these acts were
+within the jurisdiction of the federal courts and as the federal
+officials manifested an inclination to carry out the law, the number of
+indictments was considerable. Convictions, however, were infrequent. The
+famous Ku Klux Act of 1871 amplified the law of 1870 and was aimed at
+combinations or conspiracies of persons who resorted to intimidation. It
+authorized the President to suspend the privilege of the writ of _habeas
+corpus_ and made it his duty to employ armed force to suppress
+opposition.
+
+Additional sting was given the enforcement laws by provision for the
+superintendence of federal elections, under specified conditions, by
+federal officials called "supervisors of election." The supervisors were
+given large powers over the registration of voters and the casting and
+counting of ballots, so as to ensure a fair vote and an honest count.
+Since here, again, federal troops stood behind the law, it was manifest
+that the central government would show some degree of determination in
+its handling of the southern situation. Nevertheless, the result was
+merely to delay the gradual elimination of the blacks from political
+activity, not to prevent it. In practice the Republican state
+governments in the South were continued in the seats of authority only
+through the presence of the federal soldiery. In one way or another the
+whites gained the upper hand, so that by 1877 only South Carolina and
+Louisiana had failed to achieve self-government unhampered by federal
+force.
+
+In the meantime the enforcement acts were being slowly weakened by the
+Supreme Court in several decisions bearing upon the Fourteenth
+Amendment. The significant portion of Section I of the Amendment is as
+follows:
+
+    No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge
+    the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;
+    nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
+    property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person
+    within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
+
+In several cases involving the enforcement acts, the Court found
+portions of the laws in conflict with the Constitution and finally, in
+1883, the decision in United States _v._ Harris completed their
+destruction. Here the court met a complaint that a group of white men
+had taken some negroes away from the officers of the law and ill-treated
+them. Such conduct seemed to be contrary to that part of the Ku Klux Act
+which forbade combinations designed to deprive citizens of their legal
+rights. The Court, however, called attention to the important words, "No
+_State_ shall make or enforce," and was of opinion that the
+constitutional power of Congress extends only to cases where _States_
+have acted in such a manner as to deprive citizens of their rights. If
+_individuals_, on the contrary, conspire to take away these rights,
+relief must be sought at the hands of the state government. As the great
+purpose of the Ku Klux Act had been to combat precisely such individual
+combinations, it appeared that the Court had, at a blow, demolished the
+law. Not long afterwards the Court declared unconstitutional the Civil
+Rights Act of 1875, which had been designed to insure equal rights to
+negroes in hotels, conveyances and theatres. Here again the Court was of
+opinion that the Fourteenth Amendment grants no power to the United
+States but forbids certain activities by the states.[4]
+
+Stuffing the ballot box was common in South Carolina and other states.
+In one election in this state the number of votes cast was almost double
+the number the names on the polling list. In some places the imposition
+of a poll tax peacefully eliminated the impecunious freedman. In
+Mississippi the state legislature laid out the "shoestring" election
+district, 300 miles long and about 20 miles wide, which included many of
+the sections where the negroes were most numerous, in order that their
+votes might have as little effect as possible. By hook or by crook,
+then, in simple and devious ways, the dangers of negro domination were
+averted. Nevertheless the provisions of the law for federal supervision
+of elections remained, becoming a bone of contention during a later
+administration.
+
+About 1890 there began a new era in the elimination of the negro from
+politics in the South. The people of that section disliked the methods
+which they felt the necessity of using, and searched about for a less
+crude device. Furthermore the rise of a new political movement in some
+parts of the South in the late eighties and early nineties was making
+divisions among the Democrats and was encouraging attempts by the two
+factions to control the negro vote. Suddenly, a relatively small number
+of negro voters became a powerful and purchasable make-weight. Both
+sides, perhaps, were a bit disturbed at this development. At any rate,
+additional impetus was given to the movement for the suppression of the
+negro. Eventually plans were originated, some of which were clearly
+constitutional and all of which carried a certain appearance of
+legality.
+
+The first steps were taken by Mississippi in 1890. The new state
+constitution of that year required as prerequisite to the voting
+privilege, the payment of all taxes which were legally demanded of the
+citizen during the two preceding years--a provision to which no
+constitutional exception could be taken, and which effectively debarred
+large numbers of colored voters. Further, it provided that after January
+1, 1892, every voter must be able to read any section of the state
+constitution or be able to give an interpretation of it _when read to
+him_. As the election officials who would judge the ability of the
+applicant properly to interpret the constitution would certainly be
+whites, it was clear that the ignorant black would have scant chance of
+passing the educational test. Several other states followed in the wake
+of Mississippi, until in 1898 Louisiana discovered a new barrier through
+which only whites might make their way to the voting lists. This was the
+famous "grandfather clause." In brief, it allowed citizens to vote who
+had that right before January 1, 1867, together with the descendants of
+such citizens, regardless of their educational and property
+qualifications. As no negroes had voted in the state before that date,
+they were effectively debarred. Under the influence of such pressure,
+the negro vote promptly dwindled away to negligible proportions. In
+Louisiana, to cite one case, there were 127,263 registered colored
+voters in 1896, and 5,354 in 1900. Between these two years the new state
+constitution had been passed. In 1915 the Supreme Court finally declared
+a grandfather clause unconstitutional on the ground that its only
+possible intention was to evade that provision of the Fifteenth
+Amendment which forbids the states to abridge, on account of color, the
+rights of citizens of the United States to vote.
+
+The history of the effects of the war and of reconstruction on the
+political status of the negro has been concisely summarized as falling
+into three periods. At the close of the war: (1) the negroes were
+more powerful in politics than their numbers, intelligence and
+property seemed to justify; (2) the Republican party was a power in
+the South; and (3) the negroes enjoyed political rights on a legal and
+constitutional equality with the whites. By 1877 the first of these
+generalizations was no longer a fact; by 1890 the Republican party had
+ceased to be of importance in the South; and by the opening of the
+twentieth century, the negro as a possible voter was not on a legal
+and constitutional equality with the white.
+
+In the sphere of government the war and reconstruction were of lasting
+importance. Preeminently it was definitely established that the federal
+government is supreme over the states. Although the Constitution had
+seemed to many to establish that supremacy in no uncertain terms, it can
+not be doubted that only as a result of the war and reconstruction did
+the theory receive a degree of popular assent that approached unanimity.
+Temporarily, at least, reconstruction added greatly to the prestige and
+self-confidence of Congress. During the war the powers of the President
+had necessarily expanded. The reaction, although hastened by the
+character and disposition of President Johnson, was inevitable. The
+depression of the executive elevated the legislature and not until the
+beginning of the twentieth century did the scales swing back again
+toward their former position.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+General. The best general account of the period 1865-1917 is to be found
+in the following volumes of _The American Nation: A History_: W.A.
+Dunning, _Reconstruction Political and Economic, 1865-1877_ (1907); E.E.
+Sparks, _National Development, 1877-1885_ (1907); D.R. Dewey, _National
+Problems, 1885-1897_ (1907); J.H. Latané, _America as a World Power,
+1897-1907_ (1907); F.A. Ogg, _National Progress, 1907-1917_ (1918). The
+volumes vary in excellence and interest, but set a high standard,
+especially in their recognition of the importance of economic facts, and
+contain excellent bibliographical material. The following single volumes
+are useful: E.B. Andrews, _United States in Our Own Time, 1870-1903_
+(1903); C.A. Beard, _Contemporary American History_ (1914); P.L.
+Haworth, _Reconstruction and Union, 1865-1912_ (1912); P.L. Haworth,
+_United States in Our Own Time, 1865-1920_; E.P. Oberholtzer, _History
+of the United States since the Civil War_ (to be in several volumes, of
+which one appeared in 1917, covering 1865-1868); F.L. Paxson, _The New
+Nation_ (1915); H.T. Peck, _Twenty Years of the Republic, 1885-1905_
+(1907), readable and especially valuable in its interpretation of the
+period which it covers; J.F. Rhodes, _History of the United States from
+Hayes to McKinley, 1877-1896_ (1919), lacks understanding of the period
+covered. J.S. Bassett, _Short History of the United States_ (1913),
+has excellent chapters on the years 1865-1912; F.J. Turner in the
+_Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (11th ed.), article "United States, History
+1865-1910," is brief but inclusive; the later chapters of Max Farrand,
+_Development of the United States_ (1918), present a new point of view.
+_The Chronicles of America Series_ (1919 and later), edited by Allen
+Johnson, contains valuable volumes on especial topics. For party
+platforms and election statistics consult Edward Stanwood, _A History
+of the Presidency_ (2 vols., 2nd ed., 1916).
+
+Reconstruction. The most valuable single volume on the reconstruction
+period is the volume by Dunning already referred to; W.L. Fleming,
+_Sequel of Appomattox_ (1919), is also excellent; J.F. Rhodes, _History
+of the United States since the Compromise of 1850_, vols. VI, VII
+(1906), is the best detailed account; James Schouler, _History of the
+United States_, vol. VII (1913), presents a new view of President
+Johnson. Valuable biographies are J.A. Woodburn, _The Life of Thaddeus
+Stevens_ (1913); G.H. Haynes, _Charles Sumner_ (1909); Horace White,
+_The Life of Lyman Trumbull_ (1913). On impeachment, D.W. Dewitt, _The
+Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson_ (1903), is best. W.A. Dunning,
+_Essays on Civil War and Reconstruction_ (ed. 1910), is strong on the
+constitutional changes. Studies on reconstruction in the several states
+have been published by W.W. Davis (Florida), (1913); W.L. Fleming
+(Alabama), (1905); J.W. Garner (Mississippi), (1901); J.G. deR.
+Hamilton (North Carolina), (1914); C.W. Ramsdell (Texas), (1910); and
+others. For documentary material, W.L. Fleming, _Documentary History of
+Reconstruction_ (2 vols., 1906-7), is essential. Edward Channing, A.B.
+Hart and F.J. Turner, _Guide to the Study and Reading of American
+History_ (1912), provides full references to a wide variety of works
+covering 1865-1911. Consult also Appleton's _Annual Cyclopaedia_,
+_1861-1902_. On foreign relations J.B. Moore, _Digest of International
+Law_, 8 vols., (1906).
+
+Periodical literature. The most useful periodicals are:
+
+_American Economic Review_ (1911-); _American Historical Review_
+(1895-); _American Political Science Review_ (1907-); _Atlantic
+Monthly_ (1857-); _Century Magazine_ (1870-); _Harper's Weekly_
+(1857-1916); _Harvard Law Review_; _History Teachers' Magazine_,
+continued as _Historical Outlook_ (1909-); _Journal of Political
+Economy_ (1892-); _Nation_ (1865-); _North American Review_ (1815-);
+_Political Science Quarterly_ (1886-); _Quarterly Journal of Economics_
+(1886-); _Scribner's Magazine_ (1887-); _Yale Review_ (1892-1911, _new
+series_, 1912-).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States, was held
+in prison until 1867 and then released. He died in 1889. Suggestions
+that General Lee, the most prominent military leader, be arrested and
+tried met with such opposition from General Grant, the Union leader,
+that the project was dropped. Lee died in 1870.
+
+[2] A number of these states later repudiated their debts.
+
+[3] The threats used to keep the negroes away from the polls are
+typified in the following, which was published in Mississippi:
+
+    "The Terry Terribles will be here Monday to see there is a fair
+    election."
+
+    "The Byram Bulldozers will be here Monday to see there is a fair
+    election.
+
+    "The Edwards Dragoons will be here Monday to see there is a fair
+    election.
+
+    "Who cares if the McGill men don't like it?
+
+    "The whole State of Mississippi is interested in the election.
+
+    "It _shall_ be a Democratic victory."
+
+[4] In regard to segregation of the races in railroad coaches, the
+Court decided, 1910, that constitutional rights are not interfered with
+when separate accommodations are provided, if the accommodations be
+equally good. Chiles _v._ Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Co., 218 U.S.,
+71.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+IN PRESIDENT GRANT'S TIME
+
+Aside from President Lincoln, the most prominent personality on the
+northern side during the latter part of the Civil War was General
+Ulysses S. Grant. His successes in the Mississippi Valley in the
+early days of the war, when success was none too common, his capture
+of Vicksburg at the turning point of the conflict, and his dogged
+drive toward Richmond had established his military reputation. When
+the drive toward Richmond resulted at last in the capture of Lee's
+army and its surrender at Appomattox, the victorious North turned
+with gratitude to Grant and made him a popular idol, while the
+politicians began to question whether his popularity might not be put
+to account in the field of politics.
+
+Grant himself had never paid any attention to matters of government.
+In only one presidential election had he so much as voted for a
+candidate, and then it was for a Democrat, James Buchanan. In 1860 he
+was prevented from voting for Senator Stephen A. Douglas and against
+Abraham Lincoln only by the fact that he had not fulfilled the
+residence requirement for suffrage in the town where he was living.
+Nevertheless in his capacity as general of the army his headquarters
+after the war were in Washington and his duties brought him into
+contact with the politicians and eventually entangled him in the
+controversy between the President and Congress. Circumstances at
+first threw him into close association with Johnson, but at the time
+of the Stanton episode late in 1867 a misunderstanding arose between
+them which developed into a question of veracity, and then into open
+hostility. The opponents of the President took up the General's case
+with alacrity and from then on the popular hero was looked upon as
+the inevitable choice for the next Republican nomination.
+
+The convention of the National Union Republican Party, as it was
+called at that time, was held in Chicago, May 20, 1868, during the
+interval between the votes on the eleventh and second charges of the
+impeachment of President Johnson. General Grant was unanimously
+nominated for the presidency and Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the
+House of Representatives, for the second place on the ticket. The
+platform portrayed the benefits of radical reconstruction and
+defended negro suffrage in the South. In the North at that time the
+black was commonly denied the vote--the Fifteenth Amendment having
+not yet been ratified--and the convention accordingly declared that
+the question of suffrage in all the "loyal" states properly belonged
+in the states themselves. Other planks asserted that the public debt
+ought to be paid in full, that pensions for the veterans were an
+obligation and that immigration ought to be encouraged. The
+administration of President Johnson was denounced and the thirty-five
+senators who voted for his conviction in the impeachment trial were
+commended.
+
+The Democrats met at Tammany Hall in New York on July 4. Their
+platform approved the pension laws, advocated the sale of public land
+to actual occupants, praised the administration of President Johnson,
+arraigned the radicals and declared the reconstruction acts
+"unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void." If the radical party
+should win in the election, the Democrats asserted, the result would
+be "a subjected and conquered people, amid the ruins of liberty and
+the scattered fragments of the Constitution." The regulation of the
+suffrage, one plank declared, had always been in the hands of the
+individual states. The most prominent place in the platform, however,
+was given to the question of the public debt. Part of the bonds
+issued during the war had, by acts of Congress, been made payable
+in "dollars," a word which might mean either paper dollars or gold
+dollars. Paper, however, was much less valuable than gold, times were
+hard, and many people held the opinion that the debt could properly
+be paid in paper. Such was the "Ohio idea," which was made part of
+the Democratic platform.
+
+The choice of a candidate required twenty-two ballots. Early trials
+indicated the strength of George H. Pendleton, popularly known as
+"Gentleman George" and the chief exponent of the "Ohio idea." Johnson
+also had support. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, having failed to
+obtain the Republican nomination, allowed it to be known that he was
+willing to become the Democratic candidate. At length, on the
+twenty-second ballot, a few votes were cast for Governor Horatio
+Seymour of New York, the chairman of the convention. The move met
+with enthusiastic approval, despite Seymour's insistence that he
+would not be a candidate, and he was unanimously chosen.
+
+[Illustration:
+Popular vote in presidential elections, 1868-1896]
+
+The developments of the campaign depended largely upon occurrences in
+the South. Military reconstruction had not been wholly completed in
+Virginia, Mississippi, Texas and Georgia. The last of these states
+had once been readmitted to the Union, but had immediately expelled
+the negro members of its legislature, and was thereupon placed again
+under military rule. The Ku Klux Klan was meanwhile in general
+operation throughout the South and its activities, both real and
+imaginary, received wide advertisement in the North. Public interest,
+therefore, in the underlying issues of the campaign centered upon the
+attitude of the candidates toward the southern question. General
+Grant was understood to be with the radicals and Seymour with the
+conservatives. The result of the election was the choice of the
+Republican leader by an apparently large majority. He carried
+twenty-six out of thirty-four states, with 214 out of 294 electoral
+votes, but he received a popular majority of only 300,000. Examination
+of the returns indicated a strong conservative minority in many of the
+solid Republican states. The strength of the radicals in the South,
+moreover, was due, in the main, to negro-carpetbag domination, and when
+these states should become conservative, as they were sure to do, the
+political parties would be almost evenly divided.[1]
+
+The man who was now entering upon his first experience as the holder
+of an elective office had risen from obscurity to public favor in the
+space of a few years. Although a graduate of West Point, with eleven
+years of military experience afterward, his career before 1861 had
+been hardly more than a failure. He had left the army in 1854 rather
+than stand trial on a charge of drunkenness; had grubbed a scanty
+living out of "Hard Scrabble," a farm in Missouri; had tried his hand
+at real estate, acted as clerk in a custom-house and worked in a
+leather store at $800 a year. Then came the war, and in less than
+three years Grant had received the title of Lieutenant-General, which
+only Washington had borne before him, and had become General-in-Chief
+of all the armies of the United States. Always an uncommunicative
+man, he kept his own counsel during the interval between his election
+and his inauguration. He saw few politicians, asked no advice about
+his cabinet, sought no assistance in preparing his inaugural address
+and made no suggestions to the leaders of his party concerning
+legislation that he would like to see passed. His first act, the
+appointment of his cabinet, caused a gasp of surprise and dismay.
+Most of the men named were but little known and some of them were not
+aware that they were being chosen until the list was made public. The
+Secretary of State, Elihu Washburne, was a close personal friend, and
+was appointed merely that he might hold the position long enough to
+enjoy the title and then retire. He was succeeded by Hamilton Fish,
+of New York, who proved to be a wise choice. The Secretary of the
+Treasury was A.T. Stewart, a rich merchant of New York, but he had to
+withdraw on account of a law forbidding any person "interested in
+carrying on the business of trade or commerce" to hold the office.
+The Secretary of the Navy, A.E. Borie, was a rich invalid of
+Philadelphia, who had almost no qualifications for his office and
+resigned at once. Better appointments were former Governor J.D. Cox,
+of Ohio, as Secretary of the Interior, and Judge E.R. Hoar, of
+Massachusetts, as Attorney-General.
+
+When the Congress elected with Grant assembled in 1869 its first act
+was a measure providing for the payment of the public debt in coin.
+Part of the Tenure of Office Act was repealed, the President having
+indicated his opposition to it. On the southern question General
+Grant had earlier inclined toward moderation, but radical counsels
+and the logic of events led him to join Congress in the passage of
+the enforcement act and the Ku Klux Act, both of which have already
+been mentioned.
+
+It was during this, the first year of Grant's administration, that
+there occurred the famous gold conspiracy of 1869. Jay Gould and
+James Fisk, Jr., two of the most unscrupulous stock gamblers of the
+time, determined to corner the supply of gold and then run its market
+price up to a high level, in order to further certain interests which
+they had recently purchased. The likelihood that the conspirators
+could carry out the plan depended largely on the Secretary of the
+Treasury, George S. Boutwell, who was accustomed to sell several
+millions of dollars' worth of gold each month. If the sales could be
+stopped Gould and Fisk might be successful. Accordingly, they got on
+friendly terms with the President through cultivating the acquaintance
+of his brother-in-law, were seen publicly with him at the theatre and
+other places, and subsequently he wrote to the Secretary expressing
+his opinion that the sales had better stop. Gould apparently was
+informed of this decision by the brother-in-law, even before the
+message reached the Secretary, and immediately bought up so much gold
+as to run the price to an unparalleled figure. This was on "Black
+Friday," September 24. The Secretary became alarmed, rumors were abroad
+that the administration was implicated in the conspiracy, and at noon,
+after consultation with the President, he decided to place four
+millions in gold on the market. At once the price dropped, brokers went
+bankrupt, and Gould and Fisk had to take refuge behind armed guards to
+save their lives. The President had not been a party to the plans of
+the speculators, but his blindness to their real purposes and his
+association with them during the period when their scheme was being
+perfected made him a target for all manner of accusations.
+
+Further astonishment was caused by the attitude of the President toward
+two of the three really able men in his cabinet. In June, 1870, he
+suddenly called for the resignation of Judge Hoar. It appeared that he
+was seeking votes in the Senate for a treaty in which he was interested
+and that certain southern members demanded the post of attorney-general
+for a southern man in return for their support. Secretary Cox's
+resignation came soon afterward. He had taken his department out of
+politics, had furthered the cause of civil service reform and had
+protected his employees from political party assessments. These acts
+brought him into collision with the politicians, who had the ear of the
+President, and Cox had to retire. Both Hoar and Cox were succeeded by
+mediocre men.
+
+The treaty which caused the removal of Secretary Hoar was one that the
+President had arranged providing for the annexation of San Domingo. The
+Senate was opposed to ratification, but General Grant was accustomed
+to overcoming difficulties and he urged his case with all the power at
+his command. One result was an unseemly wrangle between the President
+and Senator Charles Sumner over the latter's refusal to support
+ratification. General Grant, in resentment, procured the withdrawal
+of the Senator's friend, John Lothrop Motley from England, whither he
+had been sent as minister, and later the exclusion of Sumner from the
+chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations, a post in which he
+had displayed great ability for ten years. Eventually the President had
+to give way on San Domingo, as the Senate did not agree with him in his
+estimate of its probable value.
+
+In its conduct of our relations with England, on the other hand, the
+administration met with success and received popular approval. Ever
+since the war the people of the North had desired an opportunity to
+make Great Britain suffer for her attitude during that struggle.
+Senator Sumner struck a popular chord when he suggested that England
+should pay heavy damages on the ground that her encouragement of the
+South had prolonged the war. Specifically, however, the United States
+demanded reparation for destruction committed by the _Alabama_ and
+other vessels that had been built in English ports. In 1870 Europe
+was in a state of apprehension on account of the Franco-Prussian War,
+and Secretary Fish seized the opportunity to press our claims upon
+England. The latter, meanwhile, had abated somewhat her earlier
+attitude of unwillingness to arbitrate, and Fish placed little
+emphasis on Senator Sumner's suggestions of a claim for indirect
+damages. The Treaty of Washington, signed and ratified in May, 1871,
+provided for the arbitration of the _Alabama_ claims under such rules
+that a decision favorable to the American side of the case was made
+exceedingly probable. Each of five governments appointed a
+representative--the United States, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland
+and Brazil. The meeting took place in Geneva and resulted favorably
+to the American demands. England was declared to have failed to
+preserve the proper attitude for a neutral during the war and was
+ordered in 1872 to make compensation in the amount of $15,500,000.
+
+The United States had need of any feeling of national pride that
+might come as the result of the Geneva award, to offset the shame of
+domestic revelations, for one of the characteristics of the decade
+after the war was the wide-spread corruption in political and
+commercial life. One of the most flagrant examples was the Tweed Ring
+in New York. The government of that city was in the hands of a band
+of highwaymen, of whom William M. Tweed, the leader of Tammany Hall,
+was chief. Through the purchase of votes and the skilful distribution
+of the proceeds of their control, they managed to keep in power
+despite a growing suspicion that something was wrong. A favorite
+method of defrauding the city was to raise an account. One who had a
+bill against the city for $5,000 would be asked to present one for
+$55,000. When he did so, he would receive his $5,000 and the
+remainder would be divided among the members of the Ring. The
+plasterer, for example, who worked on the County Court House
+presented bills for nearly $3,000,000 in nine months. The New York
+_Times_ and the cartoons of Thomas Nast in _Harper's Weekly_ were the
+chief agents in arousing the people of the city to their situation.
+The former obtained and published proofs of the rascality of the
+Ring, mass meetings were held and an election in November, 1871,
+overturned Tweed and his associates. Some of them fled from the
+country, while Tweed himself died in jail.
+
+More important both because of its effect on national politics and
+because of its influence on railway legislation for many years
+afterward was the Credit Mobilier scandal. The Credit Mobilier was a
+construction company composed of a selected group of stockholders of
+the Union Pacific Railroad, the transcontinental line which was being
+built between 1865 and 1869. In their capacity of railroad
+stockholders they awarded themselves as stockholders of the
+construction company the contract to build and equip a large part of
+the railway. The terms which they gave themselves were so generous as
+to insure a handsome profit. Chief among the members of the Credit
+Mobilier was Oakes Ames, a member of Congress from Massachusetts.
+Late in 1867 Ames became fearful of railroad legislation that was
+being introduced in Washington and he therefore decided to take steps
+to protect the enterprise. He was given 343 shares of Credit Mobilier
+stock, which he placed among members of Congress where, as he said,
+they would "do most good." Rumors concerning the nature of the
+transaction resulted finally in accusations in the New York _Sun_
+during 1872, which involved the names of many prominent politicians.
+Congressional committees were at once appointed to investigate the
+charges, and their reports caused genuine sensations. Ames was found
+guilty of selling stock at lower than face value in order to
+influence votes in Congress and was censured by the House of
+Representatives. The Vice-President, Schuyler Colfax, and several
+others were so entangled in the affair as to lose their reputations
+and retire from public life for good. Still others such as James A.
+Garfield were suspected of complicity and were placed for many years
+on the defensive.
+
+Fear was wide-spread that political life in Washington was riddled
+with corruption. Corporations which were large and wealthy for that
+day were already getting a controlling grip on the legislatures of
+the states, and if the Credit Mobilier scandal were typical, had
+begun to reach out to Congress. Had the charges been made a little
+earlier they might have influenced the election of 1872, which turned
+largely on certain omissions and failings of the administration, and
+especially of General Grant himself.
+
+There is something intensely pathetic in General Grant as President
+of the United States--this short, slouchy, taciturn, unostentatious
+man who was more at ease with men who talked horses than with men who
+talked government or literature; this President who was unacquainted
+with either the theory or the practice of politics, who consulted
+nobody in choosing his cabinet or writing his inaugural address, who
+had scarcely visited a state capital except to capture it and had
+been elected to the executive chair in times that were to try men's
+souls. An indolent man, he called himself, but the world knew that he
+was tireless and irresistible on the field when necessity demanded,
+persistent, imperturbable, simple and direct in his language, and
+upright in his character. The tragedy of President Grant's career was
+his choice of friends and advisors. In Congress he followed the
+counsels of second-rate men who gave him second-rate advice; outside
+he associated too frequently with questionable characters who
+cleverly used him as a mask for schemes that were an insult to his
+integrity, but which his lack of experience and his utter inability
+to judge character kept hidden from his view. Honorable himself and
+loyal to a fault to his friends, he believed in the honesty of men
+who betrayed him, long after the rest of the world had discovered
+what they were. He could accept costly gifts from admirers and
+appoint these same men to offices, without dreaming that their
+generosity had sprung from any motive except gratitude for his
+services during the war.[2]
+
+It was inevitable, in view of these facts, that the presidential
+campaign of 1872 should be essentially an anti-Grant movement, but
+its particular characteristics had their origin before the General's
+first election. In 1865 a constitutional convention in Missouri had
+deprived southern sympathizers of the right to vote and hold office.
+A wing of the Republican party, led by Colonel B. Gratz Brown, had
+begun a counter-movement, intended to remove the restrictions on the
+southerners, and also to reform other abuses in the state. Colonel
+Brown had early received the assistance of General Carl Schurz, a man
+of ability with the temperament of a reformer. The Brown-Schurz
+faction had quickly increased in numbers, had become known as the
+Liberal Republican party and had attracted such interest throughout
+the country that a national conference was called for May, 1872, at
+Cincinnati. In adopting a conciliatory southern policy, the Liberal
+Republicans became opposed to the President, who had by this time
+become thoroughly committed to the radical program. Other critics of
+the administration, mainly Republicans, became interested in the
+Liberal revolt--those who deprecated the President's choice of
+associates and advisors, the civil service reformers who were aroused
+by the dismissal of Secretaries Hoar and Cox, and the tariff
+reformers who had vainly attempted to arouse enthusiasm for their
+plans.
+
+On account of the varied character of the elements which composed it
+and the independent spirit of its members, the Cincinnati assembly
+resembled a mass meeting rather than a well-organized political
+conference. It numbered among its members, nevertheless, many men of
+influence and repute. Some of the most powerful newspaper editors of
+the country, also, were friendly to its purpose, so that it seemed
+likely to be a decisive factor in the coming campaign. In most
+respects the platform reflected the anti-Grant character of the
+convention. It condemned the administration for keeping unworthy men
+in power, favored the removal of all disabilities imposed on
+southerners because of the rebellion, objected to interference by the
+federal government in local affairs--a reference to the use of troops
+to enforce the radical reconstruction policy--and advocated civil
+service reform. The convention found difficulty in stating its
+attitude toward the tariff question. It was deemed necessary to get
+the support of Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York _Tribune_,
+the most powerful northern newspaper of Civil War times, but Greeley
+was an avowed protectionist. The platform, therefore, evaded the
+issue by referring it to the people in their congressional districts,
+and to Congress. But the rock on which the movement met shipwreck was
+the nomination of a candidate. Many able men were available--Charles
+Francis Adams, who had been minister to England, Senator Lyman
+Trumbull, B. Gratz Brown and Judge David Davis of the Supreme Court.
+Any one of them would have made a strong candidate. The convention,
+however, passed over all of them and nominated Greeley, long known as
+being against tariff reform, against civil service reform and hostile
+to the Democrats, whose support must be obtained in order to achieve
+success. Although a journalist of great influence and capacity,
+Greeley was an erratic individual, whose appearance and manner were
+the joy of the cartoonist.
+
+The Republican convention met on June 5, and unanimously re-nominated
+Grant. The platform recited the achievements of the party since 1861,
+urged the reform of the civil service, advocated import duties and
+approved of the enforcement acts and amnesty.
+
+To the Democrats the greatest likelihood of success seemed to lie in
+the adoption of the Liberal Republican nominee and platform. Such a
+course, to be sure, would commit them to a candidate who had
+excoriated their party for years in his newspaper, and to the three
+war amendments to the Constitution, which the Liberal Republicans had
+accepted. Yet it promised the South relief from military enforcement
+of obnoxious laws, and that was worth much. Both Greeley and his
+platform were accordingly accepted.
+
+The enthusiasm for the Liberal movement which was observable at the
+opening of the campaign rapidly dwindled as the significance of the
+nomination became more clear. Greeley was open to attack from too
+many quarters. The cartoons of Nast in _Harper's Weekly_, especially,
+held him up to merciless ridicule. In the end he was defeated by
+750,000 votes in a total of six and a half million, a disaster which,
+together with the death of his wife and the overwork of the campaign
+resulted in his death shortly after the election. As for the
+Republicans they elected not only their candidate but also a
+sufficient majority in Congress to carry out any program that the
+party might desire.
+
+On March 3, 1873, as Grant's first term was drawing to a close,
+Congress passed a measure increasing the salary of public officials
+from the President to the members of the House of Representatives.
+The increase for Congressmen was made retroactive, so that each of
+them would receive $5,000 for the two years just past. To a country
+whose fears and suspicions had been aroused by the Credit Mobilier
+scandal, the "salary grab" and the "back pay steal" were fresh
+indications that corruption was entrenched in Washington. Senators
+and Representatives began at once to hear from their constituencies.
+Many of them returned the increase to the treasury and when the next
+session opened, the law was repealed except so far as it applied to
+the president and the justices of the Supreme Court.
+
+The congressional elections of 1874 indicated the extent of the
+popular distrust of the administration. In New York, where Samuel J.
+Tilden was chosen governor, and in such Republican strongholds as
+Massachusetts and Pennsylvania the Democrats were successful. In the
+House of Representatives the Republican two-thirds majority was wiped
+out and the Democrats given complete control. Even the redoubtable
+Benjamin F. Butler lost his seat.
+
+Further apprehensions were aroused by rumors concerning the
+operations of a "Whiskey Ring." For some years it had been suspected
+that a ring of revenue officials with accomplices in Washington were
+in collusion with the distillers to defraud the government of the
+lawful tax on whiskey. Part of the illegal gains were said to have
+gone into the campaign fund for Grant's re-election, although he was
+ignorant of the source of the revenue. Benjamin H. Bristow, who
+became Secretary of the Treasury in 1874, began the attempt to stop
+the frauds and capture the guilty parties. This was no simple task,
+because information of impending action was surreptitiously sent out
+by officials in Washington. Finally Secretary Bristow got the
+information which he sought, and then moved to capture the criminals.
+One of the most prominent members of the Ring was an internal revenue
+official in St. Louis who, it was recollected, had entertained
+President Grant, had presented him with a pair of horses and a wagon,
+and had given the General's private secretary a diamond shirt-stud
+valued at $2,400. Public opinion was yet further shocked, however,
+when the trail of indictments led to the President's private
+secretary, General Babcock. On first receiving the news of Bristow's
+discoveries, Grant had written "Let no guilty man escape"; but later
+he became secretly and then openly hostile to the investigation.
+During the trial of Babcock, the President asked to be a witness in
+his behalf. A verdict of acquittal was given, but afterwards the two
+men had a private conference, and when "Grant came out, his face was
+set in silence." Babcock never returned to the White House as
+Secretary, but was given the post of Superintendent of Public
+Buildings and Grounds. Several of the members of the Ring were
+imprisoned but were later pardoned by the President. In the meanwhile
+Grant seems to have been brought to believe that Bristow was
+persecuting Babcock with a view to getting the favor of the reform
+element in the party and eventually the presidential nomination.
+Relations between the two became strained and Bristow resigned.
+
+The last year of Grant's second administration was blackened by the
+case of W.W. Belknap, who was then Secretary of War. Investigation by
+a House committee uncovered the fact that since 1870 an employee in
+the Indian service had paid $12,000 and later $6,000 a year for the
+privilege of retaining his office. The money had been paid at first
+to Mrs. Belknap, who had made the arrangement, and after her death to
+the Secretary himself. The House unanimously voted to impeach him,
+but on the day when the vote was taken he resigned and the President
+accepted the resignation. Only the fact that he was out of office
+prevented the Senate from declaring him guilty, and critics of the
+administration noted that the President had saved another friend from
+deserved punishment.
+
+It would be easy to over-estimate the responsibility of General Grant
+for the political corruption of his administrations. For the most
+part the wrong-doing of the time began before his first election.
+Democrats as well as Republicans participated in many of the
+scandals. Politicians in the cities, the states and the nation seemed
+to be determined to have a share in the enormous wealth that was
+being created in America, and they got it by means that varied from
+the merely unethical and indiscreet, to the openly corrupt. As for
+the President, his own defence, given in his last message to
+Congress, may be taken as the best one: "Failures have been errors of
+judgment, not of intent."
+
+Under the circumstances, however, it was natural that the
+presidential campaign of 1876 should turn upon the failings of the
+administration. Popular interest in the southern issue was on the
+wane. Early in the election year, nevertheless, James G. Blaine,
+Republican leader in the House, made a forceful attack on Jefferson
+Davis, as the wilful author of the "gigantic murders and crimes at
+Andersonville," the southern prison in which federal captives had
+been held. Instantly the sectional hatred flared up and Blaine,
+already a well-known leader, became a prominent candidate for the
+nomination. Republican reformers generally favored Bristow. A
+third-term boom for Grant was effectively crushed by an adverse
+resolution in the House.
+
+The Republican nominating convention met on June 14. The virtues of
+Blaine were set forth in a famous speech by Robert G. Ingersoll in
+which he referred to the attack on Davis: "Like an armed warrior,
+like a plumed knight James G. Blaine marched down the halls of the
+American Congress and threw his shining lance full and fair against
+the brazen forehead of every traitor to his country." The "plumed
+knight," however, was open to attack concerning a scandal during the
+Grant regime, and the convention turned to Governor Rutherford B.
+Hayes, of Ohio, a man of quiet ability who had been unconnected with
+Washington politics, was relatively unknown and, therefore, not
+handicapped by the antagonisms of previous opponents. The platform
+emphasized the services of the party during the war, touched lightly
+on the events of the preceding eight years, advocated payment of the
+public debt, and favored import duties and the reform of the civil
+service.
+
+The Democrats met on June 27. There was little opposition to the
+nomination of Governor Samuel J. Tilden, of New York, a wealthy
+lawyer who had made a record as a reformer in opposition to "Boss"
+Tweed and a corrupt canal ring. The platform was distinctly a reform
+document. It demanded reform in the governments of states and nation,
+in the currency system, the tariff, the scale of public expense, and
+the civil service. An eloquent paragraph exhibited those corruptions
+of the administration which had caused such general dismay.
+
+There was little in the campaign that was distinctive, and on
+November 8, the morning after the election, it seemed clear that
+Tilden had been successful. He had carried the doubtful states of
+Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Indiana. When the figures were
+all gathered, it was found that his popular vote exceeded that of his
+rival by more than 250,000. But there were disputes in three states,
+Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina. Hayes would be elected only if
+the electoral votes of all these states could be obtained for him.
+If, however, Tilden received even one electoral vote from any of the
+states, the victory would be his. Hayes was conceded 166 electoral
+votes; Tilden 184. Nineteen were in dispute. The Republican leaders
+at once claimed the nineteen disputed votes, and asserted that their
+candidate was elected. The Democrats had no doubt of the victory of
+Tilden.[3] The capitals of the three doubtful states now became the
+centers of observation. Troops had long been stationed in South
+Carolina and Louisiana, and others were promptly sent to Florida.
+Prominent politicians from both parties also flocked thither, in
+order to uphold the party interests.
+
+In South Carolina it became evident that a majority of the popular
+vote was for Hayes, although both the Democratic and the Republican
+electors sent in returns to Washington. In Florida there was a board
+of canvassers which had power to exclude false or fraudulent votes.
+It was composed of two Republicans and one Democrat. When all ballots
+had been sent in, the Democrats claimed a majority of ninety; the
+Republicans a majority of forty-five. The board went over the returns
+and by a partisan vote threw out enough to make the Republican
+majority 924. Republican electoral votes were thereupon sent to
+Washington, but so also were Democratic votes. The situation in
+Louisiana was still more complicated. Political corruption and
+intimidation had been commonplaces in that state. On the face of the
+returns, Tilden's electors had received majorities varying from 6,000
+to 9,000. As in Florida there was a board of canvassers which was
+here composed of four Republicans, three of whom were men of low
+character. The vote of the state was offered to the Democrats, once
+for $1,000,000 and once for $200,000, but the offer was not taken.
+The board then threw out enough ballots to choose all the Hayes
+electors. As in the other cases, Democratic electors also sent
+ballots to Washington.
+
+There was no federal agency with power to determine which sets of
+electors were to be counted, and the fact that the federal Senate was
+Republican and the House Democratic seemed to preclude the
+possibility of legislation on the subject. No such critical situation
+had ever resulted from an election, and a means of settlement must
+quickly be discovered, for only three months would elapse after the
+electoral votes were sent to Washington, before the term of General
+Grant would expire. The means devised was the Electoral Commission.
+This body was to be composed of five senators, five representatives,
+and five justices of the Supreme Court. The Senate and the House were
+each to choose their five members, and four members of the Court were
+designated by the Act which established the Commission, with power to
+choose a fifth. It was understood that seven would be Republicans,
+seven Democrats and that the fifteenth member would be Justice David
+Davis, an Independent, who would be selected by his four colleagues.
+On him in all probability, the burden of the decision would fall. On
+the day when the Senate agreed to the plan, however, the Democrats
+and Independents in the Illinois legislature chose Justice Davis as
+United States Senator and under these circumstances he refused to
+serve on the Commission. It was too late to withdraw, and since all
+the remaining justices from whom a commissioner must be chosen were
+Republicans, the Democrats were compelled to accept a body on which
+they were outnumbered eight to seven.
+
+The Electoral Commission sat all through the month of February, 1877.
+Its decisions were uniformly in favor of Hayes electors by a vote of
+eight to seven, always along party lines, and on March 2, it was
+formally announced that Hayes had been elected. The disappointment of
+the Democrats was bitter and lasting, for their candidate had
+received over a quarter of a million popular votes more than his
+opponent, and yet had been declared defeated. For a time there was
+some fear of civil war. Tilden, however, accepted the decision of the
+Commission in good faith, and forbade his friends and his party to
+resist. Moreover, close friends of the Republican candidate assured
+southern Democratic politicians that Hayes if elected would adopt a
+conciliatory policy toward the South, and would allow the southern
+states to govern themselves unhampered by federal interference.
+Peaceful counsels prevailed, therefore, and the closing days of
+President Grant's administration were undisturbed by threats of
+strife.
+
+The question whether Hayes was fairly elected is a fascinating one.
+There is no doubt that there was fraud and intimidation on both
+sides, in the disputed states. In Louisiana, for example, the
+Democrats prevented many negroes from voting by outrageous
+intimidation, while the Republicans had many negroes fraudulently
+registered. Little is known, also, of the activities of the "visiting
+statesmen," as those politicians were called who went to the South to
+care for their party interests. It is known that they were well
+provided with money and that the boards of canvassers contained many
+unscrupulous men. Nor is it likely that politicians who lived in the
+days of the Credit Mobilier and the Whiskey King would falter at a
+bargain which would affect the election of a president. Republicans
+looked upon the Democrats as being so wicked that they were justified
+in "fighting the devil with fire." Democrats looked upon the election
+as so clearly theirs that no objection ought to be made to their
+taking what belonged to them. It seems certain, however, that Hayes
+had no hand in any bargains made by his supporters. As for Tilden,
+his wealth was such that he could have purchased votes if he had
+desired to do so, and the fact that all the votes went to his rival
+indicates that he did not yield to the temptation. Moreover, one of
+his closest associates, Henry Watterson, the journalist, tells of one
+occasion when the presidency was offered to Tilden and refused by
+him. Perhaps a definitive statement of the rights and wrongs of this
+famous election will never be made; for one after another the men
+most intimately associated with it have died leaving some account of
+their activities, but none of them has told much more than was
+already known.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+Dunning, Rhodes and Schouler, together with most of the works
+referred to at the close of Chapter 1, continue to be useful. L.A.
+Coolidge, _Ulysses S. Grant_ (1917), is not as partisan as most of
+the biographies of the time and is valuable despite a lack of a
+thorough understanding of the period. The following are valuable for
+especial topics: H. Adams, _Historical Essays_ (1891); C.F. Adams,
+Jr., and H. Adams, _Chapters of Erie_ (1886), (gold conspiracy); C.F.
+Adams, Jr., _Charles Francis Adams_ (Treaty of Washington); C.F.
+Adams, Jr., "The Treaty of Washington" in _Lee at Appomattox, and
+Other Papers_ (1902); James Bryce, _American Commonwealth_ (vol. II,
+various editions since 1888, contains famous chapter on the Tammany
+Tweed ring); A.B. Paine, _Thomas Nast, His Period and His Pictures_
+(1904), (Tweed ring). P.L. Haworth, _Hayes-Tilden Disputed
+Presidential Election of 1876_ (1906), is a thorough study; on this
+election, see also John Bigelow, _The Life of S.J. Tilden_ (2 vols.,
+1895), and C.R. Williams, _Life of Rutherford B. Hayes_ (2 vols.,
+1914).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The closing months of Johnson's administration found him almost in
+a state of isolation. The incoming President refused to have any
+social relations with him, or even to ride with him from the White
+House to the Capitol on inauguration day. After the installation of
+his successor, Johnson returned to Tennessee but was later chosen to
+the Senate, where he served but a short time before his death.
+
+[2] In 1884, a year before his death, the dishonesty of a trusted
+friend left him bankrupt, while a painful and malignant disease began
+slowly to eat away his life. Nevertheless, with characteristic courage
+he set himself to the task of dictating his _Memoirs_, or more often
+penciling sentences when he was unable to speak, in order that he
+might repay his debts with the proceeds.
+
+[3] There was also a technical question concerning one elector in
+Oregon, which was easily settled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS OF THE NEW ERA
+
+With the close of Grant's administration, the main immediate problems
+connected with political reconstruction came to an end. During the war,
+however, important economic and social developments had been taking
+place throughout the United States which were destined to take on
+greater and greater significance. The reconstruction problem looked
+backward to the war; the new developments looked forward to a new
+America. Reconstruction affected fewer and fewer people as time went
+on; the later changes ultimately transformed the daily life of every
+individual in the nation. Not only did they determine the means by
+which he earned his livelihood, but the comforts which he enjoyed, the
+conditions of rural or urban life which surrounded him, the ease with
+which he visited other portions of the country or obtained information
+concerning them, the number and variety of the foreign products that
+could be brought to him, the political problems upon which he thought
+and voted, and the attitude of the government toward his class in
+society. Most of these changes were distinguishable during the
+twenty-five years following the war and could be stated in brief and
+definite terms.
+
+From the standpoint of population, the growth of the country before
+1890, although not so rapid as it had been before the war, was both
+constant and important. Between 1870 and 1890 the numbers of people
+increased from nearly thirty-nine millions to nearly sixty-three
+millions, the rate each decade being not far from twenty-five per cent.
+Six states added more than a million each to their population--New York
+and Pennsylvania in the Northeast; Ohio, Illinois and Kansas in the
+Middle West; and Texas in the South. No fewer than seventeen others
+expanded by half a million or more--ten of the seventeen being in the
+valley drained by the Mississippi River system.
+
+Detailed study of particular sections of the country discloses a
+continuous shifting of population which indicates changes in the
+economic life of the people. In northern New England, the numbers
+increased slowly. Both Maine and New Hampshire lost from 1860 to 1870;
+nearly half of Maine's counties and nearly two-thirds of Vermont's lost
+population between 1880 and 1890; the people were abandoning the rural
+districts to flock to the cities or migrate to the West. Shipbuilding
+fell off in Maine; the dairy interests languished in Vermont, less
+wheat was being planted and the farmers, no longer growing wool, were
+selling their flocks. Most of the growth was to be found in the
+industrial counties. The traditional New England thrift, however, was
+not lost with the migration of the people, for savings bank deposits
+were increasing, and the state of Vermont was free from debt in 1880,
+and all its counties in 1890. The South, between 1870 and 1890,
+increased in numbers a little less rapidly than the country as a whole.
+On the Atlantic Coast the greatest relative expansion was in Florida;
+in the western South, in Texas. The increase was almost wholly native,
+as immigration did not flow into that section.
+
+The great expansion of the Middle West, from Ohio to Kansas, was based
+upon the public land policy of the federal government. Substantially
+all this region had once been in the possession of the United States,
+which had early adopted the system of laying out townships six miles
+on a side, with subdivisions one mile square, (containing 640 acres),
+called sections. An important feature of the policy had been the
+encouragement of education and of transportation through the gift
+of large grants of the public land. Moreover, settlement had been
+stimulated by the disposal of land to purchasers at extremely liberal
+figures. In 1862 the famous Homestead Act had inaugurated a still
+more generous policy. Under this law the citizen might settle upon a
+quarter-section and receive a title after five years of actual
+occupation, with no charge other than a slight fee. Millions of acres
+were taken up in this way both by natives and by immigrants. 1,300,000
+people poured into Illinois between 1870 and 1890; over 1,000,000 into
+Kansas, and nearly that number into Nebraska; in the Dakotas a young
+man of college age in 1890 might have remembered almost the entire
+significant portion of the history of his state and have been one of
+the oldest inhabitants. The frontier of settlement advanced from the
+western edge of Missouri into mid-Kansas, and almost met the growing
+population of the Far West, whose economic possibilities had already
+attracted attention.
+
+The discovery of gold-dust in a mill-race in California had drawn the
+"Forty-niners" to
+
+    ... lands of gold
+    That lay toward the sun.
+
+For a few years fabulous sums of the precious metal had been extracted
+from the ground by the hordes of treasure-seekers who had come from
+all over the world by boat, pack-animal or "prairie schooner," around
+Cape Horn, across the Isthmus of Panama or over the western mountains.
+When the yield of the mines had slackened, some of the population had
+filtered off to newer fields, but more had settled down to exploit the
+agricultural and lumber resources of California. In Nevada a rich vein
+of silver called the "Comstock Lode" had been discovered; in 1873 a
+group operating the "Virginia Consolidated" mine struck the great
+"bonanza," and the output reached unheard of proportions. The success
+of the mines, however, was essential to Nevada, which had few other
+resources to develop, and when the yield slowed down the population
+growth of the state noticeably slackened. In Colorado during the late
+fifties some prospectors had struck gold, and another rush had made
+"Pike's Peak or Bust" its slogan. Some had returned, "Busted by
+Thunder," but others had better fortune, discovered gold, silver or
+lead, and helped lay the foundations of Denver and Leadville. In Idaho
+and Montana, in Wyoming and South Dakota and other states, prospectors
+found gold, silver, copper and lead, and thus attracted much of the
+population that later settled down to occupations which were less
+feverish and more reliable than mining. In general, the advance of
+population into the Middle West was more or less regular, as wave on
+wave made its way into the Mississippi Basin; in the Far West,
+however, population extended in long arms up the fertile valleys of
+Washington, Oregon and California, or was found in scattered islands
+where mineral wealth had been discovered in the Rocky Mountain region.
+
+From the standpoint of absolute growth, the expansion of most of the
+far western states was not imposing, but the relative increase was
+suggestive of the future. Colorado nearly quadrupled in a decade,
+(1870-1880), and Washington equalled the record in the following ten
+years. California grew faster from 1870 to 1890 than it had done in
+the gold days, indicating that its development was based on something
+more lasting than a fickle vein of ore. Meanwhile politicians were
+fanning the desire of the growing territories to become states, and in
+1889 Montana and Washington were admitted, and in the following year
+Idaho and Wyoming. Of these, Washington alone had a population
+equivalent to the federal ratio for representation in the House.[1]
+
+Utah was kept outside for a few years longer, until the Mormon Church
+gave satisfactory indication that anti-polygamy laws were being
+enforced.
+
+The migration westward, which has been a constant factor in American
+development since early times, continued unabated after the Civil War;
+indeed the restless spirit aroused by the four years of conflict
+undoubtedly tended to increase this steady shift toward the West. By
+1890 approximately a fifth of the native Americans were to be found in
+states other than those in which they had been born. 95,000 natives of
+Maine, for example, were to be found in Massachusetts; 17,000 were in
+California; and considerable numbers in every state between the two.
+The North Carolinians were equally well distributed. 43,000 were in
+South Carolina, 18,000 in Texas, and 5,500 in Washington. Every state
+had contributed to populate every other, although in general the
+migration tended to take place on east and west lines, and
+predominantly westward.
+
+Within the westward-moving tide of population were swirling
+eddies--cities--which tended to attract to themselves larger and larger
+proportions of the surrounding people. In 1870 two men in every ten
+lived in cities whose population was 8,000 or more; by 1890 another man
+in every ten had forsaken rural life. Large cities like Boston and New
+York sucked in surrounding districts, and so constituted metropolitan
+centers with problems new to American life. Such cities as Birmingham,
+Kansas City, and Seattle were just appearing in 1880, but their growth
+was very rapid; Los Angeles increased ten fold and Minneapolis
+thirteen, between 1870 and 1890; Denver, having received ten newcomers
+between 1860 and 1870, added 102,000 in the following twenty years.
+In the country as a whole the concentration in cities was most marked
+in the area north of the Potomac and Ohio rivers and east of the
+Mississippi; the South remained rural, as before the war. With the
+growth of urban population came questions of lighting and water supply,
+street railway transportation and municipal government, industry,
+education, health and morals.[2]
+
+Immigration, another constant factor in American development,
+underwent important changes during the twenty-five years from 1865
+to 1890. Greater in prosperous years and smaller during years of
+depression, the inward tide reached its climax in 1882, when 789,000
+aliens reached the new world. That year, in several respects, was a
+turning point in the history of immigration into the United States.
+It was in this year that the Chinese were excluded; that immigration
+from Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia became of sufficient size to be
+impressive; and that the first inclusive federal immigration act was
+passed. The immigration law of 1882 defined, in general, the policy
+which the nation has pursued ever since. It placed a tax of fifty
+cents on all incomers to be paid by the ship companies; it forbade the
+landing of objectionable persons, such as convicts and lunatics; and
+it placed on the owners of vessels the expense of returning immigrants
+not permitted to land. All these provisions were amended or developed
+in later laws, like that of 1885 forbidding persons or corporations to
+prepay the transportation of laborers or to encourage immigration
+under contract to perform work. The greater part of the foreign
+population settled in the manufacturing and urban North. Put into
+simplest terms, the census of 1890 showed that of every hundred aliens
+who had come to the United States between 1870 and 1890, thirty-seven
+were to be found in the states from Maine to Pennsylvania, four from
+Delaware to Texas, forty-seven from Ohio to Kansas and twelve in the
+Far West (for the most part Chinese).
+
+Of the great economic interests of the United States, the most
+widespread was agriculture. In the Northeast, to be sure, the amount
+of improved farm land had been growing steadily less since 1850 and
+the people had been turning their energies into other activities. In
+the South, on the other hand, agriculture formed the main economic
+resource and the twenty-five years following the war were, for the
+most part, consumed in recovering from that struggle. Although
+conditions varied from place to place, the situation in many portions
+of the South was little short of pitiable. Not only were factories,
+public buildings and railroads, houses and barns, tools and seeds
+destroyed, capital and credit gone, mining at a standstill and banks
+ruined, but bands of thieves infested many districts, federal officers
+were frequently dishonest and defrauded the people, and the entire
+labor system was wiped out at a stroke. The negroes had not been ideal
+workmen as slaves; now, as freedmen, they found difficulty in
+adjusting themselves to the economic obligations of their new status,
+and evinced a tendency to rove about restlessly, instead of settling
+down to the stern task of helping to rebuild the shattered South.
+
+It was manifest that the first problem was to revive the agricultural
+activities of the old days, and that the main resource must be cotton,
+the demand for which in the markets of the North and of Europe was
+such as to make it the best "money crop." A labor system was
+introduced known as share-farming or cropping. Under this system the
+plantation owner who had more property than he could cultivate under
+the new conditions let parts of his land to tenants, supplying them
+with buildings, tools, seed and perhaps credit at the village store
+for the supplies necessary for the year. The tenant, who had neither
+money nor credit with which to buy land, furnished the labor, and at
+the harvest each received a specified share of the product, commonly a
+half. The system had its disadvantages; it kept the farmer always in
+debt, and since the only valuable security which the plantation owner
+had was the crop--the land being almost unsalable--he insisted on
+the cultivation of cotton, which was a safe crop, and avoided
+experimentation and diversification. On the other hand, the system
+enabled the land owner to take advantage of the labor supply and to
+supervise the untutored negro,--and it kept the South alive. In
+addition to the large plantations, cultivated by several tenant
+farmers, the number of small farms tilled by independent owners or
+renters increased. Due to this tendency and to the opening of many
+small holdings in the Southwest, the size of the average farm
+diminished, so that the small farmer began to replace the plantation
+owner as the typical southerner.
+
+Owing to the insistence of land owners upon cotton culture, the South
+first caught up with its _ante-bellum_ production in the cultivation
+of this staple, for shortly before 1880 the crop exceeded that of
+1860. The production of tobacco, the second great southern crop,
+sharply shifted after the war from the Atlantic Coast states, except
+North Carolina, to the Mississippi region, especially to Kentucky.
+Maryland, indeed, never again produced much more than half as great a
+crop as she did in 1860, while Virginia did not equal her former
+record until the opening of the twentieth century, although the South
+as a whole recovered in the late eighties. Rice culture, likewise, did
+not recover readily for South Carolina alone produced almost as much
+in 1860 as the entire South in 1890, and not until the development of
+production in Louisiana after 1890 did the crop assume its former
+importance. The production of sugar in Louisiana in 1890 was but
+little greater than it had been in 1860, and in the production of
+cereals the South did not keep pace with the upper Mississippi Valley
+before 1890. On the other hand the rapid growth of Texas was one of
+the outstanding features of southern development during the period,
+for that state improved an amount of farm land between 1870 and 1890,
+roughly equivalent to the combined areas of New Hampshire, Vermont,
+and Massachusetts. There was observable, moreover, a certain
+hopefulness, a certain resiliency of purpose, a pride in the
+achievements of the past and in the possibilities of the future. In
+these respects the South was a new South by 1890.
+
+Greater than the South as a food-producing area, was the belt of
+states from Ohio and Michigan to Kansas and the Dakotas:
+
+    Where there's more of reaping and less of sowing,
+    That's where the West begins.
+
+The increased occupation of the public lands, the growth of population,
+improvements in transportation and the greater use of agricultural
+machinery, which could be employed to advantage on the large and
+relatively level farms, led to developments that were destined to have
+an important effect on the history of the nation. Agricultural
+machinery, such as the reaper, had been known long before the war, but
+the reduction of the labor supply from 1861 to 1865 had compelled
+farmers to replace men with machines. A reaper that merely cut the
+grain and tossed it aside, gave way at last to one which not only cut
+the grain, but gathered it into sheaves and bound the sheaves with
+twine. So great was the effect of the harvester upon western
+agriculture that William H. Seward declared that it "pushed the
+frontier westward at the rate of thirty miles a year."
+
+Due to the facts already mentioned, the number of mid-western farms
+increased nearly a million from 1870 to 1890, and the acreage in
+improved farm land grew by an amount equivalent to the combined areas
+of the British Isles, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark, with a
+generous margin to spare. The production of corn, wheat, oats and other
+cereals became so great as to demand an outlet to the East and to the
+markets of the world. Elevators for the storage of grain were
+constructed with a capacity of 300,000 to 1,000,000 bushels, and
+improvements were made in the methods of loading and unloading the
+product. Despite the growth of the agricultural interests of the Middle
+West, however, the farmer did not reach prosperity. For twenty years
+after 1873 prices fell steadily both in the United States and in other
+countries of the world, and the agricultural classes found themselves
+receiving a smaller and smaller return for their products. Unrest grew
+to distress, and distress to acute depression, while the demands of the
+farmers for relief frequently determined the trend of mid-western
+politics.[3]
+
+[Illustration:
+Relative Prices--1865-1890]
+
+Less general than agriculture, but more characteristic of the period
+after the war, was the development of manufacturing. The census of 1870
+was faulty and inadequate, but it was sufficiently accurate to indicate
+that the manufacturing region was preeminently that north of the
+Potomac-Ohio river line and east of the Mississippi. By 1890 it was
+apparent that the industrial interests were shifting slightly toward
+the West; nevertheless the leading states were those of southern New
+England, and New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In these states no
+fewer than four hundred and forty-seven industries employed more than a
+million dollars of capital each. The manufacturing of cotton, woolen
+and silk for the rest of the country was done here; foundry products,
+iron and steel manufactures, silver and brass goods, refined petroleum,
+boots and shoes, paper and books, with a host of other articles, were
+sent from this section to every part of the world. All along the line,
+from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania, capital engaged in manufacturing
+doubled between 1880 and 1890, and the number of employees greatly
+increased.
+
+Although the industrial life of the South belongs, for the most part,
+to the years since 1890, the coal and iron deposits of Alabama were
+known and utilized before that year, the number of cotton mill spindles
+in North Carolina tripled between 1880 and 1890, and cotton expositions
+were held in Atlanta in 1881 and New Orleans in 1884. It was in the
+eighties, also, that the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and the Norfolk
+and Western led to the exploitation of the coal deposits of Virginia
+and West Virginia, especially the famous Pocahontas field.
+
+Some aspects of the growth of manufacturing in the North are well
+illustrated in the development of the mineral resources around Lake
+Superior. The presence of copper and iron in this region had long been
+known, but they had not been utilized until a decade before the Civil
+War, and even then the output had been greatly restricted by
+insufficient transportation facilities. By the close of the war,
+however, a canal had been constructed which allowed the passage of
+barges from Lake Superior to Lake Huron, and railroads had been laid to
+a few important mining centers. The Marquette iron range in northern
+Michigan, the Gogebic in Wisconsin and Michigan, the Menominee near
+Marquette, the Vermilion Lake and Mesabec ore-beds near Duluth,--all
+these combined to yield millions of tons of ore, caused the development
+of numerous mining towns and laid the foundations of a gigantic
+expansion in the production of steel. As the iron and steel industry
+with its furnaces, machinery and skilled labor was already established
+at points in Illinois, Ohio and western Pennsylvania, it was cheaper to
+transport the ore to these places than to transfer the industry to the
+mines. Ore vessels were constructed capable of carrying mammoth
+cargoes; docks, railroads and canals were built; and the products of
+the mines taken to lake and inland cities. Improvements, meanwhile,
+were being continually made in the steel industry, such as the Bessemer
+process, by which the impurities were burned out of the iron ore, and
+exactly enough carbon introduced into the molten metal to transform it
+into steel.
+
+Although the steel industry was established in many places, its most
+dramatic growth occurred in those parts of eastern Ohio and western
+Pennsylvania that center about the city of Pittsburg. Placed
+strategically at the point where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers
+join to form the Ohio, in the midst of an area rich in coal, petroleum
+and natural gas, Pittsburg rapidly became the center of a region in
+which the development of manufacturing and the construction of
+railroads dwarfed other interests. A large portion of the ore mined in
+the Lake Superior fields was carried to the Pittsburg district to be
+transformed into steel products of all kinds. Moreover, the fortunes
+made by private individuals in the region, and the inflow of alien
+laborers to work in the factories and on the railroads raised weighty
+social and industrial problems.
+
+Manifestly the extension of agriculture and industry in so large a
+country as the United States was dependent upon the corresponding
+growth of the means of transportation, both by water and by rail. A
+detailed account of the expansion of the railway net, with the
+accompanying' implications in the fields of finance and politics, is a
+matter for later consideration. Certain of its general features may be
+mentioned, however, because they are intimately interwoven with the
+economic developments which have just been explained. The concentration
+of the population in the cities, of which New York and Chicago were
+outstanding examples, was one of these features. From the time of the
+first census, the city of New York continued to maintain its position
+as the most populous city of the nation. Between 1850 and 1890 it added
+a round million to its numbers, containing 1,515,000 persons at the
+later date. Moreover it was the center of a thriving and thickly
+settled region extending from New Haven on the one side to Philadelphia
+on the other--the most densely populated area in America. The
+uninterrupted expansion of the city indicated that the reasons for its
+growth were constant in their operation. And, in fact, the reasons were
+not difficult to find. It was blessed with one of the world's finest
+harbors and had access to the interior of the state by way of the
+Hudson and Mohawk rivers. These natural advantages had long since been
+recognized and had been increased by the construction of the Erie Canal
+in 1825 which, with the Great Lakes and the several canals connecting
+the Lakes with the Ohio Valley, had given New York an early hold and
+almost a monopoly on the trade between the upper Mississippi, the Lakes
+and the coast. The city, therefore, became an importing and exporting
+center; its shipping interests grew, immigration flowed in, and its
+manufacturing establishments soon outstripped those of any other
+industrial center; the great printing and publishing, banking and
+commercial firms were drawn irresistibly to the most populous city, and
+Wall Street became the synonym for the financial center of the nation.
+
+In 1840 Chicago had been an unimportant settlement of 4500 persons, but
+by the opening of the war it had grown to twenty-five times that size,
+and added 800,000 between 1870 and 1890. It had early become evident
+that the city was the natural outlet toward the East for the grain
+trade and the slaughtering and meatpacking industry of the upper
+Mississippi Valley. Before the late sixties, however, railway
+connection was defective, being composed of many short lines rather
+than of one continuous road, so that freight had to be loaded and
+unloaded many times during its passage to the seaboard. This situation,
+which had been merely inconvenient before the war, had become little
+short of intolerable during the struggle, because the closing of the
+Mississippi had cut off from the Middle West its water outlet toward
+the South and had diverted more freight to the railroads. After the
+war, Cornelius Vanderbilt, president of the Hudson River Railroad,
+combined a number of the shorter roads so as to give uninterrupted
+communication between Chicago and New York, to tap the trade of the
+Mississippi Valley, and to compete with water traffic by way of the
+Great Lakes and the Erie Canal. Other railroads saw the possibilities
+in the western trade, and the Baltimore and Ohio, the Grand Trunk, and
+the Erie followed the lead of Vanderbilt. A similar development,
+although on a smaller scale, accompanied the growth of other northern
+cities. The retroactive effects of the roads on the distribution of the
+population are too detailed for discussion, but a single example may
+typify many. In 1870 the Maine farmer supplied much of the meat
+consumed in Boston; by 1895, he was getting his own meat from the West.
+He must, therefore, adapt himself to the new conditions if he could,
+move to the manufacturing cities as so many of his neighbors did, or
+migrate to the West.
+
+Like the growth of New York and Chicago, the development of California
+had an important effect on the history of American railway
+transportation. Although it had been agitated for many years, the
+project for a railroad from the Mississippi to the Pacific Coast had
+not reached the construction stage until the congressional acts of 1862
+and 1864 provided for a line to be built from Omaha to San Francisco.
+The Union Pacific Railroad had been incorporated to build the eastern
+end, while the western end was to be constructed by the Central Pacific
+Railroad Company, a California corporation. The latter act, that of
+1864, had given the roads substantial financial assistance and half the
+public land on a strip forty miles wide along the line of the track.
+Many difficulties had stood in the way--lack of funds, problems of
+construction and inadequate labor supply. Eventually they had all been
+overcome by the energy and skill of such men as Stanford, Crocker and
+Huntington. Imported Chinese coolies had met the labor demand and
+construction was speeded up. Actual building had begun in 1863 and six
+years later the two roads met at Promontory Point near Ogden in Utah,
+where the last spike was driven, the engines
+
+    Facing on the single track,
+      Half a world behind each back.
+
+During the four years following the completion of the transcontinental
+line, 24,000 miles of new railroad were constructed, much of which was
+built into the wilderness ahead of settlement. So great an expansion,
+coming at a time when immense stretches of new land were being opened
+and industry being developed on a large scale, could hardly fail to
+result in over-speculation. The results appeared in 1873. Jay Cooke and
+Company, the most important financial concern in the country had been
+back of the Northern Pacific Railroad, marketing large quantities of
+its bonds and so providing capital for construction, the purchase of
+equipment, the payment of wages and so on. Obviously a large amount of
+money was thus being put into an enterprise from which returns would
+come only after a considerable period; and yet construction had to be
+continued, or what was already invested would be lost. What Cooke was
+doing for the Northern Pacific was being done for the Chesapeake and
+Ohio by Fisk and Hatch, and by other firms for speculative enterprises
+in every corner of the land.
+
+The process of putting capital into fixed form could hardly go on
+forever, and several events led to a final crash. In 1871 and 1872
+great fires in Chicago and Boston destroyed millions of dollars' worth
+of property. Early in 1873 the government investigation of the Credit
+Mobilier Company led to widespread distrust of the roads and made
+investors conservative about buying bonds. On September 18, 1873, Jay
+Cooke and Company found itself unable to continue business and closed
+its doors. The failure was a thunderbolt to the financial world.
+Indeed, so unbelievable was the news that an energetic policeman
+arrested a small newsboy who shouted his "Extra--All about the failure
+of Jay Cooke."
+
+If Jay Cooke and Company fell, the sky might fall. People rushed to
+withdraw their funds from the banks. Fisk and Hatch opened their doors
+for fifteen minutes and received calls for $1,500,000. They closed at
+once. The smaller financial institutions followed the bigger ones.
+Stocks fell, the Exchange was closed, there was a money famine.
+Industrial concerns, dependent on the banks, failed by scores.
+Industrial paralysis, with railroad receiverships, laborers out of
+employment, riots and their accompaniments, showed how deep-seated had
+been the trouble. Not until late in the decade did business recover its
+former prosperity.
+
+With the return of more stable conditions the construction of railroads
+continued unabated. The Northern Pacific ran near the Canadian line and
+connected the upper Mississippi Valley with the coast, carrying in its
+trail the manners and customs of the East. Two lines in the South were
+extended to the Pacific, so that by the middle eighties four great main
+avenues gave passage through a region over which, so recently, the
+miner and the trapper had forced a dangerous path.
+
+The fact that it was often necessary, in building the railroads across
+the plains, to detail half the working force to protect the remainder
+against the Indians, calls attention to one unmistakable result of the
+conquest of the Far West. The construction of the railroads spelled the
+doom of the wild Indian. Far back in 1834 the government had adopted
+the policy of setting aside large tracts of land west of the
+Mississippi for the use of the Indian tribes. Most of the savages had
+been stationed in an immense area between southern Minnesota and Texas,
+while other smaller reservations had been scattered over most of the
+states west of the river. On the whole, the government had dealt with
+the Indians in tribes, not as individuals. The rapid inflow of
+population to the fertile lands, together with the rush of prospectors
+to newly discovered supplies of gold and silver, caused increasing
+demands from the Indians for protection, and from the whites for the
+extinguishment of Indian land titles.
+
+The classical illustration of this tendency is found in the case of the
+Sioux Indians in South Dakota. The discovery of gold in the region of
+the Black Hills, on the Sioux reservation, aroused agitation for the
+removal of the tribe to make way for settlers and miners. But the
+execution of the scheme was not so simple as its conception. The
+removal of the Sioux necessitated the transfer of the Poncas, a
+peaceful tribe which lay immediately east. The latter, not unnaturally,
+objected, quarrels arose and eventually the Poncas were practically
+broken to pieces. The Sioux, not satisfied, attempted to regain the
+Black Hills, fought the famous Sioux War of 1876, led by Sitting Bull,
+but were crushed and forced to give up the unequal contest.
+
+It would not be worth while to enter into the details of the numerous
+Indian conflicts after the Civil War. It is enough to notice that
+stirring accounts of them may be read in the memoirs of such soldiers
+as Custer, Sheridan and Miles, and that they cost millions of dollars
+and hundreds of lives. Finally it became evident that the attempt to
+deal with the Indians in tribes was a failure and it was determined to
+break up the tribal holdings of land so as to give each individual a
+small piece for his private property, and to open the remainder to
+settlement by the whites. In pursuance of such a policy, the Dawes Act
+of 1887 provided for the allotment of a quarter-section to each head of
+a family, with the proviso that the owner should not sell the land
+within twenty-five years. This was intended to protect the Indian from
+shrewd "land-sharks." Citizenship was given with the ownership of the
+land, in the hope that a sort of assimilation might gradually take
+place, and earnest attempts were made to provide education for the
+red-man. Not all these hopes were realized, however, and the later
+Burke Act, 1906, attempted further protection.
+
+While the Indian was being restricted to a small part of the great
+region west of the Mississippi, there was being enacted on the plains
+one of the most picturesque of all American dramas. Beyond the settled
+parts of the states just west of the "Father of Waters," bounded north
+and south by Canada and the Rio Grande, and extending west to the Rocky
+Mountain foot-hills, lay a huge empire of rolling territory. It was
+grass-covered, but lacked sufficient rainfall to make it fertile, so
+that it was considered, as part of it had early been called, "the great
+American desert."
+
+Cattle turned loose long before by Spanish ranchers down in the
+Southwest had multiplied, spread out over the plains, and run
+wild--wild as Texas steers. A combination of circumstances disclosed
+the fact that these cattle could be improved by breeding, corraled and
+driven north over the "Long Trail," to be slaughtered in Omaha, Kansas
+City, St. Louis and Chicago for the people of eastern cities. The
+round-up, when the cattle were collected; the drive, under command of
+the boss and his cow-boys,
+
+    loose in the unfenced blue riding the sunset rounds;
+
+the great ranches in the North, where the herds were fattened for the
+market;--all this formed the background of an attractive romance.
+Obviously, however, the drive was dependent on great stretches of open
+country, with free grazing and free access to water, and it is also
+manifest that these conditions could not long endure in the face of
+constant westward migration. Homesteaders followed the railroads out
+across the plains, and the cheapening of wire fence led to the
+enclosure of great farms including the best grazing lands and the water
+supply. By 1890, therefore, the great drives were a tale that is told.
+The less romantic packing business remained, however; ranches supplied
+the cattle, the railroads transported them, and improvements in
+refrigerating and canning made possible another development in domestic
+and foreign trade.
+
+In addition to the expansion of the several economic interests of the
+various sections of the country, inventions and improvements were
+taking place which affected the general problems of production and
+distribution. Improvements in machinery saved forty to eighty per cent.
+of the time and labor demanded in the production of important
+manufactured goods. Cheapened steel affected all kinds of industry. The
+development of steam-power and the beginnings of the practical use of
+electricity for power and light multiplied the effectiveness of human
+hands or added to human comfort. Cheaper and quicker transportation
+almost revolutionized the distribution of economic goods. The increased
+use of the telegraph and cable shortened distances and brought together
+producers and consumers that had in earlier times been weeks of travel
+apart.
+
+The necessarily statistical character of an account of economic
+development should not obscure the meaning of its details. Increased
+population, with its horde of incoming aliens, created a demand for
+standing room, necessitated westward expansion, and made the West more
+than ever a new country with new problems. The growth of agriculture
+enlarged a class that had not hitherto been as influential as it was
+destined to be, and brought into politics the economic needs of the
+farmer. Manufacturing brought great wealth into the hands of a few,
+created an increasing demand for protective tariffs and gave rise to
+strikes and other industrial problems. The concentration of especial
+interests in especial sections made likely the emergence of sectional
+antagonisms. Back of tariff and finance, therefore, back of
+transportation and labor, of new political parties and revolts in the
+old ones, of the great strikes and the increasing importance of some of
+the sections, lay the economic foundations of the new era.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+No thorough study of the economic history of the United States after
+the Civil War has yet been made. E.L. Bogart, _Economic History of the
+United States_ (1907), and various later editions, is the best single
+volume; E.E. Sparks, _National Development_ (1907), is useful. On the
+South, consult articles by St. G.L. Sioussat, in _History Teachers'
+Magazine_ (Sept., Oct., 1916); P.A. Bruce, _Rise of the New South_
+(1905); J.C. Ballagh (ed.), _South in the Building of the Nation_
+(1909), vol. VI; M.B. Hammond, _Cotton Industry_ (1897). R.P. Porter,
+_West from the Census of 1880_ (1882), is a useful compendium. The
+Plains in the day of the cowboy are well described in Emerson Hough,
+_Passing of the Frontier_ (1918); Emerson Hough, _Story of the Cowboy_
+(1898); F.L. Paxson, _Last American Frontier_ (1910); and F.L. Paxson,
+"The Cow Country," in _American Historical Review_, Oct., 1916. N.A.
+Miles, _Serving the Republic_ (1911), contains reminiscences of Indian
+conflicts. On the Far West, in addition to Porter, Hough and Paxson,
+Katharine Coman, _Economic Beginnings of the Far West_ (2 vols., 1912);
+H.K. White, _Union Pacific Railway_ (1898); L.H. Haney, _Congressional
+History of Railways_ (2 vols., 1908-1910); S.E. White, _The
+Forty-Niners_ (1918).
+
+There is also an abundance of useful illustrative fiction, such as:
+Bret Harte, _Luck of Roaring Camp_, and other stories (Far West);
+Edward Eggleston, _Hoosier Schoolmaster_ (Indiana); W.D. Howells,
+_Rise of Silas Lapham_ (New England); G.W. Cable, _Old Creole Days_
+(New Orleans); C.E. Craddock, _In the Tennessee Mountains_; F.H.
+Smith, _Colonel Carter_ (Virginia); Hamlin Garland, _Main Travelled
+Roads_ and _Son of the Middle Border_ (Middle West); P.L. Ford, _Hon.
+Peter Sterling_ (New York); S.E. White, _Gold_ (California); and
+_Riverman_ (Lake Superior lumber); John Hay, _Breadwinners_ (industrial).
+
+For other references to economic aspects of the period, see chapters
+IX, XI, XIV.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The ratio was 151,912 but, by a provision of the Constitution,
+states are given a representative even if they do not contain the
+requisite number.
+
+[2] The most important advances in municipal street railway
+transportation were made between 1875 and 1890. In 1876 New York began
+the construction of an overhead or elevated railway on which trains
+were drawn by small locomotives. The first electric street railways
+were operated in Richmond, Va., and in Baltimore. Electric street
+lighting was introduced in San Francisco in 1879.
+
+[3] Hamlin Garland, _Main Travelled Roads_, portrays the hardships of
+western farm life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND OF THE NEW ISSUES
+
+Powerful as economic forces were from 1865 to 1890, they did not alone
+determine the direction of American progress during those years.
+Different individuals and different sections of the country reacted
+differently to the same economic facts; a formula that explained a
+phenomenon satisfactorily to one group, carried no conviction to
+another; political parties built up their platforms on economic
+self-interest, and yet they sometimes had their ideals; theories that
+seemed to explain economic development were found to be inadequate and
+were replaced by others; and practices that had earlier been regarded
+with indifference began to offend the public sense of good taste or
+morals or justice, and gave way to more enlightened standards. Some
+understanding is necessary, therefore, of the more common theories,
+ideals, creeds and practices, because they supplemented the economic
+foundations that underlay American progress for a quarter century after
+the war.
+
+Since the Republican party was almost continuously in power during this
+period, its composition, spirit and ideals were fundamental in
+political history. Throughout the North, and especially in the
+Northeast, the intellectual and prosperous classes, the capitalists and
+manufacturers, were more likely to be found in the Republican party
+than among the Democrats. In fact such party leaders as Senator George
+F. Hoar went so far as to assert that the organization comprised the
+manufacturers and skilled laborers of the East, the soldiers, the
+church members, the clergymen, the school-teachers, the reformers and
+the men who were doing the great work of temperance, education and
+philanthropy. The history of the party, also, was no small factor in
+its successes. Many northerners had cast their first ballot in the
+fifties, with all the zeal of crusaders; they looked back upon the
+beginnings of Republicanism as they might have remembered the origin of
+a sacred faith; they thought of their party as the body which had
+abolished slavery and restored the Union; and they treasured the names
+of its Lincoln, its Seward, its Sumner and Grant and Sherman. The
+Republican party, wrote Edward MacPherson in 1888, in a history of the
+organization, is
+
+    both in the purity of its doctrines, the beneficent sweep of its
+    measures, in its courage, its steadfastness, its fidelity, in its
+    achievements and in its example, the most resplendent political
+    organization the world has ever seen.
+
+Senator Hoar declared that no party in history, not even that which
+inaugurated the Constitution, had ever accomplished so much in so short
+a time. It had been formed, he said, to prevent the extension of
+slavery into the territories, but the "providence of God imposed upon
+it far larger duties." The Republican party gave "honest, wise, safe,
+liberal, progressive American counsel" and the Democrats "unwise,
+unsafe, illiberal, obstructive, un-American counsel." He remembered the
+Republican nominating convention of 1880 as a scene of "indescribable
+sublimity," comparable in "grandeur and impressiveness to the mighty
+torrent of Niagara."
+
+During the generation after the war the recollection of the struggle
+was fresh in men's minds and its influence was a force in party
+councils. The Democrats were looked upon as having sympathized with the
+"rebellion" and having been the party of disunion. In campaign after
+campaign the people were warned not to admit to power the party which
+had been "traitor" to the Union. Roscoe Conkling, the most influential
+politician in New York, declared in 1877 that the Democrats wished to
+regain power in order to use the funds in the United States Treasury to
+repay Confederate war debts and to provide pensions for southern
+soldiers. As late even as 1888 the nation was urged to recollect that
+the Democratic party had been the "mainstay and support of the
+Rebellion," while the Republicans were the "party that served the
+Nation."
+
+At a later time it was pointed out that the party had not been founded
+solely on idealism; that the adherence of Pennsylvania to the party,
+for example, was due at least in a measure to Republican advocacy of a
+protective tariff; that Salmon P. Chase and Edwin M. Stanton, two of
+the leading members of Lincoln's cabinet had been Democrats; and that
+Lincoln's second election and the successful outcome of the war had
+been due partly to the support of his political opponents. As time went
+on, also, some of the leaders of the Republican party declared that its
+original ideals had become obscured in more practical considerations.
+They felt that abuses had grown up which had been little noticed
+because of the necessity of keeping in power that party which they
+regarded as the only patriotic one. They asserted that many of the
+managers had become arrogant and corrupt. All this helped to explain
+the strength of such revolts as that of the Liberal Republican movement
+of 1872. Nevertheless, during the greater part of the twenty-five years
+after the war, hosts of Republicans cherished such a picture as that
+drawn by Senator Hoar and Edward MacPherson, and it was that picture
+which held them within the party and made patriotism and Republicanism
+synonymous terms.
+
+These Republicans, however, who took the more critical attitude toward
+their party formed the core of the "Mugwump" or Independent movement.
+Their philosophy was simple. They believed that there ought to be a
+political element which was not rigidly controlled by the discipline of
+party organization, which would act upon its own judgment for the
+public interest, and which should be a reminder to both parties that
+neither could venture upon mischievous policies without endangering its
+control over the machinery of government. Theoretically, at least, the
+Independent believed that it was more important that government be well
+administered than that it be administered by one set of men or another.
+The weakness of this group, aside from its small size, was its
+impatience and impracticability. By nature the Independent was an
+individualist, forming his own opinion and holding it with tenacity. In
+such a body there could not be long-continued cooperation or singleness
+of purpose; each new problem caused new decisions resulting in the
+break-up of the group and the formation of new alignments. The
+Independent group, therefore, varied in strength from campaign to
+campaign. To the typical party worker, who looked upon politics as a
+warfare for the spoils of office, the Independent was variously
+denounced as a deserter, a traitor, an apostate and a guerilla
+deploying between the lines and foraging now on one side and now on the
+other. To the party wheel-horse, independent voting seemed
+impracticable, and the atmosphere of reform too "highly scented."
+
+The Democrats, laboring under the disadvantage of a reputation for
+disloyalty during the war, and kept out of power for most of the time
+during the period, were forced into a defensive position where they
+could complain or criticize, but not present a program of constructive
+achievement. They denounced the election of 1876 as a great "fraud";
+they looked upon the Republicans as the organ of those who demanded
+class advantages; they condemned the party as wasteful, corrupt and
+extravagant in administration, careless of the distress of the masses,
+and desirous of increasing the authority of the federal government at
+the expense of the powers of the states. Their own mission they felt to
+be the constant assertion of the opposite principles of government and
+administration. They felt that they in particular represented
+government by the people for the equal good of all classes. In
+conformity to what they believed to be the principles of Jefferson and
+Jackson they professed faith in the capacity of the plain people. They
+advocated frugality and economy in government expenditure and looked
+with alarm on any extension of federal power that invaded the
+traditional domain of local activity.
+
+The intensification of party spirit and party loyalty, which was so
+typical of the times, "delivered the citizen more effectually, bound
+hand and foot, into the power of the party embodied in its
+Organization." The organization, meanwhile, was being improved and
+strengthened. Its permanent National Committee which had existed from
+_ante-bellum_ days, was supplemented in both parties immediately after
+the war by the congressional committee, whose mission it was to carry
+the elections for the House of Representatives. Increased attention was
+paid to state and local organizations. Party conventions in states and
+counties chose delegates to national conventions and nominated
+candidates for office. State, county and town committees raised money,
+employed speakers, distributed literature, formed torch-light companies
+to march in party processions and, most important of all, got out the
+voters on election day. By such means the National Committee was
+enabled to keep in close touch with the rank and file of the party, and
+so complete did the organization become that it deserved and won the
+name, "the machine."
+
+The master-spirit of the machine was usually the "Boss," a professional
+politician who generally did not himself hold elective office or show
+concern in constructive programs of legislation or in the public
+welfare. Instead, his interests lay in winning elections; dividing the
+offices among the party workers; distributing profitable contracts for
+public work; procuring the passage of legislation desired by industrial
+or railroad companies, or blocking measures objected to by them. A
+vivid picture of the activities of the boss in New York, drawn by Elihu
+Root, will serve to portray conditions in many states and cities from
+1865 to 1890:
+
+    From the days of Fenton, and Conkling, and Arthur, and Cornell,
+    and Platt, from the days of David B. Hill, down to the present
+    time, the government of the state has presented two different lines
+    of activity, one of the constitutional and statutory officers of
+    the state, and the other of the party leaders,--they call them
+    party bosses. They call the system--I do not coin the phrase, I
+    adopt it because it carries its own meaning--the system they call
+    "invisible government." For I do not remember how many years, Mr.
+    Conkling was the supreme ruler in this state; the governor did not
+    count, the legislatures did not count; comptrollers and secretaries
+    of state and what not, did not count. It was what Mr. Conkling
+    said; and in a great outburst of public rage he was pulled down.
+
+    Then Mr. Platt ruled the state; for nigh upon twenty years he ruled
+    it. It was not the governor; it was not the legislature; it was not
+    any elected officers; it was Mr. Platt. And the capitol was not
+    here (in Albany); it was at 49 Broadway; with Mr. Platt and his
+    lieutenants. It makes no difference what name you give, whether you
+    call it Fenton or Conkling or Cornell or Arthur or Platt, or by the
+    names of men now living. The ruler of the state during the greater
+    part of the forty years of my acquaintance with the state
+    government has not been any man authorized by the constitution or
+    by the law.[1]
+
+Under such conditions, corruption was naturally a commonplace in
+politics. In the campaigns, the party managers were too often men to
+whom "nothing was dreadful but defeat." At every Presidential election,
+immense sums of money were poured into the most important doubtful
+states--Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Indiana. Twenty to
+seventy-five dollars was said to have been the price of a vote in
+Indiana in 1880; and ten to fifteen per cent. of the vote in
+Connecticut was thought to be purchasable. In New York ballot-box
+stuffing and repeating were the rule in sections of the city. Employers
+exerted a less crude but equally efficacious pressure upon their
+employees to vote "right." Municipal government also was often
+characterized by that extreme of corruption which called out the scorn
+of writers on public affairs. The New York _Times_ complained in 1877
+that the government of the city was no more a popular government than
+Turkish rule in Bulgaria, and that if the Tammany leaders did not
+collect revenue with the horse-whip and sabre, it was because the forms
+of law afforded a means that was pleasanter, easier and quite as
+effective.
+
+Federal officials, it must be admitted, did not set a high standard for
+local officers to follow. During Grant's administration five judges of
+a United States Court were driven from office by threats of
+impeachment; members of the Committee on Military Affairs in the House
+of Representatives sold their privilege of selecting young men to be
+educated at West Point; and candidates for even the highest offices in
+the gift of the nation were sometimes men whose political past would
+not bear the light of day. More difficult to overcome was the lack of a
+decent sense of propriety among many public officers. Members of the
+Senate practiced before the Supreme Court, the justices of which they
+had an important share in appointing; senators and representatives
+traded in the securities of railroads which were seeking favors at the
+hands of Congress; and even in the most critical circles, corrupt
+practices were condoned on the ground that all the most reputable
+people were more or less engaged in similar activities. Most difficult
+of all to understand was the unfaltering support accorded by men of the
+utmost integrity to party leaders whose evil character was known on all
+sides. Men who would not themselves be guilty of dishonest acts and who
+vehemently condemned such deeds among their political opponents, failed
+to make any energetic protest within their own ranks for fear that they
+might bring about a party split and thus give the "enemy" a victory.
+
+The political practices which prevailed after 1865 for at least a
+quarter of a century were notoriously bad. Yet the student of the
+period must be sensitive to higher aspirations and better practices
+among many of the politicians, and among the rank and file of the
+people. George F. Hoar, John Sherman, Rutherford B. Hayes, Grover
+Cleveland and many others were incorruptible. The exposure of
+scandalous actions on the part of certain high officials blasted their
+careers, indicating that the body of the people would not condone
+dishonesty, and the parties found it advisable to accept the
+resignations of some of their more notorious campaign managers.
+Moreover, the American people of all classes were a political people,
+with a capacity for political organization and activity, and with a
+passion for change. The cruder forms of corruption were successfully
+combated, and the popular, as well as the official sense of good taste
+and propriety gradually reached higher levels.
+
+Another fundamental political consideration after the Civil War was the
+gradual reduction of the power of the executive department. During the
+war the authority exercised by President Lincoln had risen to great
+heights, partly because of his personal characteristics and partly
+because the exigencies of the times demanded quick executive action.
+After the conflict was past, however, the legislative body naturally
+reasserted itself. Moreover, the quarrel between President Johnson and
+Congress, as has been shown, took the form of a contest for control
+over appointments to office and especially over appointments to the
+cabinet. The resulting impeachment, although it did not result in
+conviction, brought about a distinct shrinkage in executive prestige.
+Grant was so inexperienced in politics and so naive in his judgments of
+his associates that he fell completely into the power of the machine
+and failed to revive the former importance and independence of his
+office.
+
+The ascendancy which thus slipped out of the hands of the executive was
+seized by the Senate, where it remained for a long period, despite
+efforts on the part of the president and the House of Representatives
+to prevent it. So remarkable and continuous a domination is not to be
+explained by a single formula. The long term of the members of the
+Senate, the traditional high reputation of the body and the undoubted
+ability of many of its members assisted in upholding its prestige. Its
+small size as compared with the House of Representatives gave it
+greater flexibility. Furthermore, certain Senate practices were
+instrumental in giving that body its primacy. Under the provisions of
+the Constitution the Senate has power to ratify or reject the
+nominations of the executive to many important positions within his
+gift, and by the close of reconstruction it had acquired a firm control
+over such appointments. "Senatorial courtesy" bade every member,
+regardless of party, to concur with the decision of the senators from
+any state with regard to the appointments in which they were
+interested. When, therefore, the executive wished to change conditions
+in a given office he must have the acquiescence of the senators from
+the state in which the change was to occur. If he did not, the entire
+body would rally to the support of their colleagues and refuse to
+confirm the objectionable nominations. With such a weapon the Senate
+was usually able to force the executive into submission, or at least to
+make reforms extremely difficult. In Senator Hoar's suggestive words,
+senators went to the White House to give advice, not to receive it.
+
+In connection with revenue legislation the Senate seized the leadership
+by means of an evasion of the Constitution. According to the terms of
+that document, all bills for raising revenue must originate in the
+House of Representatives, but the Senate may propose amendments.
+Relying upon this power the Senate constantly revised measures to the
+extent of changing their character completely and even of grafting part
+or all of one proposal upon the title of another. In one case, early in
+the period, the Senate "amended" a House bill of four lines which
+repealed the tariff on tea and coffee; the "amendment" consisted of
+twenty pages, containing a general revision of customs duties and
+internal revenue taxes. At a later time the Senate Finance Committee
+drew up a tariff bill even before Congress had assembled.
+
+The primacy of the Senate quickly led to recognition of the value of
+seats in it. Influential state politicians sought election in order to
+control the patronage. Competent judges in the early nineties declared,
+for example, that the senators from New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland
+were all of this type. Another considerable fraction was composed of
+powerful business men, directors in large corporations, who found it to
+their advantage to be in this most influential law-making body and who
+were known as oil or silver or lumber senators. So was laid the
+foundation of the complaint that the Senate was a millionaires' club.
+And so, too, it came about that much of state politics revolved about
+the choice of members for the upper house, for senators were elected by
+the state legislatures until long after 1890. The power of the House of
+Representatives, in contrast with the Senate, was relatively small
+except during the single session 1889-1891, when Thomas B. Reed was in
+control, although individual members sometimes wielded considerable
+influence.
+
+Somewhat comparable to the shift in the center of power from one
+federal authority to another, was the change which took place in the
+relative strength of the state and national governments. This transfer
+was most clearly seen in the decisions of the Supreme Court in cases
+involving the Fourteenth Amendment.
+
+Previous to 1868, when the Amendment became part of the Constitution,
+comparatively little state legislation relating to private property had
+been reviewed by the Court. Ever since the establishment of the federal
+government, cases involving the constitutionality of state legislation
+had been appealed to United States Courts when they had been objected
+to as running counter to the clauses of the Constitution forbidding
+states to enact bills of attainder, _ex post facto_ laws, or laws
+impairing the obligation of contracts. Their number, however, had been
+relatively small, and normally the acts of state legislatures had not
+been reviewed by federal courts; or in other words the tendency had
+been to preserve the individuality and strength of the several states.
+After the war, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments placed
+additional prohibitions on the states, and the decisions of the Supreme
+Court determined the meaning and extent of the added provisions. The
+interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment was especially important.
+Most significant was the interpretation of Section 1, which reads as
+follows:
+
+    All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject
+    to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States
+    and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or
+    enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities
+    of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any
+    person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
+    nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection
+    of the laws.
+
+So vague and inclusive were these phrases that many important questions
+immediately sprang from them. What were the privileges and immunities
+of the citizen? Did those of the citizen of the United States differ
+from those of the citizen of a state? Was a corporation a person? What
+was liberty? What was due process of law? Hitherto the protection of
+life, liberty and property had rested, in the main, upon the individual
+states, and cases involving these subjects had been decided by state
+courts. Were the state courts to be superseded, in relation to these
+vital subjects, by the United States Supreme Court?
+
+It has already been shown that the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment
+was the protection of the recently freed negro. The Thirteenth
+Amendment had forbidden slavery, but the southern states had passed
+apprentice and vagrancy laws which reduced the negro to a condition
+closely resembling slavery in certain of its aspects. The Fourteenth
+Amendment was designed to remedy such a condition by forbidding the
+states to abridge the privileges of citizens, or to deprive persons of
+life, liberty or property. Were the very vague phrases of the Amendment
+merely in keeping with the vagueness of many of the other grants of
+power in the Constitution, or were they designedly expressed in such a
+way as to accomplish something more than the protection of the
+freedman?
+
+The first decision of the Supreme Court involving the Amendment was
+that given in the Slaughter House Cases in 1873, which did not concern
+the negro in any way. In 1869 the legislature of Louisiana had given a
+corporation in that state the exclusive right to slaughter cattle
+within a large area, and had forbidden other persons to construct
+slaughter-houses within the limits of this region, but the corporation
+was to allow any other persons to use its buildings and equipment,
+charging fixed fees for the privilege. Cases were brought before the
+courts to determine whether the law violated that part of the
+Fourteenth Amendment which forbids a state to pass laws abridging the
+privileges of citizens and taking away their property without due
+process of law. By a vote of five to four the Court upheld the
+constitutionality of the statute.
+
+The majority held that the purpose of the Amendment was primarily the
+protection of the negro. This purpose, the Court thought, lay at the
+foundation of all three of the war amendments and without it no one of
+them would ever have been suggested. The majority did not believe that
+the Congress which passed the amendments or the state legislatures
+which ratified them intended to transfer the protection of the great
+body of civil rights from the states to the federal government. Neither
+did they think that due process of law had been interfered with by the
+Louisiana legislation. In reply to the objection that the
+slaughter-house law violated the clause, "nor shall any State deny to
+any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,"
+the majority declared:
+
+    We doubt very much whether any action of a State not directed by
+    way of discrimination against the negroes as a class, or on account
+    of their race, will ever be held to come within the purview of this
+    provision.
+
+In brief, then, the majority was inclined to preserve the balance
+between the states and the national government very much as it had
+been. It believed that the amendments should be applied mainly if not
+wholly to the fortunes of the freedman and that judicial review of such
+legislation as that in Louisiana concerning the slaughter of cattle
+should end in the state courts.
+
+For a time the interpretation of the Court remained that given by the
+majority in this decision. When western state legislatures passed laws
+regulating the rates which railroads and certain other corporations
+might legally charge for their services, the Court at first showed an
+inclination to allow the states a free hand. Regulation of this sort,
+it was held, did not deprive the citizen or the corporation of property
+without due process of law.
+
+There were indications, nevertheless, that the opinion of the Court was
+undergoing a change as time elapsed. An interesting prelude to the
+change was an argument by Roscoe Conkling in San Mateo County _v._
+Southern Pacific Railroad Company in 1882. Conkling was acting as
+attorney for the railroad and was attempting to show that the roads
+were protected, by the Fourteenth Amendment, from state laws which
+taxed their property unduly. Conkling argued that the Amendment had not
+been designed merely for the protection of the freedman, and in order
+to substantiate his contention, he produced a manuscript copy of the
+journal of the Congressional committee that had drawn up the proposals
+which later became the Fourteenth Amendment. He had himself been a
+member of the committee. The journal, it should be noticed, had never
+hitherto been utilized in public.
+
+Conkling stated that at the time when the Amendment was being drafted,
+individuals and companies were appealing for congressional protection
+against state taxation laws, and that it had been the purpose of the
+committee to frame an amendment which should protect whites as well as
+blacks and operate in behalf of corporations as well as individuals. In
+other words, Conkling was making the interesting contention that his
+committee had had a far wider and deeper purpose in mind in phrasing
+the Amendment than had been commonly understood and that the demand for
+the protection of the negro from harsh southern legislation had been
+utilized to answer the request of business for federal assistance. The
+safety of the negro was put to the fore; the purpose of the committee
+to strengthen the legal position of the corporations was kept behind
+the doors of the committee-room; and the phrases of the Amendment had
+been designedly made general in order to accomplish both purposes. The
+sequel appeared four years later, in 1886, when the case Santa Clara
+County _v._ Southern Pacific Railroad brought the question before the
+Court. At this time Mr. Chief Justice Waite announced the opinion of
+himself and his colleagues that a corporation was a "person" within the
+meaning of the Amendment and thus entitled to its protection.
+
+Later decisions, such as that of 1889 in Chicago, Milwaukee and St.
+Paul Railway Company _v._ Minnesota, left no doubt of the fact that the
+Court had come to look upon the Fourteenth Amendment as much more than
+a protective device for the negro. The full meaning of the change,
+however, did not appear until after 1890, and is a matter for later
+consideration. In brief, then, before 1890, the Supreme Court was
+content in the main to avoid the review of state legislation concerning
+the ownership and control of private property, a practice which lodged
+great powers in the state courts and legislatures. By that year,
+however, it was manifest that the Court had undergone a complete change
+and that it had adopted a theory which would greatly enlarge the
+functions of the federal courts, at the expense of the states. The
+medium through which the change came was the Fourteenth Amendment.
+
+The demand on the part of business men for protection from state
+legislation, which Roscoe Conkling described in the San Mateo case,
+arose from their belief in the economic doctrine of _laissez faire_.
+Believers in this theory looked upon legislation which regulated
+business as a species of meddling or interference. The individual, they
+thought, should be allowed to do very much as he pleased, entering into
+whatever business he wished, and buying and selling where and how and
+at what prices suited his interests, stimulated and controlled by
+competition, but without direction or restriction by the government. It
+was believed that the amazing success of the American business pioneer
+was proof of the wisdom of the _laissez faire_ philosophy. The economic
+giant and hero was the self-made man.
+
+Economic abuses, according to the _laissez faire_ philosophy, would
+normally be corrected by economic law, chiefly through competition. If,
+for illustration, any industry demanded greater returns for its
+products than proved to be just in the long run, unattached capital
+would be attracted into that line of production, competition would
+ensue, prices would be again lowered and justice would result. Every
+business man would exert himself to discover that employment which
+would bring greatest return for the capital which he had at his
+command. He would therefore choose such an industry and so direct it as
+to make his product of the greatest value possible. Hence although he
+sought his own interests, he would in fact promote the interest of the
+public.
+
+Indeed the philosopher of _laissez faire_ was sincerely convinced that
+his system ultimately benefited society as a whole. Andrew Carnegie, an
+iron and steel manufacturer, presented this thesis in an article in the
+_North American Review_ in 1889. The reign of individualism, he held,
+was the order of the day, was inevitable and desirable. Under it the
+poorer classes were better off than they had ever been in the world's
+history. "We start then," he said, "with a condition of affairs under
+which the best interests of the race are promoted, but which inevitably
+gives wealth to the few. Thus far, accepting conditions as they exist,
+the situation can be surveyed and pronounced good." Let the man of
+ability, he advised, accumulate a large fortune and then discharge his
+duty to the public through philanthropic enterprises, such as the
+foundation of libraries. Society would be more highly benefited in this
+way than by allowing the millions to circulate in small sums through
+the hands of the masses. Statistical studies of the distribution of
+wealth seemed to justify Carnegie's judgment that the existing tendency
+was for wealth to settle into the hands of the few. In 1893 it was
+estimated that three one-hundredths of one per cent. of the people
+owned twenty per cent. of the nation's wealth.
+
+Although the _laissez faire_ theory was dominant later even than 1890,
+it was apparent before that time that its sway was being challenged.
+The adherents of _laissez faire_ themselves did not desire to have the
+doctrine applied fully and evenly. They demanded government protection
+for their enterprises through the medium of high protective import
+tariffs, and they sought subsidies and grants of public land for the
+railroads. Naturally it was not long before the classes whose desires
+conflicted with the manufacturing and railroad interests began in their
+turn to seek aid from the government. The people of the Middle West,
+for example, were not content to allow the railroad companies to
+control their affairs and establish their rates without let or
+hindrance from the state legislatures. The factory system in the
+Northeast, likewise, raised questions which were directed toward the
+foundations of _laissez faire_. Under the factory regime employers
+found it advantageous to open their doors to women and children and to
+keep them at machines for long, hard days which unfitted the women for
+domestic duties and for raising families, and which stunted the
+children in body and mind. Out of these circumstances arose a demand
+for restrictions on the freedom of employers to fix the conditions
+under which their employees worked.
+
+Opposition to an industrial system based upon _laissez faire_ would
+have been even greater during the seventies and eighties if it had not
+been for two sources of national wealth--the public lands and the
+supplies of lumber, ore, coal and similar gifts of nature. When the
+supply of land in the West was substantially unlimited, a sufficient
+part of the population could relieve its economic distresses by
+migrating, as multitudes did. Such huge stores of natural wealth were
+being discovered that there seemed to be no end to them. But in the
+late eighties when the best public lands were nearly exhausted and the
+need of more careful husbanding of the national resources became
+apparent to far-sighted men, advanced thinkers began to question the
+validity of an economic theory which allowed quite so much freedom to
+individuals. For the time, however, such questions did not arise in the
+minds of the masses.
+
+As the _laissez faire_ doctrine underlay the problem of the relation
+between government and industry, so the quantity theory of money was
+fundamental in the monetary question. According to the quantity theory,
+money is like any other commodity in that its value rises and falls
+with variations in the supply and demand for it. Suppose, for example,
+that a given community is entirely isolated from the rest of the world.
+It possesses precisely enough pieces of money to satisfy the needs of
+its people. Suddenly the number of pieces is doubled. The supply is
+twice as great as business requires. If no new elements enter into the
+situation, the value of each piece becomes half as great as before, its
+purchasing power is cut in two and prices double.[2]
+
+A bushel of potatoes that formerly sold for a dollar now sells at two
+dollars. A farmer who has mortgaged his farm for $1,000 and who relies
+upon his sales of potatoes to pay off his debt is highly benefited by
+the change, while the creditor is correspondingly harmed. The debtor is
+obliged to raise only half as many potatoes; the creditor receives
+money that buys half the commodities that could have been purchased
+with his money at the time of the loan.
+
+On the other hand, suppose the number of pieces of money is instantly
+halved and all other factors continue unchanged. There is now twice as
+great a demand for each piece, it becomes more desirable and will
+purchase more goods. Prices, that is to say, go down. Dollar potatoes
+now sell for fifty cents. The debtor farmer must grow twice as many
+potatoes as he had contemplated; the creditor finds that he receives
+money that has doubled in purchasing power.
+
+It has already been said that the quarter century after the war was, in
+the main, a period of falling prices. The farmer found the size of his
+mortgage, as measured in bushels of wheat and potatoes, growing
+steadily and relentlessly greater. The creditor received a return which
+purchased larger and larger quantities of commodities. The debtor class
+was mainly in the West; the creditors, mainly in the East. The
+westerners desired a larger quantity of money which would, as they
+believed, send prices upward; the East, depending upon similar
+reasoning, desired a contraction in supply. The former were called
+inflationists; the latter, contractionists. Much of the monetary
+history of the country after the Civil War was concerned with the
+attempt of the inflationists to expand the supply of currency, and the
+contractionists to prevent inflation.
+
+The intellectual background of the twenty-five years after the war, so
+far as it can be considered at this point, was to be found mainly in
+the development of education and the growth of the newspaper and
+periodical. Before the Civil War, except in the South, the old-time
+district school had given way, in most states, to graded elementary
+schools, supported by taxation. After the war the southern states made
+heroic efforts to revive education, in which they were aided by such
+northern benefactions as the Peabody Educational Fund of $2,000,000
+established in 1867. In the northern states the schools were greatly
+improved, free text-books became the rule, the free public high-schools
+replaced the former private academies, and normal schools for the
+training of teachers were established. The period was also marked by
+the foundation of scores of colleges and especially of the great state
+universities. The Morrill Act of July 2, 1862, had provided for a grant
+to each state of 30,000 acres of public land for every senator and
+representative in Congress to which the state was entitled. The land
+was to be used to promote education in the agricultural and mechanic
+arts, and in the natural sciences. The advantages of the law were
+quickly seen, and between 1865 and 1890 seventeen state universities
+were started, most of them in the Middle and Far West. Many of these
+underwent a phenomenal growth and had a great influence on the states
+in which they were established.
+
+The newspaper press was also undergoing a transformation in the quarter
+century after the war. The great expansion of the numbers and influence
+of American newspapers before and during that struggle had been due to
+the ability of individuals. James Gordon Bennett had founded the New
+York _Herald_, for example, in 1835, and from then on the _Herald_ had
+been "Bennett's paper." Similarly the _Tribune_ had represented Horace
+Greeley and the _Times_, Henry J. Raymond. The effect of the war was to
+develop technical resources in gathering news, to necessitate a larger
+scale of expenditure and a wider range of information, and to make a
+given issue the work of many men instead of one. Raymond died in 1869,
+Greeley and Bennett in 1872; and although the _Sun_ was the embodiment
+of Charles A. Dana until his death in 1897, the _Nation_ and the
+_Evening Post_ of Edwin L. Godkin until 1899, nevertheless the tendency
+was away from the newspaper which reflected an individual and toward
+that which represented a group; away from the editorial which expressed
+the views of a well-known writer, to the editorial page which combined
+the labors of many anonymous contributors. The financial basis of the
+newspaper also underwent a transition. As advertising became more and
+more general, the revenues of newspapers tended to depend more on the
+favor of the advertiser than upon the subscriber, giving the former a
+powerful although indirect influence on editorial policies.
+
+The influence of the press in politics was rapidly growing. A larger
+number of newspapers became sufficiently independent to attack abuses
+in both parties. The New York _Times_ and Thomas Nast's cartoons in
+_Harper's Weekly_ were most important factors in the overthrow of the
+Tweed Ring in New York City, and in the elections of 1884 and later,
+newspapers exerted an unusual power. Press associations in New York and
+the West led the way to the Associated Press, with its wide-spread
+cooperative resources for gathering news.
+
+As important as the character of the press, was the amount and
+distribution of its circulation. Between 1870 and 1890 the number of
+newspapers published and the aggregate circulation increased almost
+exactly threefold--about five times as fast as the population was
+growing. In the latter year the entire circulation for the country was
+over four and a half billion copies, of which about sixty per cent.
+were dailies. So great had been the growth of the press during the
+seventies that the census authorities in 1880 made a careful study of
+the statistical aspects of the subject. It appeared from this search
+that newspapers were published in 2,073 of the 2,605 counties in the
+Union. Without some such means of spreading information, it would have
+been impossible to conduct the great presidential campaigns, in which
+the entire country was educated in the tariff and other important
+issues.
+
+The expansion of the press is well exemplified by the use of the
+telegraph in the spread of information. When Lincoln was nominated for
+the presidency in 1860, a single telegraph operator was able to send
+out all the press matter supplied to him. In 1892 at the Democratic
+convention, the Western Union Telegraph Company had one hundred
+operators in the hall. Mechanical invention, meanwhile, was able to
+keep pace with the demand for news. The first Hoe press of 1847 had
+been so improved by 1871 that it printed ten to twelve thousand
+eight-page papers in an hour, and twenty-five years later the capacity
+had been increased between six and sevenfold.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+Nearly all material on party history is so partisan that it should be
+read with critical scepticism: Francis Curtis, _The Republican Party,
+1854-1904_ (2 vols., 1904); J.D. Long, _Republican Party_ (1888); for
+the Independent attitude, consult _Harper's Weekly_ during the campaign
+of 1884. As the Republicans were in power most of the time from
+1865-1913, there is more biographical and autobiographical material
+about Republicans than about Democratic leaders. Local studies of
+political conditions and the social structure of the parties are almost
+entirely lacking. On the personal side, the following are essential:
+G.F. Parker, _Writings and Speeches of Grover Cleveland_ (1892); T.E.
+Burton, _John Sherman_ (1906); J.B. Foraker, _Notes of a Busy Life_ (2
+vols., 1916), throws light on the ideals and practices of a politician;
+G.F. Hoar, _Autobiography of Seventy Years_ (2 vols., 1903), gives the
+New England Republican point of view; Rollo Ogden, _Life and Letters of
+E.L. Godkin_ (2 vols., 1907); G.F. Parker, _Recollections of Grover
+Cleveland_ (1909), is useful, but sketchy, there being as yet no
+thorough biography of Cleveland; T.C. Platt, _Autobiography_ (1910),
+interestingly portrays the philosophy of a machine politician, but
+should be read with care; John Sherman, _Recollections of Forty Years
+in House, Senate and Cabinet_ (2 vols., 1895); Edward Stanwood, _James
+G. Blaine_ (1905), is highly favorable to Blaine; W.M. Stewart,
+_Reminiscences_ (1908), is interesting, partisan and unreliable. For a
+general estimate of the autobiographical material of the period,
+consult _History Teachers' Magazine_ (later the _Historical Outlook_),
+"Recent American History Through the Actors' Eyes," March, 1916.
+
+Jesse Macy, _Party Organisation and Machinery_ (1904); M.G.
+Ostrogorski, _Democracy and Political Parties_ (2 vols., 1902), gives a
+keen and pessimistic account of American political practices in vol.
+II; J.A. Woodburn, _Political Parties and Party Problems in the United
+States_ (1903, and later editions) gives a succinct account in good
+temper.
+
+For the Fourteenth Amendment: C.G. Haines, _American Doctrine of
+Judicial Supremacy_ (1914); C.W. Collins, _The Fourteenth Amendment and
+the States_ (1912), is a careful study, which is critical of the
+prevailing later interpretation of the Amendment. The Slaughter House
+case, giving the earlier interpretation is in J.W. Wallace, _Cases
+argued and adjudged in the Supreme Court_ (Supreme Court Reports), XVI,
+36.
+
+L.H. Haney, _History of Economic Thought_ (1911), on _laissez faire_;
+J.L. Laughlin, _Principles of Money_ (1903); and Irving Fisher, _Why is
+the Dollar Shrinking_ (1914), present two sides of the quantity theory
+of money.
+
+Most useful on the development of education are F.P. Graves, _A History
+of Education in Modern Times_ (1913); and E.G. Dexter, _History of
+Education in the United States_ (1904).
+
+The growth of newspapers is described in _The Bookman_, XIV, 567-584,
+XV, 26-44; see also Rollo Ogden, _Life and Letters of Godkin_, already
+mentioned; G.H. Payne, _History of Journalism in the United States_
+(1920); J.M. Lee, _History of American Journalism_ (1917). The effects
+of education and the press on American social, economic and political
+life have not been subjected to thorough study.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] _Addresses on Government and Citizenship_, 202.
+
+[2] In practice, new elements do enter into the situation so that the
+theory requires much qualification. Cf. Taussig, _Principles of
+Economics_ (1915), I, ch. 18.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+THE NEW ISSUES
+
+Out of the economic and political circumstances which have just been
+described, there were emerging between 1865 and 1875 a wide variety of
+national problems. Such questions were those concerning the proper
+relation between the government and the railroads and industrial
+enterprises; the welfare of the agricultural and wage-earning classes;
+the assimilation of the hordes of immigrants; the conservation of the
+resources of the nation in lumber, minerals and oil; the tariff, the
+financial obligations of the government, the reform of the civil
+service, and a host of lesser matters. The animosities aroused by the
+war, however, and the insistent nature of the reconstruction question
+almost completely distracted attention from most of these problems.
+Only upon the tariff, finance and the civil service did the public
+interest focus long enough to effect results.
+
+The tariff problem has periodically been settled and unsettled since
+the establishment of the federal government. Just previous to the war
+a low protective tariff had been adopted, but the outbreak of the
+conflict had necessitated a larger income; and the passage of an
+internal revenue act, together with a higher protective tariff, had
+been the chief means adopted to meet the demand. By 1864 the country
+had found itself in need of still greater revenues, and again the
+internal and tariff taxes had been increased. These acts were in force
+at the close of the war. The internal revenue act levied taxes upon
+products, trades, and professions, upon liquors and tobacco, upon
+manufactures, auctions, slaughtered cattle, railroads, advertisements
+and a large number of smaller sources of income.
+
+The circumstances that had surrounded the framing and passage of the
+tariff act of 1864 had been somewhat peculiar. The need of the nation
+for revenue had been supreme and there had been no desire to stint
+the administration if funds could bring the struggle to a successful
+conclusion. Congress had been willing to levy almost any rates that
+anybody desired. The combination of a willingness among the legislators
+to raise rates to any height necessary for obtaining revenue, and a
+conviction on their part that high rates were for the good of the
+country brought about a situation eminently satisfactory to the
+protectionist element. There had been no time to spend in long
+discussions of the wisdom of the act and no desire to do so; and
+moreover the act had been looked upon as merely a temporary expedient.
+It is not possible to describe accurately the personal influences which
+surrounded the passage of the law. It is possible, however, to note
+that many industries had highly prospered under the war revenue
+legislation. Sugar refining had increased; whiskey distilling had fared
+well under the operation of the internal revenue laws; the demands of
+the army had given stimulus to the woolen mills, which had worked to
+capacity night and day; and the manufacture and use of sewing machines,
+agricultural implements and the like had been part of the industrial
+expansion of the times. Large fortunes had been made in the production
+of rifles, woolen clothing, cotton cloth and other commodities,
+especially when government contracts could be obtained. Naturally the
+tax-levying activities of Congress had tended to draw the business
+interests together to oppose or influence particular rates. The
+brewers, the cap and hat manufacturers, and others had objected to the
+taxes on their products; the National Association of Wool Manufacturers
+and the American Iron and Steel Association had been formed partly with
+the idea of influencing congressional tariff action.
+
+After the close of the war, the tariff, among other things, seemed to
+many to require an overhauling. Justin S. Morrill, a member of the
+House Committee on Ways and Means, and one of the framers of the act of
+1864, argued in favor of the protective system although he warned his
+colleagues:
+
+    At the same time it is a mistake of the friends of a sound tariff to
+    insist upon the extreme rates imposed during the war, if less will
+    raise the necessary revenue.... Whatever percentage of duties were
+    imposed upon foreign goods to cover internal taxes upon home
+    manufactures, should not now be claimed as the lawful prize of
+    protection where such taxes have been repealed.... The small
+    increase of the tariff for this reason on iron, salt, woolen, and
+    cottons can not be maintained except on the principle of obtaining a
+    proper amount of revenue.
+
+Sentiment was strong against the tariff in the agricultural parts of
+the West and especially in those sections not committed to
+wool-growing. Great personal influence was exerted on the side of
+"tariff-reform" by David A. Wells, a painstaking and able student of
+economic conditions who was appointed special commissioner of the
+revenue in 1866. As a result of his investigations he became converted
+from a believer in protection to the leader of the opposition, and his
+reports had a considerable influence in the formation of opinion in
+favor of revision. The American Free Trade League was formed and
+included such influential figures as Carl Schurz, Jacob D. Cox, Horace
+White, Edward Atkinson, E.L. Godkin, editor of _The Nation_, and many
+others. William B. Allison and James A. Garfield, both prominent
+Republican members of the House, were in favor of downward revision.
+
+In 1867 a bill providing for many reductions passed the Senate as an
+amendment to a House bill which proposed to raise rates. Far more than
+a majority in the House were ready to accept the Senate measure, but
+according to the rules it was necessary to obtain a two-thirds vote in
+order to get the amended bill before the House for action. This it was
+impossible to do. Nevertheless, the wool growers and manufacturers were
+able "through their large influence, persistent pressure and adroit
+management" to procure an act in the same session which increased the
+duties on wool and woolens far above the war rate. In 1869 the duties
+on copper were raised, as were those on steel rails, marble, flax and
+some other commodities in 1870.
+
+The growth of the Liberal Republican movement in 1872, with its
+advocacy of downward revision, frightened somewhat the protectionist
+leaders of the Republican organization. It was believed that a slight
+concession might prevent a more radical action, and just before the
+campaign a ten per cent reduction was brought about. In 1873 the
+industrial depression so lowered the revenues as to present a plausible
+opportunity for restoring duties to their former level in 1875, where
+they remained for nearly a decade.
+
+The lack of effective action on the part of the tariff reformers of
+both parties was due to a variety of causes. In the years immediately
+following the war, the Republicans in Congress were more interested in
+their quarrel with President Johnson than in tariff reform.
+Furthermore, the unpopular internal revenues were being quickly reduced
+between 1867 and 1872, and it was argued that a simultaneous reduction
+of import taxes would decrease the revenue too greatly. Moreover there
+was no solidarity among the Democrats, the South was discredited, and
+at first not fully represented. Wells was driven out of office in 1870,
+the Liberal Republican movement was a failure, the protected
+manufacturers knew precisely what they wanted, they knew how to achieve
+results and some of them were willing to employ methods that the
+reformers were above using. As time went on and the country was, in the
+main, rather prosperous, many people and especially the business men
+made up their minds that the war tariffs were a positive benefit to the
+country. For these reasons a war policy which had generally been
+considered a temporary expedient became a permanent political issue and
+a national problem.
+
+The positions of the two political parties on the tariff were not sharply
+defined during the ten years immediately following the war. The Democrats
+seemed naturally destined for the role of revisionists because of their
+party traditions, their support in the South--ordinarily a strong,
+low-tariff section--and because they were out of power when high tariffs
+were enacted. Yet the party was far from united on the subject. Some
+prominent leaders were frankly protectionists, such as Samuel J. Randall
+of Pennsylvania, who was Speaker of the House for two terms and part of
+another. The party platform ordinarily was silent or non-committal. In
+1868, for example, the Democratic tariff plank was wide and generous
+enough for a complete platform. The party stood for
+
+    a tariff for revenue upon foreign imports, and such equal taxation
+    under the internal revenue laws as will afford incidental
+    protection to domestic manufacturers, and as will, without
+    impairing the revenue, impose the least burden upon, and best
+    promote and encourage, the great industrial interests of the
+    country.
+
+In 1872 the "straight" Democrats, that is those who refused to support
+Greeley, were for a "judicious" revenue tariff; but in 1876 the party
+denounced the existing system as "a masterpiece of injustice, inequality
+and false pretence." Democratic state platforms were even less firm; in
+fact, the eastern states seemed committed to protection. In Congress,
+however, most of the opposition to the passage of tariff acts was
+supplied by the Democrats.
+
+The attitude of the Republicans was more important, because theirs was
+the party in power. There was, as has been shown, a strong tariff-reform
+element, and in some of the conventions care seems to have been taken
+to avoid any definite statement of principles--doubtless on account of
+the well-known differences in the party--and for many years there was
+no clearly defined statement of the attitude of the organization. Yet
+it must be emphasized that Republicans were usually protectionists in
+the practical business of voting in Congress. Skillful Republican leaders
+gave way a little in the face of opposition but regained the lost ground
+and a little more, after the opposition retreated. Since the war-tariffs
+had been passed under Republican rule, it was easy to clothe them with
+the sanctity of party accomplishments.
+
+Fully as technical as the tariff problem, and presenting a wider range
+for the legislative activities of Congress, was the financial situation
+in which the country found itself in 1865. The total expenditures from
+June 30, 1861 to June 30, 1865 had been somewhat more than three and
+one-third billions of dollars, an amount almost double the aggregate
+disbursements from 1789 to 1861. Officers accustomed to a modest budget
+and used to working with machinery and precedents which were adapted to
+the day of small things, had been suddenly called upon to work under
+revolutionized conditions. Prom the point of view of expense, merely,
+one year's operations during the war had been equivalent to thirty-six
+times the average outlay of the years hitherto. As has been shown, the
+major part of the income necessary for meeting the increased expenses
+had been obtained by means of the tariff and internal revenue taxes.
+
+The tariff worked to the advantage of many people, and its retention
+was insistently demanded by them; the internal revenue taxes were
+disliked, and few things were more popular after the war than their
+reduction. In 1866 an act was passed which lowered the internal revenue
+by an amount estimated at forty-five to sixty millions of dollars. In
+succeeding years further reductions were made, so that by 1870 the
+scale was low enough to withstand attacks until 1883.
+
+The national debt was the source of more complicated questions. It was
+composed, on June 30, 1866, of a variety of loans carrying five
+different rates of interest and maturing in nineteen different periods
+of time. Parts of it had been borrowed in times of distress at high
+rates; but after the struggle was successfully ended, the credit of the
+government was good, and enough money could be obtained at low interest
+charges to cancel the old debt and establish a new one with the interest
+account correspondingly reduced. Hugh McCulloch and John Sherman as
+secretaries of the treasury were most influential in accomplishing this
+transition, and by 1879 the process was completed and a yearly saving of
+fourteen million dollars effected.
+
+Differences of opinion concerning the kind of money with which the
+principal of the debt should be paid brought this matter into the
+field of politics. When the earliest loans had been contracted, no
+stipulation had been made in regard to the medium of payment. Later
+loans had been made redeemable in "coin," without specifying either
+gold or silver; while still later bonds had been sold under condition
+that the interest be paid in coin, although nothing had been said about
+the principal. There was considerable demand for redemption of the
+bonds in paper money, except where there was agreement to the contrary,
+although the previous custom of the government had been to pay in coin.
+The proposal to repay the debt in paper currency, the "Ohio idea,"
+gained considerable ground in the Middle West, as has already been
+explained. In the campaign of 1868 the Democratic platform advocated
+the Ohio plan. Some of the Republicans, like Thaddeus Stevens, agreed
+with this policy; some of the Democrats opposed it--Horatio Seymour,
+the presidential candidate, among them. Nevertheless the Democratic
+platform committed the party to payments in greenbacks unless express
+contract prevented, while the Republicans denounced this policy as
+"repudiation" and promised the payment of the debt in "good faith"
+according to the "spirit" and "letter" of the laws. The credit of the
+government was highly benefited by the payment of the debt in gold, yet
+the bonds had been purchased during the war with depreciated paper, and
+gold redemption greatly enriched the purchasers at the expense of the
+remainder of the population. It is hardly surprising that the debtor
+classes were not enthusiastic over this outcome. The Republicans on
+being successful in the election and coming into power, carried out
+their campaign promises and pledged the faith of the country to the
+payment of the debt in coin or its equivalent.
+
+The income tax was a method of raising revenue which did not produce
+any considerable returns until after the war was over. Acts passed
+during the war had levied a tax on all incomes over six hundred dollars
+and had introduced progressively increasing rates on higher amounts.
+Incomes above $5,000, for example, were taxed ten per cent. The
+greatest number of people were reached and the largest returns obtained
+in 1866 when nearly half a million persons paid an aggregate of about
+seventy-three million dollars. The entire system was abolished in 1872.
+
+Aside from the tariff, the "legal-tender" notes gave rise to the
+greatest number of political and constitutional tangles. By acts of
+February 25, 1862 and later, Congress had provided for the issue of four
+hundred and fifty million dollars of United States paper notes, which
+were commonly known as greenbacks or legal-tenders. The latter name
+came from the fact that, under the law, the United States notes were
+legal tender for all debts, public or private, except customs duties
+and interest on the public debt. In other words, the law compelled
+creditors to receive the greenbacks in payment of all debts, with the
+two exceptions mentioned. Three main questions arose in connection with
+these issues of paper: whether Congress had power under the
+Constitution to make them legal tender; whether their volume should be
+allowed to remain at war magnitude, be somewhat contracted or entirely
+done away with; and whether the government should resume specie
+payments--that is, exchange gold for paper on the demand of holders of
+the latter.
+
+The first of these questions was twice decided in the Supreme Court. In
+1870, in Hepburn _v._ Griswold, the point at issue was whether the
+greenbacks could lawfully be offered to satisfy a debt contracted
+before the legal-tender act had been passed. As it happened, Salmon P.
+Chase, who had been Secretary of the Treasury during the war, was now
+Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and delivered its opinion. By a vote
+of four to three it decided that the greenbacks were not legal tender
+for contracts made previous to the passage of the law. At the time when
+the case was decided, however, there were two vacancies on the bench
+which were immediately filled, and shortly thereafter two new cases
+involving the legal-tender act were brought before the Court (Knox _v._
+Lee, and Parker _v._ Davis). The decision, which was announced in 1871,
+over-ruled the judgment in Hepburn _v._ Griswold and held by a vote of
+five to four that the legal-tender act was constitutional as applied to
+contracts made either before or after its passage.
+
+The second question relating to the greenbacks was that in regard to
+their volume. At first Congress adopted the policy of contraction and
+when greenbacks came into the treasury they were destroyed. As continued
+contraction tended to make the volume of currency smaller and to make
+money harder to get, and therefore, to raise its value, the debtor
+classes began to object. As early as 1865 there was strong sentiment
+against contraction and in favor of paying the public debt in paper.
+Economic distress in the West furthered the movement and some of the
+Republican leaders were doubtful of the wisdom of reducing the outstanding
+stock of paper. Contraction was stopped, therefore, in 1868, and only
+President Grant's veto in 1874 prevented an increase in the amount.
+Eventually, in 1878, the amount then in circulation--$346,681,000--was
+fixed by a law forbidding further contraction.[1]
+
+The western farmers, meanwhile, were feeling the pinch of falling
+prices. Believing that their ills were due to the scarcity of money,
+they opposed the policy of contraction and even launched the Greenback
+party to carry out their principles. In 1876 it polled 80,000 votes,
+and in 1878 at the time of the congressional elections over 1,000,000,
+but thereafter its strength rapidly declined. Neither the East nor the
+West understood the motives of the other in this controversy. Eastern
+congressmen considered western insistence upon a large volume of
+currency as a dishonest movement to reduce bond values by legislation.
+Such an action, they asserted, would do away with the national
+integrity. The people of the West thought of the eastern bondholders as
+"fat bullionists" who dined at costly restaurants on terrapin and
+Burgundy and paid for their luxuries with bonds whose values were
+raised by a contracted currency.
+
+The third question relating to the greenbacks was that of the
+resumption of specie payments. At the close of the war practically all
+the money in circulation was paper, which passed at a depreciated value
+because it was not redeemable in coin. The obvious thing was to resume
+the exchange of specie for paper and thus restore the latter to par
+value, but serious obstacles stood in the way. A money crisis in 1873
+aroused a clamor for larger supplies of paper; gold was hard to
+procure, as France and Germany were both accumulating a redemption fund
+and specie was actually flowing out of the country. Outside of the
+treasury there was little gold in the United States, the amount being
+less than one hundred million dollars as late as 1877. The friends of
+resumption could not be sure of the feasibility of their project, and
+the opponents were aggressive and numerous.
+
+In the elections of 1874 the Republicans were severely defeated, and it
+was seen that the Democrats would have a clear majority in the next
+House of Representatives. Hence the Republicans hurried through a
+resumption bill on January 14, 1875--a sort of deathbed act. It
+authorized the secretary of the treasury to raise gold for redemption
+purposes, and set January 1, 1879, as the date when resumption should
+take place. As in the case of the tariff, the political parties found
+difficulty in determining which side of the resumption question they
+desired to take. Although the Democratic platform of 1868 contained a
+greenback plank, yet some of its leaders opposed, and the state
+platforms of 1875 and 1876 demanded resumption. The national platform
+of the latter year both denounced the Republicans for not making
+progress toward resumption and demanded the repeal of the act of 1875,
+without disclosing whether the party was prepared to offer any
+improvements. In November, 1877, a bill practically repealing the
+resumption act passed the House--the western and southern Democrats
+furnishing most of the affirmative votes, assisted by twenty-seven
+Republicans. A resolution declaring it to be the opinion of Congress
+that United States bonds were payable in silver was introduced and
+advocated by many Republicans. On the other hand, eastern state
+Democratic and Republican platforms were much alike. Apparently,
+therefore, differences of opinion in regard to the greenbacks and
+resumption were caused as much by sectional as by party considerations.
+
+More lasting than finance as a political issue but less enduring than
+the tariff, was the reform of the civil service. In its widest sense,
+the term civil service included all non-military government officers
+from cabinet officials and supreme court judges to the humblest
+employee in the postal or naval service. The reform, however, was
+directed mainly toward the appointment and tenure of the lower
+officers. Before the Civil War the "spoils system" had been in full
+swing; appointments to positions had been frankly used as rewards for
+party activity; office-holders had been openly assessed a fraction of
+their salaries in order to fill the treasure chest at campaign times;
+rotation in office had been the rule. During the war, President Lincoln
+had found his ante-room filled with wrangling, importunate office-seekers
+who consumed time which he needed for the problems of the conflict. As
+he himself had expressed the situation, he was like a man who was
+letting offices in one end of his house while the other end was burning
+down. During the war, also, the patronage at the disposal of the
+government had vastly increased. Not only had the number of laborers,
+clerks and officials become greater, but numerous contracts had been
+let for the production of war materials, and manufacturers and merchants
+intrigued for a share of federal business. "Influence" and position had
+been more powerful than merit in procuring the favor of government
+officers.
+
+After the war many abuses that had earlier been overlooked began to
+attract the attention of a few thoughtful men. It was estimated that
+not more than one-half to three-fourths of the legitimate internal
+revenue was collected during Johnson's presidency, so corrupt and
+inefficient were the revenue collectors. Endless Indian troubles and
+countless losses of money resulted from the corruption of the federal
+Indian agents. Conditions were even worse during the Grant regime. The
+President's appointments were wretched; he placed his relatives in
+official positions; revenue frauds amounting to $75,000,000 were
+discovered during his second administration. In certain departments, it
+was customary, when vacancies occurred, to allow the salaries to
+"lapse"--that is, accumulate--so as to provide a fund to satisfy
+patronage seekers. In one case, thirty-five persons were put on the
+"lapse fund" for eight days at the end of a fiscal year, in order to
+"sop up" a little surplus which was in danger of being saved and
+returned to the treasury. One customs collector at the port of New York
+removed employees at an average rate of one every three days; another,
+three every four days; and another, three every five days, in order to
+provide places for party workers. One secretary in an important
+department of the government had seventeen clerks for whom he had no
+employment. The party assessments on officeholders became little short
+of outrageous. Two or three per cent. of the salary of the lower
+officers was called for, while the more important officials were
+expected to contribute much larger sums. In New York--for the system
+held in the states and cities--candidates for the mayoralty were
+reputed to pay $25,000 to $30,000; judges, $10,000 to $15,000; and
+representatives in Congress, $10,000. While these conditions were by no
+means wholly due to the spoils system, the method of appointment in the
+civil service made a bad matter worse.
+
+Conditions such as these could hardly fail to produce a reform
+movement. In fact, as far back as 1853 some elementary and ineffective
+legislation had attempted a partial remedy. The war gave added impetus
+to the movement and attention turned to the reform systems of Great
+Britain and other countries, where problems similar to ours had already
+been met and solved. The first American who really grasped civil
+service reform was Thomas A. Jenckes, a member of Congress from Rhode
+Island. He introduced reform bills in 1865 and later, based on studies
+of English practice and on correspondence with the leaders of reform
+there; but no legislation resulted. In brief, his plan provided for the
+appointment of employees in the public service on the basis of ability,
+determined by competitive examinations. After a time Jenckes and his
+associates achieved considerable success and finally interested
+President Grant in their project. In 1871 they got a rider attached to
+an appropriation bill which authorized the chief executive to prescribe
+rules for the admission of persons into the civil service and allowed
+him to appoint a commission to put the act into effect. George William
+Curtis, a well-known reformer, was made chairman, and rules were
+formulated which were applied to the departments at Washington and to
+federal offices in New York. Grant, although favorable to the reform,
+was not enthusiastic about it, and soon made an appointment which was
+so offensive that Curtis resigned. Congress, nothing loath, refused to
+continue the necessary appropriations and the reform project continued
+in a state of suspended animation until the inauguration of President
+Hayes.
+
+The human elements in the struggle for civil service reform, both
+during the decade after the war and for many years later, are necessary
+for an understanding of the course of the controversy and its outcome.
+These elements included the advocates of the patronage system, the
+reformers and the president.
+
+Sometimes the advocates of the patronage system viewed the reform with
+contempt. Roscoe Conkling, for example, expressed his sentiments in the
+remark, "When Dr. Johnson said that patriotism was the last refuge of
+the scoundrel he ignored the enormous possibilities of the word
+reform!" Sometimes they attempted to discredit the project by an
+exaggeration of its effects, as when John A. Logan declared that he saw
+in it a life-tenure and an aristocratic caste. "It will not be apparent
+how great is its enormity," he declared in Congress, "how vicious are
+its practices and how poisonous are its influences until we are too far
+encircled by its coils to shake them off." The strength of the
+exponents of the patronage system, however, lay not in their capacity
+for contempt and ridicule, but in a theory of government that was
+founded upon certain very definite human characteristics. The theory
+may be clearly seen in the _Autobiography_ of Thomas C. Platt, a
+colleague of Conkling in the Senate and for many years the boss of New
+York state. It may be expressed somewhat as follows.
+
+In the field of actual politics, parties are a necessity and
+organization is essential. It is the duty of the citizen, therefore, to
+support the party that stands for right policies and to adhere closely
+to its official organization. Loyalty should be rewarded by appointment
+to positions within the gift of the party; and disloyalty should be
+looked upon as political treason. One who votes for anybody except the
+organization candidate feels himself superior to his party, is
+faithless to the great ideal and is only a little less despicable than
+he who, having been elected to an office through the energy and
+devotion of the party workers, is then so ungrateful as to refuse to
+appoint the workers to positions within his gift. Positions constitute
+the cohesive force that holds the organization intact.
+
+The second of the human elements, the reform group, was led by such men
+as George William Curtis, Dorman B. Eaton and Carl Schurz, with the
+support of periodicals like _Harper's Weekly_ and _The Nation_. The
+career and character of Curtis is typical at once of the strength and
+the weakness of the group. As a young man Curtis had intended to enter
+a business career, but finding it unsuited to his tastes he had
+abandoned his ambition, spent some years in European travel and then
+devoted himself to literary work, first on _Harper's Magazine_ and
+afterwards, for many years, as editor of _Harper's Weekly_. He had
+early interested himself in politics, had been in the convention which
+nominated Lincoln, had taken part in numerous state and national
+political conferences and conventions, was president of the
+Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and chancellor of the University
+of the State of New York. For many years, during the period when civil
+service reform was making its fight for recognition, Curtis was the
+president and one of the moving spirits of the National Civil Service
+Reform League. In politics he was an independent Republican. Although
+of the intellectual class, like the other prominent leaders of the
+reform movement, he was a man of practical political ability, not a
+mere observer of politics, so that he and his associates made up in
+capacity and influence what they lacked in breadth of appeal. Some of
+the leaders were patient men who expected that results would come
+slowly and who were ready to accept half a loaf of reform rather than
+no loaf at all, but there were also such impatient critics as E.L.
+Godkin who put so much emphasis on the failures of the reformers as to
+overshadow their positive achievements. Moreover, there were the
+well-meaning but impracticable people who constituted what Theodore
+Roosevelt once called the "lunatic fringe" of reform movements.
+
+The attitude of the exponents of the patronage system toward the
+reformers was one of undisguised contempt. In a famous speech delivered
+at a New York state convention in Rochester in September, 1877,
+Conkling poured his scorn on the reform element in general and on
+Curtis in particular, as "man-milliners," "carpet-knights of politics,"
+"grasshoppers in the corner of a fence," and disciples of ladies'
+magazines with their "rancid, canting self-righteousness."
+
+The third personal element in the reform controversy was the chief
+executive. Beginning with Grant, if not with Lincoln, the presidents
+were favorable to the progress of reform, but they were surrounded by
+circumstances that made vigorous action a difficult matter. The task of
+distributing the patronage was a burden from which they would have been
+glad to be relieved, yet the demands of the party organization were
+insistent,--and to turn a constantly deaf ear to them would have been
+to court political disaster. The executive was always in the position
+of desiring to further an ideal and being obliged to face the hard
+facts of politics. The progress which he made, therefore, depended on
+how resolutely he could press forward his ideal in the face of
+continued opposition. A great difficulty lay in getting subordinates-in
+the cabinet, for example-who were in sympathy with progress, and
+sometimes even the vice-presidential nomination was given to the
+patronage element in the party in order to placate that faction, while
+the presidential nominee was disposed to reform.
+
+Public opinion was slow in forming and was lacking in the means of
+definite expression. For many years after the war there was widespread
+fear that the installation of a Democratic president would result in
+the wholesale debauch of the offices, and sober northerners believed,
+or thought they believed, that "rebels" would again be in power if a
+Democrat were elected. Under such conditions and because the offices
+were already filled with Republicans, the Republican North was willing
+to leave things as they were.
+
+The party pronouncements on civil service reform were as evasive as
+they were on finance and the tariff. To be surer the Liberal
+Republicans in 1872 sincerely desired reform and made it the subject of
+a definite plank in their platform, but the wing of the Democratic
+party that refused to ally with them was silent on the civil service,
+and the "straight" Republicans advocated reform in doubtful and
+unconvincing terms. In 1876 both party platforms were even more vague,
+although Hayes himself was openly committed to the improvement of the
+service.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The best work on the tariff is F.W. Taussig, _Tariff History of the
+United States_ (6th ed., 1914), a scholarly and non-partisan account,
+although giving slight attention to legislative history; Ida M.
+Tarbell, _Tariff in Our Times_ (1911), emphasizes the personal and
+social sides of tariff history and is hostile to protection; Edward
+Stanwood, _American Tariff Controversies_ (2 vols., 1903), devotes
+considerable attention to the historical setting and legislative
+history of tariff acts, and is distinctly friendly to protection.
+
+The most useful single volume on financial history is D.R. Dewey,
+_Financial History of the United States_ (5th ed., 1915), which is
+concise, accurate and equipped with full bibliographies; A.B. Hepburn,
+_History of Currency in the United States_ (1915), is by an expert;
+A.D. Noyes, _Forty Years of American Finance_ (1909), continues the
+same author's _Thirty Years_ and is reliable; T.B. Burton, _John
+Sherman_ (1906), is useful here. The legal-tender decisions are in J.W.
+Wallace, _Cases argued and adjudged in the Supreme Court_, VIII, 603,
+and XII, 457.
+
+The standard work on the civil service is C.R. Fish, _The Civil Service
+and the Patronage_ (1905); the reports of the Civil Service Commission,
+especially the Fourth Report, are essential; the articles by D.B. Eaton
+in J.J. Lalor, _Cyclopaedia of Political Science_ (3 vols., 1893), are
+justly well-known; G.W. Curtis, _Orations and Addresses_ (2 vols.,
+1894), and Edward Cary, _George William Curtis_ (1894), are excellent.
+The politician's side may be found in A.R. Conkling, _Life and Letters
+of Roscoe Conkling_ (1889), and T.C. Platt, _Autobiography_ (1910).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] This is the amount still outstanding.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+THE ADMINISTRATION OF RUTHERFORD B. HAYES
+
+The conditions which confronted President Hayes when the final decision
+of the Electoral Commission placed him in the executive chair did not
+make it probable that he could carry out a program of positive
+achievement. The withdrawal of troops from the South had been almost
+completed, but the process of reconstruction had been so dominated by
+suspicion, ignorance and vindictiveness that sectional hostility was
+still acute. As has been seen, the economic problems which faced the
+country were for the most part unsolved; on the subjects of tariff,
+finance and the civil service, neither party was prepared to present a
+united front; and the lack of foresight and statesmanlike leadership in
+the parties had given selfish interests an opportunity to seize control.
+Nor did the circumstances surrounding the election of Hayes tend to
+simplify his task, for the disappointment of the Democrats was extreme,
+and they found a natural difficulty in adjusting themselves to the
+decision against Tilden. Democratic newspapers dubbed Hayes "His
+Fraudulency" and "The Boss Thief," printed his picture with "Fraud"
+printed across his brow and referred to his election as the "steal" and
+a "political crime."
+
+The man who was to essay leadership under such conditions had back of
+him a useful even if not brilliant career. He had been born in Ohio in
+1822, had graduated from Kenyon College as valedictorian of his class,
+attended Harvard Law School and served on the Union side during the war,
+retiring with the rank of a brevet Major General. He had been twice
+elected to Congress, but had resigned after his second election to
+become governor of his native state, a position which he had filled for
+three terms.
+
+Hayes was a man of the substantial, conscientious and hard-working type.
+He was not brilliant or magnetic, he originated no innovations, burst
+into no flights of imaginative oratory. His state papers were planned
+with painstaking care--first, frequently, jotted down in his diary and
+then elaborated, revised, recopied and revised again. The vivid
+imagination and high-strung emotions that made Clay and Blaine great
+campaigners were lacking in Hayes. He was gentle, dignified, simple,
+systematic, thoughtful, serene, correct. In making his judgments on
+public questions he was sensitive to moral forces. The emancipation of
+the slaves was not merely wise and just to him--it was "Providential."
+He favored a single six-year term for the President because it would
+safeguard him from selfish scheming for another period of power. Partly
+because of the lack of dash and compelling force in Hayes, but more
+because of the low standards of political action which were common at
+the time, his scruples seemed puritanical and were held up to ridicule
+as the milk-and-water and "old-Woman" policies of "Granny Hayes." His
+public, as well as-his private life, was unimpeached in a time when
+lofty principles were not common and when scandal attached itself to
+public officers of every grade. To his probity and the "safe" character
+of his views, as well as to his record as governor of an important
+state, was due his elevation to the presidency.[1] In his habit of
+self-analysis, Hayes was reminiscent of John Quincy Adams. Like Adams he
+kept a diary from his early youth, the serious and mature entries in
+which cause the reader to wonder whether Hayes ever had a childhood.
+When he had just passed his twentieth birthday he confided to his diary
+that he found himself unsatisfied with his progress in Blackstone, that
+he must curb his "propensity" to read newspapers to the exclusion of
+more substantial matter, and in general that he was "greatly deficient
+in many particulars." Then and in later years he noted hostile
+criticisms of himself and combated them, recorded remarks that he had
+heard, propounded questions for future thought, expressed a modest
+ambition or admitted a curbed elation over success.
+
+In the field of politics Hayes was looked upon as a reliable party man,
+a reputation which was justified by his rigid adherence to his party and
+by his attitude toward the opposition. In both these respects he was the
+ordinary partisan. Nevertheless he thought out his views with unusual
+care, made them a matter of conscience and measured policies by ethical
+standards that were more exacting than the usual politician of the time
+was accustomed to exercise. The only remark of his that gained wide
+circulation reflects his type of partisanship: "he serves his party best
+who serves his country best." In these latter respects--his
+thoughtfulness, conscientiousness, exacting standards of conduct and
+less narrowly partisan spirit--he formed a contrast to the most
+influential leaders of his party organization. Altogether it seemed
+likely at the start that Hayes might have friction with the Republican
+chiefs.
+
+The opening of the administration found public interest centered on the
+inaugural address and the Cabinet.[2] The inaugural set forth with
+clearness and dignity the problems which the administration desired to
+solve: the removal of the barriers between the sections on the basis of
+the acceptance of the war amendments, southern self-government and the
+material development of the South; reform in the civil service,
+thorough, radical and complete; and the resumption of specie payments.
+To the choice of a cabinet, Hayes devoted much painstaking care. For
+Secretary of State, he nominated William M. Evarts of New York, an
+eminent lawyer who had aided Charles Francis Adams in his diplomatic
+battle with England during the Civil War and later in the Geneva
+Arbitration, had shown wit and finesse in the defence of Andrew Johnson
+in the impeachment trial, and had valiantly assisted the Republican
+cause before the Electoral Commission. In addition, Evarts was a man of
+the world who knew how to make the most of social occasions and was an
+orator of reputation. The Secretary of the Treasury was John Sherman of
+Ohio, who had been for years chairman of the finance committee of the
+Senate, and was an example of the more statesmanlike type of senator of
+war and reconstruction times.
+
+The nomination of Carl Schurz, as Secretary of the Interior, and David
+M. Key, as Postmaster-General, caused an uproar among the party leaders.
+Schurz was a cosmopolitan, a German-American, a scholar, orator, veteran
+of the Civil War, friend of Lincoln, and independent thinker. His
+devotion to the cause of civil service reform recommended him to the
+friendship of the President and to the enmity of the political leaders.
+The politicians scored Schurz as not a trustworthy Republican--he was
+independent by nature and had been a leader in the Liberal Republican
+movement; and they denounced him as an impractical man, whose head was
+full of transcendental theories--which was a method of saying that he
+was a civil service reformer. No little excitement was occasioned by the
+appointment of Key. The President had desired to appoint to the cabinet
+a southerner of influence, and had thought of Joseph E. Johnston as
+Secretary of War. The choice of General Johnston would have been an act
+of great magnanimity, but since General Sherman, to whom Johnston had
+surrendered only twelve years before, was commander of the army, it
+would have placed Sherman in the singular position of taking military
+orders from a former leading "rebel." When Hayes consulted his party
+associates, however, he found their feelings expressed in the
+exclamation of one of them: "Great God! Governor, I hope you are not
+thinking of doing anything of that kind!" He thereupon reluctantly gave
+way and turned to Key. The latter was less prominent than Johnston, but
+had been a Confederate leader, was a Democrat and a man of moderate
+counsels. The remaining members of the cabinet were men of much less
+moment, but altogether it is clear that few presidents have been
+surrounded by so able a group of advisers.[3]
+
+Seldom, also, has a president's announcement of his cabinet caused so
+much dissent among his own supporters. Senator Cameron, of Pennsylvania,
+had urged a cabinet appointment for his son, and on being refused became
+hostile to Hayes. Senator Blaine, of Maine, was piqued because Hayes
+refused to offer a place to a Maine man; the friends of General John A.
+Logan, of Illinois, were dissatisfied at the failure of Hayes to
+understand the qualifications of their favorite; Conkling disliked
+Evarts and besides desired a place for his associate Thomas C. Platt;
+and the latter considered the nomination of Evarts a "straight-arm" blow
+at the Republican organization. Departing, therefore, from the custom in
+such cases, the Senate withheld confirmation of the nominations for
+several days, during which it became apparent that the rest of the
+country had received the announcement of the cabinet with favor, and
+then the opposition disappeared. During the remainder of his presidency,
+however, Hayes fared badly in making his nominations to office, for
+fifty-one of them were rejected outright, a larger number than had ever
+before been disagreed to when the President and the Senate were of the
+same party. The frequency with which the nominations were rejected and
+the combative manner in which the contests were carried on by the Senate
+indicated that it was determined to regain and hold fast the influence
+in federal counsels that it had relinquished to the executive during the
+war.
+
+Aside from the nomination of members of the cabinet, the first important
+executive action that tested the attitude of the Senate toward the
+President was in relation to the southern problem. By March, 1877, all
+the former Confederate states except Louisiana and South Carolina had
+freed themselves from Republican rule by the methods already mentioned,
+and in these states the Republicans were kept in power only by the
+presence of troops. In Louisiana, both Packard, a Republican
+carpet-bagger, and Nicholls, a Louisiana Democrat, claimed to be the
+rightful governor. In South Carolina, the Republican contestant was
+Chamberlain, a native of Massachusetts; the Democrat was Wade Hampton, a
+typical old-time southerner. Hayes could withdraw the troops, in
+pursuance of his conciliatory policy, but if he did the Republican
+governments would certainly collapse because they were unsupported by
+public opinion. Furthermore, the returning board which had declared
+Hayes the choice of Louisiana in the presidential election had asserted
+that the Republican Packard was elected. Blaine, in the Senate,
+championed the doctrine that Hayes could not forsake the southern
+Republicans without invalidating his own title. Speaking in a confident
+and aggressive manner, he held that the honor, faith and credit of the
+party bound it to uphold the Republican claimants. Nevertheless, the
+President investigated conditions in both states, satisfied himself that
+public opinion was back of the Democratic governments and then recalled
+the troops, hardly more than a month after his inauguration. The
+Republican governments in the two states promptly gave way to the
+Democrats, and the storm was on in the Senate.[4]
+
+The Republican politicians believed that no good thing could come from
+the "rebels," that the President was abandoning the negro, and that he
+was surrendering the principles for which the party had contended.
+"Stalwarts," was the name applied by Blaine to these uncompromising
+party men who would not relinquish the grip of the organization on the
+southern states. Hayes was freely charged with having promised the
+removal of the military forces in return for the electoral votes of the
+two states concerned, and some color seemed to be lent to this
+accusation when he proceeded to reward the Louisiana and Florida
+returning boards with appointments to office. Even the New York _Times_,
+which usually supported Hayes with vigor, characterized the Louisiana
+settlement as "a surrender." William E. Chandler who had assisted Hayes
+as counsel in the disputed election attacked him in a pamphlet, "Can
+such Things be and overcome us like a Summer Cloud without our Special
+Wonder?" Most of the influential leaders in both houses of Congress
+scarcely disguised their hostility. Indeed the discontent went back into
+the states where, as in New Hampshire, a contest over the endorsement of
+Hayes was so bitter that the newspaper reporters had to be excluded from
+the state convention to prevent public reports of schism in the party.
+The Democrats could not come to his support since they were unable to
+forget the election of 1876 even in their satisfaction over the
+treatment accorded the South. In six weeks the President was without the
+backing of most of his party leaders. On the other hand, a few men of
+the type represented by Hoar and Sherman commended the President's
+policy. Independent publications such as _Harper's Weekly_ did likewise,
+and when the Republican convention of 1880 drew up the party platform
+the leaders made a virtue of necessity and adopted a plank
+enthusiastically supporting the Hayes administration.
+
+After he had finished with the southern problem, Hayes confided to his
+diary, "Now for civil service reform!" And for appointments in general
+he recorded several principles: no sweeping changes; recommendations by
+congressmen to be investigated--not merely accepted; and no relatives of
+himself or his wife to be appointed, however good their qualifications
+might be. In the meanwhile Secretary Schurz set to work to put the
+Department of the Interior on a merit basis. The principles that Hayes
+set up for himself and the steps that Schurz took were in conformity
+with the party platform of 1876 and with the President's inaugural
+address; nevertheless the party leaders were displeased, if not
+surprised, for platform promises were lightly regarded and inaugural
+addresses were sometimes not to be taken very seriously.
+
+The earliest acts of Hayes were not such as to facilitate the further
+progress of reform. The appointment of the members of the Louisiana
+Returning Board to federal offices gave color to charges that they were
+receiving their reward for assisting the President into his position.
+Furthermore, on June 22, 1877, he issued an executive order forbidding
+any United States officials to take part in the management of political
+organizations and declaring that political assessments on federal
+officers would not be allowed. So drastic an order brought amazement to
+the party leaders, who had not dreamed of anything so radical. Perhaps
+the order was too sudden and sweeping, considering the practices of the
+time. At any rate it was not enforced and the President seemed to have
+set a standard to which he had not the courage to adhere. Nevertheless,
+reform principles were successfully tested in the New York Post Office
+by Thomas L. James, a vigorous exponent of the merit system who had been
+appointed by President Grant and was now re-appointed and upheld by
+President Hayes.
+
+But the great battle for the new idea came in connection with the New
+York Custom House. Through the port of New York came two-thirds to
+three-fourths of the goods which were imported into this country, and
+the necessity for a businesslike conduct of the custom house seemed
+obvious. Yet there had for some time been complaints concerning the
+service, and Sherman appointed commissions, with the approval of the
+President, to investigate conditions in New York and elsewhere. The
+commission which studied the situation in New York reported that
+one-fifth of the persons employed there were superfluous, that
+inefficiency and neglect of duty were common, and that the positions at
+the disposal of the collector had for years been used for the reward of
+party activity. The commission recommended sweeping changes which
+Secretary Sherman and President Hayes approved. It then appeared that
+the New York officials were not favorable to the President's reform
+plans. Furthermore, Chester A. Arthur, the collector of the port, was a
+close friend of Roscoe Conkling, the head of the state machine; and A.B.
+Cornell, the naval officer, was chairman of the state and national
+Republican committees; It was evident that an attempt to change
+conditions in New York would precipitate a test of strength between the
+administration and the New York organization.
+
+As Arthur and Cornell would not further the desired reforms and would
+not resign, the President removed them. When he nominated their
+successors, however, the Senate, led by Conkling, refused to add its
+confirmation and there the matter rested for some months. Eventually the
+President's nominations were confirmed, an outcome which seems to have
+been brought about in part at least by letters from. Secretary Sherman
+to personal friends in the Senate in which he urgently pressed the case
+of the administration. The President's victory emphasized the
+disagreement of the powerful state organization with the reform idea,
+and while the reformers rejoiced that the warfare had been carried into
+the enemy's country, newspaper opinion varied between the view that the
+President was playing politics and that he was actuated by the highest
+motives only. Agitation for reform, meanwhile, continued to increase.
+The literary men among the reformers, aided by scores of lesser lights,
+conducted a campaign of education; the New York Civil Service Reform
+Association, founded in 1877, and the National Civil Service Reform
+League, in 1881, gave evidence of an effort towards the organization of
+reform sentiment.
+
+While the attention of the President and the politicians was directed
+toward the reform of the civil service, there occurred an event for
+which none of them was prepared. Early in the summer of 1877 train hands
+on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad struck because of a reduction in
+wages, the fourth cut that they had suffered in seven years. The strike
+spread with the speed of a prairie fire over most of the northern roads
+between New England and the Mississippi. At the height of the
+controversy at least 100,000 strikers and six or seven thousand miles of
+railway were involved, while at several points especially Martinsburg,
+West Virginia, and Pittsburg, rioting and destruction took place. A
+considerable number of people were killed or wounded, and the loss of
+property in Pittsburg alone was estimated at five to ten millions of
+dollars. Eventually, when the state militia failed to check the
+disorder, the President was called upon for federal troops and these
+proved effectual. That even so thoughtful and conscientious a man as
+Hayes was far from understanding the meaning of the strike was indicated
+in his message to Congress in which he merely expressed his
+gratification that the troops had been able to repress the disorder.
+Repression, that is to say, was the one resource that occurred to the
+mind of the chief executive and to the majority of the men of his day.
+That repression alone could not remedy evils permanently, that salutary
+force ought to be immediately supplemented by a study of the rights and
+wrongs of the two sides and by a dispassionate correction of
+abuses,--all this did not even remotely occur to the thoughts of the
+political leaders of the time.
+
+The breach in the ranks of the Republicans which was made by the events
+of the early days of the Hayes administration was closed in the face of
+an attack by the common enemy--the Democrats. The latter, being in
+control of the House, appointed the "Potter Committee" to investigate
+the title of Hayes to the Presidency, hoping to discredit him and
+thereby turn the tables in the election of 1880. The committee examined
+witnesses and reported, the Democrats asserting that Tilden had been
+elected and the Republicans that Hayes had been. The Republican Senate,
+meanwhile, had prepared a counterblast. By legal proceedings a committee
+had obtained from the Western Union Telegraph Company over thirty
+thousand of the telegrams sent by both parties during the campaign. The
+Republicans declared that the "cipher despatches" among these messages
+showed that the Democrats had offered a substantial bribe for the vote
+of an Oregon Republican elector. Before the dispatches were returned to
+the telegraph company, somebody took the precaution to destroy those
+that concerned Republican campaign methods and to retain those relating
+to the Democrats. The latter were published by the New York _Tribune_
+and revealed attempts to bribe the Florida and South Carolina Returning
+Boards. Most of them had been sent by Tilden's nephew or received by
+him, so that the corrupt trail seemed to lead straight to the candidate
+himself, but the evidence was inconclusive. The Potter Committee then
+investigated the telegrams, together with a great number of witnesses,
+and another partisan report resulted. It thus appeared that both pot and
+kettle were black and there the matter rested. The Democrats had done
+themselves no good and had done the Republicans no harm.[5]
+
+The Democrats also attacked the election laws, under which federal
+officials supervised elections, and federal judges and marshals had
+jurisdiction over cases concerning the suffrage. Under these laws, also,
+troops could be used to enforce the judgments of the Courts. There is no
+doubt that intimidation, unfair practices and bribery were all too
+common in the North as well as in the South. The lack of official
+ballots and secret voting made abuses inevitable. In New York,
+Cincinnati and other northern cities, and on a smaller scale in the
+rural districts, abuses of one sort or another were normal
+accompaniments of elections. Intimidation in the South was notorious and
+not denied. The existing election laws gave the dominant party an
+opportunity to appoint large numbers of deputy-marshals--largely party
+workers, of course-paying them from the national treasury and so
+solidifying the party organization. In the election of 1876 about
+$275,000 had been spent in this way. Some of the federal supervisors had
+been extremely energetic--so much so that in one case in Louisiana their
+registration lists showed 8,000 more colored voters in 1876 than were
+discovered by the census enumerators four years later.
+
+If the Republicans saw involved in the laws both a principle and a party
+weapon, the Democrats saw both a principle and an opportunity. They
+attached a "rider" to an army appropriation bill, which made it unlawful
+to use any part of the army for any other than the purposes expressly
+authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress. Since the
+Constitution allowed the use of troops only to "execute the laws of the
+Union, to suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions," the new law would
+prevent the employment of armed forces for civil purposes at the polling
+places. The President was compelled to yield to save the appropriation
+bill.
+
+In the next Congress the Democrats controlled both House and Senate and
+they advanced to the attack on the remainder of the election laws.
+Attempts were made to prevent the appointment of special deputy-marshals
+by forbidding the payment of any compensation to them or to the regular
+marshals when used in elections. Each time that Congress passed such a
+law the President vetoed it, even though special sessions had to be
+called to make up for lost time. He saw in the use of the rider a
+dangerous assertion of coercive power on the part of Congress. By means
+of it, Congress was withholding funds essential for military and civil
+purposes until the President should assent to legislation totally
+unconnected with the appropriations. He felt himself being threatened
+and driven by a hostile legislature. For the President to give way
+before such constraint would be to lose the veto power and to destroy
+the independence of the executive as a branch of the government. The
+Democrats were unable to muster force enough to overrule the veto, and
+here the matter rested while other forces, which have already been
+described, were sapping the strength of the election laws. On the whole,
+the result was probably to bring the Republican factions together and so
+to strengthen the party for the election of 1880. The Democrats, on the
+other hand, probably lost ground.
+
+In the meanwhile a difficult and technical problem--the monetary
+question--was forcing itself upon the attention of Congress and of the
+country. The rapid development of the economic life of the United States
+was demanding an increased volume of currency with which to perform the
+multitude of exchanges which constantly take place in the life of an
+industrial people. Unless the volume of the currency expanded
+proportionately with the increase of business, or there was a
+corresponding increase in the use of bank checks, the demand for money
+would cause its value to go up--that is, prices to go down. If the
+volume expanded more rapidly than was necessitated by business, the
+value of money would fall and prices would go up. A change in the price
+level in either direction, as has been seen, would harm important groups
+of people. The exact amount, however, by which the volume should be
+increased was not easy to determine. Furthermore, assuming that both
+gold and silver should be coined, what amount of each would constitute
+the most desirable combination? What ought to be the weight of the
+coins? If paper currency was to supplement the precious metals, what
+amount of it should be in circulation? These are difficult questions
+under any circumstances. They did not become less so when answered by a
+bulky and uninformed Congress acting under the influence of definite
+personal, sectional and property interests.
+
+Several facts tended to restrict the kind of money whose volume could be
+greatly increased. It was not advisable to expand the greenbacks because
+legislation had already limited their amount and because such action
+would unfavorably affect the approaching resumption of specie payments.
+The quantity of national bank notes, another common form of paper money,
+was somewhat rigidly determined by the amount of federal bonds
+outstanding, for the national bank notes were issued upon the federal
+bonds as security. Moreover, the bonds were being rapidly paid off
+during the seventies and it was, therefore, impossible to expect any
+increase of the currency from this source. Normally the supply of gold
+available for coinage did not vary greatly from year to year and
+certainly did not respond with exactness to the demand of industry for a
+greater or smaller volume of circulating medium. It seemed to remain for
+silver to supply any needed increase.
+
+But silver was not in common use except as a subsidiary coin. For many
+years the value of the bullion necessary for coining a silver dollar had
+been greater than the value of the coin. Nobody therefore brought his
+silver to the mint but sold it instead in the commercial markets. Indeed
+so insignificant was the amount of silver usually coined into dollars
+that an act of 1873 systematizing the coinage laws had omitted the
+silver dollar completely from the list of coins. The omission was later
+referred to by the friends of silver currency as the "Crime of 1873." At
+the same time a remarkable coincidence was providing the motive power
+for the demand that silver be more largely used as currency. Early in
+the seventies Germany and the Latin Monetary Union, (France,
+Switzerland, Belgium, Italy and Greece), had reduced the amount of their
+silver coinage, thus throwing a large supply of bullion on the market.
+Simultaneously, enlarged supplies of silver were being found in western
+United States. A Nevada mine, for example, which had produced six
+hundred and forty-five thousand dollars' worth of ore in 1873 had turned
+out nearly twenty-five times that amount two years later. Naturally the
+market price of silver fell and the mine owners began to seek an outlet
+for their product. Thus the people who were convinced that the volume of
+the currency was insufficient for the industrial demands of the nation
+received a new and powerful reenforcement from the producers of silver
+ore. There arose what the New York _Tribune_ referred to as "The Cloud
+in the West."
+
+Inevitably the cloud in the West threw its shadow into Congress where
+the demand was insistent that the government "do something for silver."
+A commission had been appointed in 1876 to study the currency problem
+and make recommendations. When the report was made it appeared that the
+opinions of the members were so divergent that little was gained from
+the investigation. While the commission was deliberating, Richard P.
+Bland of Missouri introduced a bill providing for the free and unlimited
+coinage of silver. Under its provisions the owner of silver bullion
+could present any quantity of his commodity to the government to be
+coined under the conditions which controlled the coinage of gold. The
+House responded readily to Bland's proposal. In the Senate, under the
+leadership of William B. Allison, the free and unlimited feature of the
+bill was dropped and a provision adopted limiting the purchase of
+bullion to an amount not greater than four million dollars' worth per
+month and not less than two million dollars' worth. The bullion so
+obtained was to be coined into silver dollars, which were to be legal
+tender for all debts public and private. Bland was ready to accept the
+compromise because he hoped to be able to increase the use of silver by
+subsequent legislation. "If we cannot do that," he said, "I am in favor
+of issuing paper money enough to stuff down the bond-holders until they
+are sick." The remark was typical of the sectional and class hatreds and
+misunderstandings which this debate aroused, and of the maze of
+ignorance in which both sides were groping. To the silver faction, their
+opponents were "mendacious hirelings" and "Gilded Shylocks." God, in His
+infinite wisdom had imbedded silver in the western mountains for a
+beneficent purpose. "The country," said one speaker, "is in an agony of
+business distress and looks for some relief by a gradual increase of the
+currency." On the other hand, the opponents of silver scorned the
+"delusion" of a "clipped" coin and the dishonest proposition to make
+ninety cents' worth of silver pass as a dollar. The "storm-driven,
+buffeted, and scarred" ship of industrial peace, an easterner declared,
+"deeply laden with all precious and golden treasure is sighted in the
+offing!... shall we put out the lights?... Dare we remove the ship's
+helm, leaving her crippled and helpless!"
+
+Sherman believed that this limited amount of silver could be taken into
+the currency system without difficulty, but President Hayes thought that
+harm would result from making the silver dollar a legal tender when the
+market value of the bullion in the coin was not equal in value to that
+of the gold dollar. He therefore vetoed the bill on February 28, 1878.
+He could not carry Congress with him, however, and the measure was
+passed over the veto on the same day.
+
+Party lines had disappeared during the debates over the passage of the
+act. Eastern members of both houses and of both parties had been
+opposed, with few exceptions, to the increased use of silver; the
+westerners had been equally united in its favor. The East, the creditor
+section and the holder of most of the Civil War bonds, had no desire to
+try an experiment with the currency which would, in their opinion,
+reduce the purchasing power of their income. The debtor West looked with
+disfavor upon an increase in the real amount of their debts which was
+brought about by an inadequate supply of currency. Since prices
+continued to decline they believed that the remedy was a greater
+quantity of money. Evidently the greenback controversy was reviving in a
+new garb.
+
+The approach of the resumption of specie payments which had been set, it
+will be remembered, for January 1, 1879, increased the burden under
+which the westerners and the debtor classes in general were working.
+Favorable commercial conditions and Sherman's foresight, tact and
+intelligence made it possible to overcome the various difficulties in
+the way of accumulating a sufficient reserve of gold, and on December
+31, 1878, the Treasury had on hand about $140,000,000 of the precious
+metal, an amount nearly equal to forty per cent. of the paper in
+circulation. Despite the desirability of resumption, the first effects
+of preparations for it were harmful to considerable bodies of people. As
+January 1 approached, the greenbacks, which had been circulating at a
+depreciated value, rose nearer and nearer to par. Debts which had been
+incurred when paper dollars were worth sixty cents in gold, had to be
+paid in dollars worth eighty, ninety or a hundred cents, according to
+the date when the debt fell due. Business men who were heavily in debt
+and farmers whose property was mortgaged found their burden daily
+growing in size.
+
+Notwithstanding the steady advance of paper toward par value, Sherman
+nervously awaited business hours on January 2, 1879, (since the first
+fell on Sunday) to see whether there would be such a rush of holders of
+paper who would wish gold that his slender stock would be wiped out. New
+York, the financial center, was watched with especial anxiety. To
+Sherman's surprise, only $135,000 of paper was presented for redemption
+in gold; to his amazement and relief, $400,000 in gold was presented in
+exchange for paper. Evidently, now that paper and metal were
+interchangeable, people preferred the lighter and more convenient
+medium. Favorable business conditions enabled the government to continue
+specie payments; a huge grain crop in 1879, coupled with crop failures
+in England, caused unprecedented exports of wheat, corn and other
+products, and a corresponding importation of gold. The damage resulting
+from the appreciation of paper was temporary in character; the public
+credit was vastly benefited; and the greater amount of stability in the
+value of paper proved invaluable to industry.
+
+Happily Hayes's stormy political relations were balanced by comparative
+quiet in foreign affairs. Only Mexico caused trouble, and that was of
+negligible importance. A few raiders made sporadic excursions into
+Texas, which necessitated an expedition for the punishment of the
+marauders. General Ord was directed to cross the border if necessary,
+but General Diaz, at the head of the Mexican government, concluded an
+agreement for cooperation with the United States in the protection of
+the boundary. The agreement was only partly successful, however, and on
+several occasions troops crossed the Rio Grande and fought with bandits.
+
+On the Pacific Coast, meanwhile, the Chinese question was becoming a
+political issue. In earlier times the immigration of the Chinese had
+been encouraged because of the need of a cheap labor supply when the
+transcontinental railroads were being built. As the coast filled up,
+however, with native population, and the demand for laborers fell off,
+there arose numerous objections to the oriental. It was seen that since
+he was willing to work for extremely low wages he could drive American
+laborers out of their places. Labor leaders such as Dennis Kearney held
+meetings on the "sand lots" in San Francisco and aroused anti-Chinese
+feeling. Riots and violence, even, were not unknown.
+
+Just before the inauguration of President Hayes a commission of inquiry
+had visited the coast and examined many witnesses. The commission
+reported that the resources of the Pacific states had been more rapidly
+developed with coolie labor than they would otherwise have been, but
+that the Chinese lived under filthy conditions, formed an inferior
+foreign element and were, on the whole, undesirable. It recommended that
+the executive take steps in the direction of a modification of the
+existing treaty with China, for fear that the problem might spread
+eastward with increasing immigration. The electioneering possibilities
+of the subject had appealed to both parties and they had earnestly
+demanded action in their platforms of 1876. Opinion was forming
+throughout the country, aided by Bret Harte's famous lines:
+
+    Which I wish to remark
+    And my language is plain,
+    That for ways that are dark
+    And tricks that are vain,
+    The heathen Chinee is peculiar
+    Which the same I would rise to explain.
+
+Action by Congress was hindered by the Burlingame treaty of 1868 with
+China, which covered the subject of immigration in unmistakable
+language. By its provisions citizens of China were to have the same
+rights of travel and residence in America as the subjects of the most
+favored nation. Reciprocally, China was to grant equal privileges to
+citizens of the United States. The process of modifying a treaty through
+the ordinary diplomatic channels was so slow that Congress sought to
+avoid delay by passing a law forbidding shipmasters to bring in more
+than fifteen Chinese at one time, and calling upon the President to
+notify China that the terms of the Burlingame treaty, in so far as they
+related to immigration, would not hold after July 1, 1879, when the
+proposed legislation would take effect. President Hayes sympathized with
+the purpose of the bill but felt obliged to veto it because of the
+Burlingame treaty. The veto message recalled that the treaty had been of
+American seeking and that its ratification had been applauded all over
+the country. The abrogation of part of the agreement would be equivalent
+to abrogation of the whole, leaving American citizens in China without
+adequate treaty protection. Furthermore Hayes felt that treaties could
+not rightfully be violated by legislation, but advocated other measures
+for the relief of the people of the Pacific Coast. He thereupon sent to
+China a commission, headed by James B. Angell of Michigan, which
+succeeded in liberally modifying the existing treaty. Under the new
+arrangement the United States might "regulate, limit, or suspend" the
+immigration of Chinese laborers; and as the treaty was promptly
+ratified, it redounded somewhat to the credit of the Republicans in the
+election of 1880.
+
+The administration of Hayes was, on the whole, an admirable one. The
+problems which he faced were varied and difficult, but most of them were
+met sensibly and with success. To be sure, he did not grasp the social
+and economic forces behind the monetary agitation; nor did he have the
+insight and originality necessary for attacking the problem of industrial
+unrest as it appeared in the strike of 1877. But neither did his
+associates, nor his successors in the presidency for many years to
+come. On the other hand, the ethical standards of the administration
+were high and the atmosphere of the White House sane and wholesome. The
+home life of the President was exceptionally attractive, for Mrs. Hayes
+was a woman of unusual charm and social capacity. The attitude of Hayes
+on the southern question and on civil service reform was courageous and
+progressive. And most of all, his ideas on public questions were stated
+with unmistakable clearness in a day when old issues were sinking into
+the background and both parties were reluctant to define their position
+on the new ones.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+A great contribution to the understanding of Hayes's administration was
+made by the publication of C.R. Williams, _Life of Rutherford B. Hayes_
+(2 vols., 1914). It is complete and contains copious extracts from
+Hayes's diary, but is written with less of the critical spirit than is
+desirable; J.F. Rhodes has a valuable chapter in his _Historical Essays_
+(1909); J.W. Burgess, _Administration of R.B. Hayes_ (1916), is a
+eulogy; V.L. Shores, _Hayes-Conkling Controversy_ (1919), describes the
+civil service quarrel; J.R. Commons and others, _History of Labor in the
+United States_ (2 vols., 1918), describes the strike of 1877; so also
+does J.F. Rhodes, _History of the United States from Hayes to McKinley_
+(1919), with full references. On the Chinese affair, consult Mrs. M.E.
+B.S. Coolidge, _Chinese Immigration_ (1909). Most of the general
+histories already mentioned dwell at length on the Hayes administration.
+
+For the official messages of this and succeeding administrations, the
+most convenient source is J.D. Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the
+Presidents_ (10 vols., 1903).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] For a time public interest was absorbed by the determination of
+President and Mrs. Hayes to serve no wines of any kind in the White
+House. Finally a delicious frozen punch was served at about the middle
+of the state dinners, known to the thirsty as "the Life-saving Station."
+It was popularly understood to be liberally strengthened with old Santa
+Croix rum, but the President later asserted that he had caused the punch
+to be sharpened with the flavor of Jamaica rum and that no drop of
+spirits was inserted. What the _chef_ really did, perhaps nobody knows.
+At any rate, both sides were satisfied. Williams, _R.B. Hayes_, II; 312
+note.
+
+[2] Because March 4 fell on Sunday, the oath of office was privately
+administered to Hayes on Saturday evening, March 3. Williams, _Hayes_,
+II, 5.
+
+[3] George W. McCrary was Secretary of War; Richard W. Thompson,
+Secretary of the Navy; Charles Devens, Attorney-General.
+
+[4] Chamberlain, the Republican claimant in South Carolina, wrote in
+1901 that he was "quite ready now to say that he feels sure that there
+was no possibility of securing permanent good government in South
+Carolina through Republican influences." _Atlantic Monthly_, LXXXVII,
+482.
+
+[5] Many of the dispatches were in a complicated cipher which resisted
+all attempts at solution. The _Tribune_ published samples from time
+to time, keeping interest alive in the hope that somebody might solve
+the riddle. Finally two members of the _Tribune_ staff were successful
+in discovering the key to the cipher in a way that recalls the
+paper-covered detective story. The newspaper aroused and excited public
+interest by publishing specimens and eventually achieved a sensation by
+putting the most damaging material into print on October 16, 1878. One
+of the telegrams, with its translation, ran as follows:
+
+    "Absolutely Petersburg can procured by Copenhagen may Thomas
+    prompt Edinburgh must if river take be you less London Thames
+    will."
+
+    Translation: If Returning Board can be procured absolutely, will
+    you deposit 30,000 dollars? May take less. Must be prompt. Thomas.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+THE POLITICS OF THE EARLY EIGHTIES
+
+The Hayes administration was scarcely half over when the politicians
+began to look forward to the election of 1880. At the outset of his
+term, Hayes had advocated a single term for the executive and there was
+no widespread movement among the politicians to influence him to change
+his attitude. His enemies, indeed, had already turned to General Grant.
+There had been a third-term boom for the General during his second
+administration and he had indicated that he was not formidably opposed
+to further continuance in office. Suddenly, however, the anti-third-term
+feeling had risen to impressive proportions, whereupon the House of
+Representatives had adopted a resolution which characterized any
+departure from the two-term precedent as "unwise, unpatriotic, and
+fraught with peril to our free institutions." As the resolution passed
+by an overwhelming vote--233-18--nothing further was heard of a
+third-term boom.
+
+The Hayes administration put a different complexion on the matter. The
+wheel-horses of the party were not enthusiastic over the President or
+his policies, and in their extremity they looked to Grant. The New York
+State Republican Convention, under control of Roscoe Conkling and his
+forces, instructed delegates to support the General as a candidate for
+the nomination and endeavored to forestall opposition to a third term.
+It declared that the objection to a third presidential term applied only
+to a third consecutive term and hence was inapplicable to the
+re-election of Grant. Grant, meanwhile, presented a spectacle that was
+at once humorous and pathetic. He had not expected, on leaving the
+presidency, to return to power again, had dropped consideration of the
+political future and had given himself up to the enjoyment of foreign
+travel. The royal reception accorded him wherever he went suggested to
+his political supporters that they utilize his popularity. It was
+foreseen that when he returned to America he would receive a tremendous
+ovation, on the wave of which he might be carried into office. He was
+flooded with advice and entreaties that he act in accordance with this
+plan. His family was eager to return to the position of social eminence
+which they had occupied, and pressure from them was incessant. At first
+he did nothing either to aid or to hinder the boom, then gave way to the
+pressure and at last became extremely anxious to obtain the coveted
+prize.
+
+If the politicians did, in truth, desire a relaxation from the patronage
+standards of the Hayes regime, they did not make that the ostensible
+purpose of their campaign. They argued that the times demanded a strong
+man; that foreign travel had greatly broadened the General and given him
+a knowledge of other forms of government; that he had been great as a
+commander of armies, greater as a President, and that as a citizen of
+the Republic he "shone with a luster that challenged the admiration of
+the world." Behind him were Conkling and Platt, with the New York state
+organization under their control, Don Cameron who held Pennsylvania in
+his hand, General Logan, strong in Illinois, and lesser leaders who
+wielded much power in smaller states. Many business men were ready to
+lend their aid; the powerful Methodist Church, to which he belonged, was
+favorable to him; and, of course, his popularity as a military leader
+was unbounded. His return to the United States while the enthusiasm was
+at its height was the signal for an unprecedented ovation. The opponents
+of a third term painted in high colors the danger of a revival of the
+scandals of Grant's days in the presidential chair, formed "No Third
+Term" leagues, called an "Anti-Third-Term" convention and decried the
+danger of continuing a military man in civil office. _The Nation_
+scoffed at the educational effect of foreign travel on a man who was
+fifty-seven years of age and could understand the language in only one
+of the countries in which he travelled. A large fraction of the
+Republican press, in fact, was in opposition. "Anything to beat Grant"
+and "No third term" were their war-cries. Nor was there any lack of
+Republican candidates to oppose the Grant movement and to give promise
+of a lively nominating convention. Blaine's popularity was as widespread
+as ever. Those who feared the nomination of either Grant or Blaine
+favored Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont or Secretary Sherman. Both
+of these men were of statesmanlike proportions, but Edmunds was never
+widely popular and Sherman was lacking in the arts of the
+politician--"the human icicle," T.C. Platt called him.
+
+The Republican nominating convention of 1880 met in Chicago in a
+building described as "one of the most splendid barns" ever built. This
+convention is unusually worthy of study because it involved most of the
+elements which entered into American politics in the early eighties. It
+was long memorable as making a record for that form of enthusiasm which
+bursts into demonstrations. "Great applause," "loud laughter," "cheers"
+and "hisses long and furious" dot the newspaper accounts of its
+deliberations. The members "acted like so many Bedlamites," one of the
+delegates said. On one day the opening prayer was so unexpectedly short
+that there was applause and laughter. The keen contest for the
+nomination resulted in galleries packed with supporters of the several
+candidates, who cheered furiously as their favorite delegates appeared.
+As the galleries came down nearly to the level of the floor, the
+spectators were almost as much members of the convention as the
+delegates themselves. It was under such conditions, then, that the
+convention proceeded to the serious business of adopting principles and
+choosing a leader.
+
+Three hundred and six of the 757 delegates were sworn supporters of
+Grant--pledged to die, if they died at all, "with their boots on," one
+of their leaders said. In each of the big delegations--those from New
+York, Pennsylvania and Illinois--a minority was unfavorable to Grant.
+This minority could be counted in the General's column if the convention
+could be forced to adopt the so-called "unit-rule," under which the
+delegation from a state casts all its votes for the candidate favored by
+the majority. In this particular case, the minorities in New York,
+Pennsylvania and Illinois numbered more than sixty delegates, so that
+the adoption of the rule was a stake worth playing for. The plan
+formulated by the Grant leaders was worthy of the time.
+
+Donald Cameron of Pennsylvania was chairman of the National Republican
+Committee. Following the usual custom, Cameron was to call the
+convention to order and present the temporary chairman who had been
+chosen by the Committee. As the Grant supporters were in a minority even
+on the Committee, provision was made to meet the emergency in case the
+majority insisted on the appointment of an anti-Grant chairman. Cameron
+was to announce the name, a Grant delegate was to move to substitute a
+Grant man instead, and Cameron would enforce the unit-rule in the
+resulting ballot. This would ensure control of the organization of the
+convention and, doubtless, of the nomination of the candidate.
+
+Unhappily for this well-laid plan, rumor of it leaked out, and the
+majority of the National Committee--opposed to Grant--conveyed
+information to Cameron that he must agree to give up such a scheme or be
+ousted from his position. Cameron, convinced that his enemies were
+determined, gave up his project, and Senator George F. Hoar, who favored
+neither Grant nor Blaine, was made temporary and later permanent
+chairman.
+
+Although defeated in the first skirmish, the Grant forces pressed
+forward for renewed conflict. Conkling presented a resolution that every
+member of the convention be bound in honor to support the eventual
+candidate, whoever he might be. The resolution passed 716 to three; and
+he then moved that the three who had voted in the negative had thereby
+forfeited their votes in the convention. James A. Garfield of Ohio led
+the opposition to such rough-shod action and Conkling angrily withdrew
+his resolution amid hisses. When Garfield reported from the Committee on
+Rules in regard to the regulations under which the convention should
+deliberate, he moved that the unit rule be not adopted and the
+convention upheld him. It was manifest that the delegates were not in a
+mood to surrender to a junto of powerful machine politicians.
+
+The way having been now cleared for action, the convention adopted a
+platform. This was composed largely of a summary of the achievements of
+the party and denunciation of the opposition. Most of the planks were
+abstract or perfunctory, or expressed in such a way as not to commit the
+party seriously. _Harper's Weekly_, a Republican periodical, regretted
+the character of the platform and remarked that such documents are
+expected to say
+
+    An undisputed thing
+    In such a solemn way.
+
+Judged by this criterion, the platform was ideal. The obligations of the
+country to the veterans were emphasized and the restriction of Chinese
+immigration called for. On the tariff, the only utterance was an avowal
+that duties levied for the purposes of revenue should discriminate in
+favor of labor. After this declaration of faith had been unanimously
+adopted, a Massachusetts delegate presented an additional plank
+advocating civil service reform.
+
+The convention was now badly put to it. To reject a plank which had been
+accepted both in 1872 and in 1876 would discredit the party,
+particularly as the platform just adopted had accused the opposition of
+sacrificing patriotism "to a supreme and insatiable lust for office."
+Nevertheless the opposition to its adoption was formidable, and it had
+already been twice rejected in the Committee on Resolutions, which drew
+up the platform. There seemed no way of avoiding the issue, however, and
+the plank was thereupon adopted, though not before Webster Flanagan of
+Texas had blurted out, "After we have won the race ... we will give
+those who are entitled to positions office. What are we up here for?"
+
+With the speeches presenting candidates to the convention, the real
+business of the week began. Senator Conkling aroused a tempest of
+enthusiasm for General Grant in a famous speech which began with the
+lines,
+
+    When asked what state he hails from,
+      Our sole reply shall be,
+    He comes from Appomattox
+      And its famous apple tree.
+
+Garfield presented Sherman's name. At the outset General Grant led,
+Blame was a close second and Sherman third. This order continued for
+thirty-five ballots. By that time Blaine and Grant had fought each other
+to a standstill. The General's three hundred and six held together
+without a break, and Blaine's forces were equally determined.[1]
+
+There was little chance of compromise, as Grant and Blaine were not on
+speaking terms, and Conkling and Blaine looked upon each other with
+unconcealed hatred. Since Sherman was handicapped by lack of united
+support in his own state, the natural solution of the problem seemed to
+be the choice of some other leader who might harmonize the contending
+factions. On the thirty-fourth ballot, seventeen votes were given to
+Garfield; on the next, fifty; then a stampede began, in spite of a
+protest by Garfield, and on the thirty-sixth ballot a union of the
+Blaine and Sherman forces made him the choice of the convention. The
+nominee for the vice-presidency was Chester A. Arthur, who was one of
+the leading supporters of Grant and a member of the Conkling group.
+
+The choice of Garfield was well received by the country, perhaps the
+more so as a relief from the danger of a third term. The nominee was a
+man of great industry, possessed of a store of information, tactful,
+modest, popular, an effective orator, and a veteran of the war. His
+rise from canal boy to candidate for the presidency exemplified the
+possibilities before industrious youth and gave rise to many a homily
+on democratic America. Yet his friends had to defend his relation to a
+paving scandal in the District of Columbia and an unwise connection with
+the Credit Mobilier of 1873. In neither of these cases does Garfield
+seem to have been corrupt, but in neither does he appear in a highly
+favorable light.[2]
+
+As the Republicans were dispersing, the Greenback convention was
+assembling. Their strength in the campaign was almost negligible but
+their platform presaged the future. Money to be issued only by the
+government, the volume of money increased, ameliorative labor
+legislation, restriction of Chinese immigration, regulation of
+interstate commerce, an income tax, government for the people rather
+than for classes, wider suffrage,--all these were advocated in concise
+and unmistakable terms. James B. Weaver was the presidential candidate.
+
+Among the Democrats, the all important question was whether Tilden would
+be a candidate again. He naturally wished for a renomination and an
+opportunity to prove by an election that he had been "fraudulently"
+deprived of the presidency in 1876. The party, likewise, seemed to need
+his services, as no other leader of equal prominence had appeared. On
+the other hand, his health had rapidly failed since 1876 and it was
+apparent that he was unequal to the exacting labors of the presidency.
+Not until just before the meeting of the convention, however, did he
+make known his wishes and then he declared that he desired nothing so
+much as an honorable discharge from public service and that he
+"renounced" the renomination. The party took him at his word and turned
+to the adoption of a platform and the choice of another leader.
+
+The platform reflected the bitterness of the party over the "great
+fraud" of 1876-1877 and advocated tariff for revenue only, civil service
+reform and the restriction of Chinese immigration. In other words,
+except for the usual self-congratulation and the denunciation of the
+opposition, the Democratic platform closely resembled that of the
+Republicans. The convention then nominated for the presidency General
+Winfield S. Hancock, a modest, brave Union soldier, of whom Grant once
+said, "his name was never mentioned as having committed in battle a
+blunder for which he was responsible." He was not an experienced
+politician, but was popular even in the South.
+
+On the whole the Democratic convention was much less interesting than
+its Republican predecessor. There were no fierce factional quarrels to
+arouse the emotions to concert pitch. The applause spurted out here and
+there like the "jets from a splitting hose" in the "Ki yi yi yi" which
+characterized the cheers of the lower wards of New York, in contrast to
+the rolling billows of applause which formed so memorable an element in
+the opposition gathering. The New York Tribune, although hostile to
+everything Democratic, perhaps stated the fact when it commented on the
+lack of enthusiasm. The convention, the Tribune noted, was well-behaved,
+but a mob without leaders; there were no Conklings or Garfields or
+Logans, only John Kelleys and Wade Hamptons.
+
+The campaign of 1880 reflected the lack of definite utterances in the
+party platforms. Since each side was loath to press forward to the
+solution of any real problem facing the nation, the campaign was
+confined, for the most part, to petty or even corrupt partisanship. The
+career of General Garfield was carefully overhauled for evidences of
+scandal. Arthur's failings as a public officer were duly paraded.
+General Hancock was ridiculed as "a good man weighing two hundred and
+forty pounds." Some attempt was made by the Republicans to make an issue
+of the tariff, and a remark of Hancock to the effect that the tariff was
+a "local issue" was jeered at as proving an ignorance of public
+questions. There was little response to the "bloody shirt" and little
+interest in "the great fraud." A modicum of enthusiasm was injected into
+the canvass by the participation of Conkling and General Grant. The
+former was not happily disposed toward the Republican candidate and
+Grant had always refused to make campaign speeches, but as the autumn
+came on and defeat seemed imminent, these two leaders were prevailed
+upon to lend their assistance. Near the end of the campaign a letter was
+circulated in the Pacific states, purporting to have been written by
+Garfield to a Mr. Morey, and expressing opposition to the restriction of
+Chinese immigration. The signature was a forgery, but complete exposure
+in the short time before election day was impossible and the letter
+perhaps injured Garfield on the coast. Nevertheless Garfield and Arthur
+won, although their popular plurality was only 9,500 in a total of about
+nine millions. The electoral vote was 214 to 155 and showed that the
+division among the states was sectional, for in the North Hancock
+carried only New Jersey, together with Nevada and five electoral votes
+in California, the result probably of the Morey letter.
+
+Two aspects of the campaign had especial significance. The attempt by
+Conkling and his associates to choose the Republican nominee through the
+shrewd manipulation of political machinery, and against the wishes of
+the rank and file of the party, was a move on the part of the greater
+state bosses to get control of the national organization, so that they
+might manage it as they managed their local committees and conventions.
+The second notable circumstance concerned the collection and expenditure
+of the campaign funds.
+
+Even before the convention met, the Republican Congressional Committee,
+pursuing the common practice of the time, addressed a letter to all
+federal employees, except heads of departments, in which the suggestion
+was made that the office holders would doubtless consider it a
+"privilege and a pleasure" to contribute to the campaign funds an amount
+equal to two per cent. of their salaries. The Republican National
+Committee also made its demands on office holders--usually five per
+cent. of a year's salary. The Democrats, having no hold on the federal
+offices, had to content themselves with the cultivation of the
+possibilities in states which they controlled. In New York, Senator
+Platt was chairman of the executive committee and he sent a similar
+communication to federal employees in the state. Even the office boy in
+a rural post office was not overlooked, and when contributions were not
+forthcoming, the names of delinquents were sent to their superiors.
+Other developments appeared after the election was over. In February,
+1881, a dinner was given in honor of Senator S.W. Dorsey, secretary of
+the Republican National Committee, to whom credit was given for carrying
+the state of Indiana. General Grant presided and grace was asked by
+Reverend Henry Ward Beecher. Dorsey was an Arkansas carpet-bagger, who
+had been connected with a railroad swindle and was soon, as it turned
+out, to be indicted for complication in other frauds. The substance of
+the speeches was that the prospect of success in the campaign seemed
+waning, that Indiana was essential to success and that Dorsey was the
+agent who accomplished the task. Arthur, who was one of the speakers,
+explained the _modus operandi_: "Indiana was really, I suppose, a
+Democratic State. It had been put down on the books always as a State
+that might be carried by close and perfect organization and a great deal
+of--(laughter). I see the reporters are present, therefore I will simply
+say that everybody showed a great deal of interest in the occasion and
+distributed tracts and political documents all through the State."
+
+With the victory accomplished, the politicians turned from the contest
+with the common enemy to the question of the division of the spoils;
+from the ostensible issue of platforms, to the real issue that Flanagan
+had personified. Although the Republicans had presented a united front
+to their opponents, there were factional troubles within the party that
+all but dwarfed the larger contest. The "Stalwarts" were composed of the
+thorough "organization men" like Conkling, Platt and Arthur; the
+"Half-breeds" were anti-organization men and more sympathetic with the
+administration. The commander of the Stalwarts and one of the most
+influential leaders in the country was Roscoe Conkling, Senator from New
+York. In person Conkling was a tall, handsome, imperious man, with
+something of the theatrical in his appearance and manner. As a
+politician he was aggressive, fearless, scornful, shrewd and adroit when
+he chose to be, and masterful, always. As an orator he knew how to play
+on the feelings of the crowd; his vocabulary, when he turned upon one
+whom he disliked, was memorable for its wealth of invective and
+ridicule, and especially he uncorked the vials of his wrath on any who
+were not strictly organization men. Although an able man and a
+successful lawyer, Conkling seems to have had less interest in the
+public welfare than in conventions, elections and patronage.
+
+The announcement of Garfield's choice of a Cabinet was the signal for a
+fierce patronage fight. James G. Blaine, the choice for Secretary of
+State, was distasteful in the extreme to Conkling. Many years before,
+during a debate in the House, Blaine had compared Conkling to Henry
+Winter Davis as
+
+    Hyperion to a satyr, Thersites to Hercules, mud to marble,
+    dunghill to diamond, a singed cat to a Bengal tiger, a whining
+    puppy to a roaring lion.
+
+He had contemptuously referred to Conkling's "haughty disdain, his
+grandiloquent swell, his majestic, supereminent, overpowering,
+turkey-gobbler strut." Accordingly when Garfield disregarded Conkling's
+wishes in regard to the representation which New York should have in the
+cabinet, Conkling laid the blame upon his old enemy.[3]
+
+As soon as the administration was in office, the Senate met in executive
+session to act on appointments, and it appeared that the parties were
+evenly divided, the balance of power lying in the hands of two
+Independents. President Garfield sent in his list of nominees for office
+without consulting Conkling in regard to New York appointments. Among
+them was William H. Robertson for the coveted position of collector for
+the port of New York. As Robertson had been opposed to Grant and to the
+unit rule in the Republican convention, Conkling's rage reached a fever
+pitch. In an attempt to discredit the President before the country, he
+made public a letter from Garfield giving countenance to the practice of
+levying campaign assessments on federal employees. Conkling's point of
+view is not difficult to understand. Consultation with the senators from
+a state with regard to nominations to offices within its boundaries was
+the common custom; Conkling had sunk his dislike of Garfield during the
+campaign in order to assist in a party victory; moreover, he and Platt,
+the other New York senator, understood that Garfield had agreed to
+dispense New York patronage in conformity to the wishes of the
+Stalwarts, in case Conkling took the stump. He had carried out his part
+of the bargain and now desired his _quid pro quo_.
+
+Meanwhile the Senate was trying to organize and having failed because of
+the even division of the parties, stopped the attempt long enough to act
+on the nominations. The President then withdrew all except that of
+Robertson, thus indicating that offices in which other senators were
+concerned would not be filled until the New York case was settled.
+Foreseeing that the members would wish to clear the way for their own
+interests and that Robertson's nomination was likely to be agreed to,
+Conkling and Platt resigned their posts and appealed to the New York
+legislature for a re-election as a vindication of the stand they had
+taken. As the legislature was Republican and as Vice-President Arthur
+went to Albany to urge their case, they seemed likely to succeed; but to
+their mortification they were both defeated after an extended contest,
+and Conkling retired permanently to private life. Platt, who was
+promptly dubbed "Me Too," also relinquished public office, but only for
+a time. In the meanwhile, as soon as Conkling and Platt had left the
+Senate, the nomination of Robertson had been approved, and Garfield was
+triumphant.
+
+Further light was thrown upon political conditions by the investigations
+of the "star routes." These were routes in the South and West where
+mails had to be carried by stage lines, and were under the control of
+the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, Thomas J. Brady. Rumors had
+been common for some years that they were a source of corruption.
+Garfield's Postmaster-General, Thomas L. James, had already made a
+reputation as the reform postmaster of New York, and he set himself
+to investigate the reports. Among other things it was discovered that a
+combination of public men and contractors had succeeded in raising the
+compensation on 134 star routes from $143,169 to $622,808, dividing the
+extra profits among themselves. Brady and Senator Dorsey, the active
+agent in the campaign in Indiana, were accused of being in the "ring"
+and were indicted on the ground of conspiracy to defraud the government.
+Brady attempted to block the investigation by threatening Garfield with
+an exposure of the campaign methods, and when the threat failed he made
+public a letter from the President to "My dear Hubbell," chairman of the
+Congressional Committee, similar to that which Conkling had earlier
+published. The trials of the conspirators dragged on until 1883 and
+resulted in the acquittal of all the accused except one of the least
+important. Yet some good was accomplished, for the ring was broken up.
+Dorsey retired from public life, and renewed attention was drawn to the
+need of better federal officials.
+
+During the course of the trials, the country was shocked by the
+assassination of the President on July 2, 1881, at the hands of a
+disappointed office seeker named Guiteau. Despite a strong constitution
+Garfield grew slowly weaker and died on September 19. The catastrophe
+affected the country the more profoundly because of its connection with
+the factional quarrel in the Republican party and because, following the
+recent murder of the Russian Czar, it seemed to show that democratic
+government was no guarantee against violence.[4]
+
+The consternation with which the elevation of Chester A. Arthur to the
+presidency was received was not confined to the Democrats. An
+oft-repeated remark made at the time was expressive of the opinion of
+those best acquainted with the new executive: "'Chet' Arthur President
+of the United States! Good God!" In truth Arthur's previous career
+hardly justified anything except consternation. He had been identified
+always with machine politics and particularly with the Conkling group;
+he had been a prominent figure in the opposition to Hayes when the
+latter attempted to improve conditions in the New York Customs House;
+and had taken an active and undignified share in the quarrel between
+Garfield and Conkling. Chester A. Arthur, however, was a combination of
+characteristics such as enlist the interest of the student of human
+nature. Of Vermont birth, educated at Union College where he had taken
+high rank, he had taught school for a time, had entered the practice of
+law in New York, had made a good war record, and had been a member of
+the Republican party from its beginning. In many ways Arthur was made
+for politics. He was the "man of the world" in appearance, polished,
+refined, well-groomed, scrupulously careful about his attire, a
+_bon-vivant_. Yet he was equally at home in the atmosphere of politics
+in the early eighties; a leader of the "Johnnies" and "Jakes," the
+"Barneys" and "Mikes" of New York City. Dignity characterized him,
+whether in the "knock-down" and "drag-out" caucus or at an exclusive
+White House reception. He possessed a refinement, especially in his home
+life, that is not usually associated with ward politics but which forms
+an element of the "gentleman" in the best sense of that abused word.
+
+Yet they who feared that President Arthur would be like Chester A.
+Arthur, the collector of the port, were treated to a revelation. The
+suddenness with which the elevation to the responsibility of the
+executive's position broadened the view of the President proved that he
+possessed qualities which had been merely hidden in the pursuit of
+ordinary partisan politics. Platt, expectant of the dismissal of
+Robertson, now that a Stalwart was in power, fell back in disgust and
+disowned his former associate, for it appeared that Arthur intended to
+further the principles of reform. His first annual message to Congress
+contained a sane discussion of the civil service and the needed
+remedies, which committed him whole-heartedly to the competitive system.
+Although he did not go as far as some reformers would have had him, he
+went so much farther than was expected that commendation was
+enthusiastic, even on the part of the most prominent leaders in the
+reform element. In the same message he urged the repeal of the
+Bland-Allison silver-coinage act, the reduction of the internal revenue,
+revision of the tariff, a better navy, post-office savings banks, and
+enlightened Indian legislation. Altogether it was clear that he had laid
+aside much of the partisan in succeeding to his high office.[5]
+
+The Chinese problem soon provided him with an opportunity to show an
+independence of judgment, together with an indifference to mere
+popularity, which were in keeping with the new Arthur, but which were a
+surprise to his former associates. As a result of the changes in the
+Burlingame treaty, which gave the United States authority to suspend the
+immigration of Chinese laborers, Congress passed a bill in 1882 to
+prohibit the incoming of laborers for twenty years, western Republicans
+joining with the Democrats in its passage.[6] Arthur vetoed the measure
+on the ground that a stoppage for so great a period as twenty years
+violated those provisions of the treaty which allowed us merely to
+suspend immigration, not to prohibit it. An attempt to overcome the veto
+failed for lack of the necessary two-thirds majority. Congress did,
+however, pass legislation suspending the immigration of laborers for ten
+years, and this bill the President signed. Later acts have merely
+extended this law or made it more effective.
+
+Arthur also exercised the veto upon a rivers and harbors bill. It had,
+of course, long been the custom for the federal government to aid in the
+improvement of the harbors and internal water-ways of the country. But
+the modest sums of _ante-bellum_ days grew rapidly after the war,
+stimulated by immense federal revenues, until the suggested legislation
+of 1882 appropriated nearly nineteen million dollars. It provided not
+merely for the dredging of great rivers like the Mississippi and Ohio,
+but also for the Lamprey River in New Hampshire, the Waccemaw in North
+Carolina, together with Goose Rapids and Cheesequake Creek. Some of
+these, the opposition declared, might better be paved than dredged.[7]
+It might seem that a bill against which such obvious objections could be
+raised would be doomed to failure. But the argument of Ransom of North
+Carolina, who had charge of the bill in its later stages in the Senate,
+seems to have been a decisive one. Somebody had objected that the
+members of the committee had cared for the interests of their own
+states, merely. Ransom repelled the charge. He showed that the New
+England states had been looked out for; "Look next to New York, that
+great, grand, magnificent State ... that empire in itself ... Go to
+Delaware, little, glorious Delaware." The committee had retained $20,000
+for Delaware. "Go next ... to great, grand old Virginia." Virginia had
+received something. "Go to Missouri, the young, beautiful, growing,
+powerful State of my friend over the way." And so on--all had been
+treated with thoughtful care. Ransom was wise in his day and generation.
+Although Arthur objected to the bill on the grounds of extravagance and
+of the official demoralization which accompanied it, nevertheless
+Republicans and Democrats alike joined in passing over the veto an act
+which would get money into their home states.
+
+The congressional elections in the fall of 1882 indicated that the
+factional disputes among the Republicans, and their failure to reform
+conditions in the civil service had presented the opposition with an
+opportunity. In the House of Representatives, Republican control was
+replaced by a Democratic majority of sixty-nine; the state legislatures
+chosen were Democratic in such numbers as to make sure the even division
+of the Senate when new members were elected; in Pennsylvania, a
+Democratic reformer, Robert E. Pattison, was elected governor, and in
+New York another, Grover Cleveland, was successful by the unprecedented
+majority of 190,000.
+
+The results of the campaign added interest to a civil service reform
+bill which had been drafted by some reformers led by Dorman B. Eaton,
+and which had been presented to the Senate by George F. Pendleton, of
+Ohio. The debate elicited several points of view. Pendleton set forth
+the evils of the existing system of appointments, and emphasized the
+superior advantages of appointment after competitive examination. The
+Democrats were in distress. Although Pendleton was himself a Democrat
+and the party platforms had been advocating reform, nevertheless the
+election of 1884 was not far ahead, Democratic success seemed likely,
+and the party leaders desired an unrestrained opportunity to fill the
+offices with their followers. Senator Williams expressed a conviction
+that the Republican party was a party of corruption and continued:
+
+    The only way to reform is to put a good honest Democratic
+    president in in 1884; then turn on the hose and give him a
+    good hickory broom and tell him to sweep the dirt away.
+
+The Republicans, on their side, were fearful of the same clean sweep
+that Williams hoped for, and they therefore looked with greater
+equanimity upon a bill which might retain in office the existing
+office-holders, most of whom belonged to their party. This aspect of the
+situation was not lost upon such Democrats as Senator Brown who moved
+that the measure be entitled "a bill to perpetuate in office the
+Republicans who now hold the patronage of the government." In the Senate
+only five members voted against its passage, but thirty-three absented
+themselves; and in the House forty-seven opposed, while eighty-seven
+were absent. A little study of the debate makes it clear that the
+passage of the act was due to conviction in favor of reform on the part
+of a few and to fear of public opinion on the part of many others.
+Undoubtedly many of the absentees were members who would not vote for
+the measure and were fearful of the results of voting against it. The
+President signed the bill January 16, 1883.
+
+The Pendleton act left large discretion in the hands of the President.
+It authorized the appointment of a commission of three who should
+prepare and put into effect suitable rules for carrying out the law. The
+act also provided that government offices should be arranged in classes
+and that entrance to any class should be obtained by competitive
+examination; that no person should be removed from the service for
+refusing to contribute to political funds; and that examinations should
+be held in one or more places in each state and territory where
+candidates appeared. The system was to be inaugurated in customs
+districts and post offices where the number of employees was as many as
+fifty, but could be extended later under direction of the President. The
+soliciting or receiving of contributions by federal officials of all
+grades, for political purposes, was forbidden. With the exceptions just
+mentioned, officers could be removed from office as before, but the
+purpose of removal was now gone. Since the appointee to the vacancy must
+be the successful competitor in an examination, the chief who removed an
+officer could not replace him with a personal friend or party worker.
+
+The first commission was headed by Dorman B. Eaton. The work of grading
+officials and placing them within the protection of the law began at
+once, and by the close of President Arthur's term nearly 16,000 were
+classified. Fortunately, the work of the commission was carried on
+sensibly and slowly, and no backward steps had to be taken.
+
+The attitude of Congress toward tariff revision illustrates many of the
+characteristics of congressional action during the early eighties. In
+his first message to Congress, Arthur said that the surplus for the year
+was $100,000,000, and therefore urged the reduction of the internal
+revenue taxes and the revision of the tariff. In May, 1882, Congress
+authorized a tariff commission to investigate and report, and in
+conformity with the law Arthur appointed its nine members. All of them
+were protectionists and the chairman, John L. Hayes, was secretary of
+the Wool Manufacturers' Association. After holding hearings in more than
+a score of cities and examining some hundreds of witnesses, the
+commission recommended reductions varying from nothing in some cases to
+forty or fifty per cent. in others. The average reduction was twenty to
+twenty-five per cent.
+
+Using the report as a foundation, the Senate drew up a tariff measure,
+added it to a House bill which provided for a reduction of the internal
+revenues, and passed the combination. Meanwhile, lobbyists poured into
+Washington to guard the interests of the producers of lumber, pig-iron,
+sugar and other materials upon which the tariff might be reduced. When
+the Senate bill reached the House it contained lower duties than the
+protectionist members desired. The latter, although in possession of the
+organization of the House, were not strong enough to restore higher
+rates, but under the shrewd management of Thomas B. Reed, one of their
+number, they were able to refer the bill to a conference committee of
+the two houses which contained seven strong protectionists out of ten
+members. Reed admitted that the proceedings were "unusual in their
+nature and very forcible in their character" but he felt that a change
+in the tariff had been promised and that the only way to bring it about
+in the face of Democratic opposition was to settle the details "in the
+quiet of a conference committee." A "great emergency" having arisen, he
+would take extraordinary measures. The bill produced under these
+circumstances reduced the internal revenue taxes, lowered some of the
+tariff duties and raised others, but left the general level at the point
+where it had been at the close of the war. _The Nation_, favorable to
+reform, scornfully characterized the act as "taking a shaving off the
+duty on iron wire, and adding it to the duty on glue!" Senator Sherman,
+a protectionist member of the conference committee, wrote an account of
+the whole procedure many years afterward. After commending the spirit
+and proposals of the tariff commission and mentioning the successful
+efforts of many persons to have their individual interests looked out
+for, he expressed a regret that he did not defeat the bill, as he could
+have done in view of the evenly balanced party situation in the Senate
+at that time.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The election of 1880 is well treated by Sparks, Stanwood, Andrews, and
+Rhodes. Senator G.F. Hoar, the chairman of the Republican nominating
+convention, has a valuable chapter in his _Autobiography of Seventy
+Years_. Such newspapers as the New York _Times_ and _Tribune_ are
+invaluable for a discussion of the conventions.
+
+The events of the administration, such as the tariff debates, the
+passage of the civil service law and others are discussed in the special
+works mentioned in Chapter V. Consult also: Edward Stanwood, _J.G.
+Blaine_; T.C. Platt, _Autobiography_; and A.R. Conkling, _Life and
+Letters of Roscoe Conkling_. The _Annual Cyclopaedia _contains several
+excellent articles on the tariff (1882, 1883), civil service reform
+(1883), star route trials (1882, 1883). H.C. Thomas, _The Return of the
+Democratic Party to Power in 1884_ (1919), contains useful chapters on
+Garfield and Arthur.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] For Platt's account of the annual reunion and banquet of the three
+hundred and six--"The Old Guard"--see _Autobiography_, 115.
+
+[2] Garfield's early career as a canal boy led to such campaign songs
+as the following:
+
+    He early learned to paddle well his own forlorn canoe,
+    Upon Ohio's grand canal he held the hellum true.
+    And now the people shout to him: "Lo! 't is for you we wait.
+    We want to see Jim Garfield guide our glorious ship of state."
+
+[3] William Windom, of Minn., was Secretary of the Treasury; E.T.
+Lincoln, of Ill., Secretary of War; Wayne MacVeagh, of Pa.,
+Attorney-General; T.L. James, of N.Y., Postmaster-General; W.H. Hunt,
+of La., Secretary of the Navy; S.J. Kirkwood, of Ia., Secretary of
+the Interior.
+
+[4] The death of the President emphasized the need of a presidential
+succession law. Under an act of 1792, the president and vice-president
+were succeeded by the president of the Senate and the speaker of the
+House. When Garfield died, the Senate had not yet elected a presiding
+officer and the House had not met. The death of Arthur would have left
+the country without a legal head. The Presidential Succession Act of
+1886 remedied the fault by providing for the succession of the cabinet
+in order, beginning with the Secretary of State. The presiding officers
+of the Senate and House were omitted, because they might not be of the
+dominant party.
+
+[5] The cabinet was composed of F.T. Frelinghuysen, N.J., Secretary of
+State; C.J. Folger, N.Y., Secretary of the Treasury; R.T. Lincoln, Ill.,
+Secretary of War; B.H. Brewster, Pa., Attorney-General; T.O. Howe, Wis.,
+Postmaster-General; W.E. Chandler, N.H., Secretary of the Navy; H.M.
+Teller, Colo., Secretary of the Interior.
+
+[6] Above, p. 145.
+
+[7] Some thoroughly unselfish members of Congress like Senator Hoar,
+however, believed the bill a justifiable one and voted for it. See Hoar,
+_Autobiography_, II, chapter VIII.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+THE OVERTURN OF 1884
+
+The election of 1880 was memorable only for the type of politics with
+which that contest was so inextricably involved. The party leaders were
+second-rate men; the platforms, except for that of the Greenback party,
+were as lacking in definiteness as the most timid office-seeker could
+desire; in brief, it was a cross-section of American professional
+politics at its worst. The election of 1884 was a distinct, although not
+a complete contrast. It was not a campaign of platforms, but like the
+election of 1824 it was a battle of men. Two genuine leaders, each
+representing a distinct type of politics, contended for an opportunity
+to try out a philosophy of government in the executive chair. In 1880
+the conventions were the chief interest--the campaign was dull. The
+campaign of 1884, on the other hand, was one of the most remarkable in
+our history.
+
+It will be remembered that the year 1882 had been characterized by
+political upheavals. In Pennsylvania the Greenbackers had demanded that
+currency be issued only by the central government--not by the national
+banks--and that measures be taken to curb monopolies; the independent
+Republicans had revolted against Cameron, and demanded civil service
+reform and the overthrow of bossism; and the Democrats had elected a
+governor of the reformer type, Robert E. Pattison. Massachusetts
+Republicans had gasped the day after the election to find that "Ben"
+Butler, who bore a questionable reputation as a politician, as a soldier
+and as a man, had been elected by a combination of Greenbackers and
+Democrats on a reform program. In New York the Democrats had taken
+advantage of a factional quarrel among their opponents to elect as
+governor a man who had achieved a reputation as a reformer--Grover
+Cleveland. That some of the states which had been Democratic in 1882,
+had become Republican again in 1883 illustrates the unstable character
+of the politics of the time.
+
+The beginning of the convention season of 1884 gave hint of the vigorous
+campaign ahead. An Anti-Monopoly party nominated Benjamin F. Butler, who
+was also supported by the Greenbackers. The Prohibitionists presented a
+ticket headed by John P. St. John. The action of the Republican
+convention, which met at Chicago on June 3, proved to be the turning
+point in the campaign. President Arthur was frankly a candidate for
+another term, but he did not have the united support of the professional
+politicians and was distrusted by most of the reform element. Nor had
+his veto of the Chinese immigration bill and the rivers and harbors act
+tended to increase his popularity. Most enthusiastic, confident and
+vociferous were the supporters of James G. Blaine, of Maine. The
+independent element hoped to nominate Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, and
+was particularly disturbed at the character of the workers for the "Man
+from Maine." His campaign manager, Stephen B. Elkins, had been charged
+with a discreditable connection with the star-route scandals; men of the
+Platt type were urging that it was now Blaine's "turn"; and Powell
+Clayton, an Arkansas carpet-bagger of ill-repute, was the Blaine
+candidate for the position of temporary chairman of the convention.
+
+Before a candidate was chosen the delegates turned to the adoption of
+the platform. This was of the usual type but was an advance over that of
+1880 in several respects. It committed the party to a protective tariff
+and advocated an interstate commerce law and the extension of civil
+service reform.
+
+The balloting for candidates proved that Blaine was clearly the choice
+of the convention. The mere mention of his name threw the delegates
+into storms of applause and even on the first ballot he received votes
+from every state in the union save five. On the fourth ballot he
+received an overwhelming majority and became the nominee. John A.
+Logan of Illinois, a prominent politician and soldier, was nominated
+for the Vice-Presidency--a tail to the ticket, in the opinion of the
+Democrats, which was designed to "Wag Invitation to the Soldier Vote."
+The choice of Blaine was variously received by the different factions
+in the convention. The Pacific coast delegates, in a special train,
+went from Chicago to Augusta, Maine, before starting for home, in
+order personally to pledge their support to the candidate. On the
+other hand, Theodore Roosevelt disgustedly remarked that he was going
+to a cattle-ranch in the West to stay he knew not how long. George
+William Curtis sadly declared that he had been present at the birth of
+the Republican party and feared that he was to be a witness of its
+death. Other reformers were no less disaffected.
+
+The outspoken Republican opposition to Blaine gave infinite aid and
+comfort to the Democrats whose convention, coming a month later, could
+take advantage of the growing schism in the opposition. During the
+interval between the two conventions the growing sentiment in favor of
+the nomination of Grover Cleveland received the additional impetus of
+independent Republican support. The Democratic party was still an object
+of suspicion to them, but they were ready to run the risks of even a
+Democratic administration, if a leader of proved integrity should be
+nominated, and Cleveland seemed to them to meet the demands of the
+times. The first work of the convention, which met in Chicago on July 8,
+was the adoption of a reform platform. Characterizing the opposition
+party as a "reminiscence," it condemned Republican misrule, and promised
+reform; it proposed a revision of the tariff that would be fair to all
+interests, and reductions which would promote industry, do no harm to
+labor and raise sufficient revenue; and it briefly advocated "honest"
+civil service reform.
+
+The enthusiasm which the independent Republicans were manifesting for
+Cleveland was balanced by the hostility of elements within his party.
+As Governor he had exercised his veto power with complete disregard
+for the effect on his own political future. He had, for example,
+vetoed a popular measure reducing fares on the New York City elevated
+railroad, basing his objections on the ground that the bill violated
+the provisions of the fundamental railroad law of the state. He was
+opposed by Tammany Hall, led by John Kelley, who declared that the
+labor element disliked him. Kelley's reputation, however, was such
+that his hostility seemed like a compliment and gave force to General
+Bragg's assertion, in seconding the nomination of Cleveland, that his
+friends "love him most for the enemies he has made." The first ballot
+proved that the Governor was stronger than his competitors, Senator
+Bayard, Allen G. Thurman, Samuel J. Randall and several men of lesser
+importance, and on the second ballot he received the nomination.
+
+The choice of Cleveland gave the independent movement more than the
+expected impetus. The New York _Times_ at once crossed the line into
+the Cleveland camp and _Harpers Weekly_, long a supporter of the
+Republicans, the Boston _Herald_, Springfield _Republican_, New York
+_Evening Post_, _The Nation_, the Chicago _Times_ and a host of less
+important ones followed. A conference of Independents in New York
+City, which was composed of five hundred delegates and which enlisted
+the support of such men as Carl Schurz, George William Curtis, Henry
+C. Lea, Charles J. Bonaparte, Moorfield Storey and President Seelye of
+Amherst College, gave striking evidence of the revolt which Blaine's
+nomination had aroused. Curtis said in the conference, that the chief
+issue of the campaign was moral rather than political. The New York
+_Times_ declared that the issue was a personal one. Some of the better
+element, however, like Senator Hoar, earnestly urged the election of
+Blaine, while Senator Edmunds refused either to aid or oppose his
+party. Others, like Roosevelt, were unable to give ungrudging support,
+but felt that reform would be better promoted by working within the
+party than by withdrawing. It is obvious that Blaine and Cleveland,
+not the platforms of the parties, had become the issue of the
+campaign.
+
+James G. Blaine was born in Pennsylvania in 1830, was educated at
+Washington College in his native state, later moved to Augusta, Maine,
+and purchased an interest in the Kennebec _Journal_. On assuming his
+journalistic duties he familiarized himself with the politics of the
+state and became powerful in local, and later in federal affairs. He was
+a member of the first Republican convention and was chairman of the
+state Republican committee for more than twenty years, from which point
+of vantage he had a prevailing influence in Maine politics. He served in
+the state and federal legislatures as well as in Garfield's cabinet and
+was a prominent candidate for the presidential nomination in 1876 and in
+1880.
+
+Grover Cleveland, although only seven years younger than Blaine, was
+relatively inexperienced on the stage of national affairs. He was born
+in New Jersey, the son of a Presbyterian minister, grew up with little
+education, was salesman in a village store and later clerk in a law
+office, at the age of eighteen. Although he had been sheriff of Erie
+County, it was not until 1881, when he became mayor of Buffalo, that
+he took an important part in politics, and here his record as the
+business-like "veto mayor" was such as to carry him into the governor's
+chair a year later. The huge majority which he received in the
+gubernatorial contest was not wholly due to his own strength--doubtless
+factional quarrels among the Republicans assisted him--but the
+prominence which this election gave him and his conduct as Governor
+made inevitable his candidacy for higher office.
+
+Few men could have been nominated who would have presented a more
+complete contrast than Blaine and Cleveland. In personality Blaine was
+magnetic, approachable, high-strung, possessed of a vivid imagination
+and of a marvellous memory for facts, names and faces. Over him men
+went "insane in pairs," either devotedly admiring or completely
+distrusting him. Cleveland was almost devoid of personal charm except
+to his most intimate associates. He was brusque and tactless,
+unimaginative, plodding, commonplace in his tastes and in the elements
+of his character. Men threw their hats in the air and cheered
+themselves hoarse at the name of Blaine; to Cleveland's courage,
+earnestness and honesty, they gave a tribute of admiration. When the
+campaign was at fever heat, Blaine was lifting crowds of eager
+listeners to the mountain peaks of enthusiasm; Cleveland was in the
+governor's room in Albany, phlegmatically plodding away at the
+business of his office. He was too heavy, unimaginative, direct, to
+indulge in flights of oratory. Yet scarcely anything that Blaine said
+still lives, while some of Cleveland's phrases have passed into the
+language of every-day.
+
+No less a contrast existed between Blaine and Cleveland as political
+characters. The former's experience in the machinery of politics, in the
+disposal of its loaves and fishes, has already been mentioned. Of that
+part of politics, Cleveland had had no experience. It is said that he
+never was in Washington, except for a single day, until he went there to
+become President. Both were bold and active fighters, but Blaine was a
+strategist, a manager and a diplomat, while Cleveland could merely state
+the policy which he desired to see put into effect, and then crash
+ahead. Blaine had the instinct for the popular thing, was never ahead of
+his party, was surrounded by his followers; Cleveland saw the thing
+which he felt a moral imperative to accomplish and was far in advance of
+his fellows. The Republican was popular among the professional political
+element in his party and was supported by it; the Democrat never was.
+Cleveland openly declared his attitude on controverted issues, in words
+that admitted of no ambiguity and at times when only silence or soft
+words would save him from defeat. Blaine lacked the moral courage and
+the indifference to immediate results which were necessary for so
+exalted an action. Cleveland had more of the reformer in his nature, and
+had so keen a sense of responsibility and duty that his political career
+was a succession of battles against things that seemed wrong to him.
+Blaine accepted the party standards as they were; he belonged to the
+past, to the policies and political morality of war and reconstruction;
+Cleveland belonged to the transition from reconstruction to the
+twentieth century.
+
+The particular thing, however, that came out of Blaine's past to dog his
+foot-steps, give him the enmity of the Independents--better known as the
+"Mugwumps"--and, doubtless, to defeat him, was a series of transactions
+exposed in the Mulligan letters. In order to understand these, it is
+necessary to inquire into events that occurred fifteen years before the
+overturn of 1884. In April, 1869, a bill favorable to the Little Rock
+and Fort Smith Railroad--an Arkansas land-grant enterprise--was before
+the House of Representatives. Blaine was Speaker. As the session was
+near its close and the bill seemed likely to be lost, its friends
+bespoke Blaine's assistance. He suggested that a certain point of order
+be raised, which would facilitate the passage of the measure, and also
+asked General John A. Logan to raise the point. Logan did so, Blaine
+sustained him and the act was passed. Nearly three months later, Warren
+Fisher, Jr., a Boston business man, asked Blaine to participate in the
+affairs of the Little Rock Railroad. Blaine signified his readiness,
+closing his letter with the words, "I do not feel that I shall prove a
+dead-head in the enterprise if I once embark in it. I see various
+channels in which I know I can be useful." When Blaine's enemies got
+hold of this, they declared that he intended to use his position as
+Speaker to further the interests of the road, as he had done at the time
+of the famous point of order; his friends asserted that he intended
+merely to sell the securities of the road to investors. Whether one of
+these contentions is true, or both, he did sell considerable amounts of
+the securities of the road to Maine friends, getting a "handsome
+commission." Considerable correspondence passed between Blaine and
+Fisher from 1869 to 1872 when their relations ended. Blaine understood
+that all their correspondence was mutually surrendered.
+
+In the spring of 1876, the presidential campaign was on the horizon and
+Blaine was a prominent candidate for the Republican nomination.
+Meanwhile ugly rumors were flying about concerning the connection of
+certain members of Congress, Blaine among them, with questionable
+railroad transactions, and he arose in the House to deny the charges. He
+did not discuss the matter fully, as he did not wish his Maine
+constituents to know that he had received a large commission for selling
+Little Rock securities. Gossip grew, however, and a congressional
+investigation resulted in May, 1876. Blaine was one of the witnesses,
+but was doubtless anxious to bring the investigation to an end, since it
+clearly reduced his chances of receiving the nomination. Presently
+gossip said that Warren Fisher and James Mulligan were going to testify.
+Mulligan had been confidential clerk to one of Mrs. Blaine's brothers
+and later to Fisher. When Mulligan began his testimony it appeared that
+he intended to lay before the committee a package of letters that had
+passed between Blaine and Fisher, and thereupon, at Blaine's whispered
+request, one of the members of the committee procured an adjournment for
+the day. That evening Blaine found Mulligan at the latter's hotel and
+prevailed on him to surrender the letters temporarily, in order that
+Blaine might read and then return them. Blaine thereupon consulted two
+lawyers and on their advice he refused to restore the package to
+Mulligan. Merely to keep silence, however, was to admit guilt. Blaine,
+therefore, arose one day in the House of Representatives and holding the
+letters in his hand read selections and defended himself in a remarkable
+burst of emotional oratory. At the climax of this defence he elicited
+from the chairman of the committee of investigation an unwilling
+admission that the committee had suppressed a dispatch which Blaine
+declared would exonerate him. Blaine was triumphant, his friends sure
+that he had cleared himself and the matter dropped for the time. Further
+investigation was prevented by Blaine's refusal to produce the letters
+even before the committee and by his sudden illness shortly afterward.
+His election to the Senate soon took him out of the jurisdiction of the
+House committee and no action resulted.
+
+The nomination of Blaine in 1884 was a fresh breeze on the half-dead
+embers of the Mulligan letters. _Harper's Weekly_ and other periodicals
+published them with damaging explanatory remarks. Campaign committees
+spread them abroad in pamphlet form. Attention was directed to such
+phrases as "I do not feel that I shall prove a dead-head" and "I see
+various channels in which I know I can be useful." Hostile cartoonists
+used the phrases with an infinite variety of innuendo. But the most
+powerful evidence was still to come. On September 15, 1884, Fisher and
+Mulligan made public additional letters which Blaine had not possessed
+at the time of his defence in 1876. The most damaging of these was one
+in which Blaine had drawn up a letter completely exonerating himself,
+which he asked Fisher to sign and make public as his own. Blaine had
+marked his request "confidential" and had written at the bottom "Burn
+this letter." Fisher had neither written the letter which was requested
+nor burned Blaine's. Meanwhile it was recalled that Blaine had earlier
+characterized the reformers as "upstarts, conceited, foolish, vain" and
+as "noisy but not numerous, pharisaical but not practical, ambitious but
+not wise," and the already intemperate campaign became more personal
+than ever.
+
+Thomas Nast's able pencil caricatured Blaine in _Harper's Weekly_ as a
+magnetic candidate too heavy for the party elephant to carry; _Puck_
+portrayed him as the "tattooed man" covered all over with "Little Rock,"
+"Mulligan Letters" and the like. _Life_ described him as a
+
+    Take all I can gettery,
+    Mulligan lettery,
+    Solid for Blaine old man.
+
+Nor was the contest of scurrility entirely one-sided. _Judge_
+caricatured Cleveland in hideous cartoons. The New York _Tribune_
+described him as a small man "everywhere except on the hay-scales."
+Beginning in Buffalo rumors spread all over the country that Cleveland
+was an habitual drunkard and libertine. As is the way of such gossip,
+its magnitude grew until the Governor appeared in the guise of a monster
+of immorality. The editor of the _Independent_ went himself to Buffalo
+and ran the rumors to their sources. He came to the conclusion that
+Cleveland as a young man had been guilty of an illicit connection, that
+he had made amends for the wrong which he had done and had since lived a
+blameless life. Such religious periodicals as the _Unitarian Review_,
+however, continued to describe him as a "_debauchee_" and "_roué_."
+Nearly a thousand clergymen gathered in New York declared him a synonym
+of "incapacity and incontinency." Much was made, also, of the fact that
+Cleveland had not served in the war, and John Sherman denounced him as
+having no sympathy for the Union cause. It did little good in the heated
+condition of partisan discussion to point out that young Cleveland had
+two brothers in the service, that he was urgently needed to support his
+widowed mother and her six other children, and that he borrowed money to
+obtain a substitute to take the field. On the other side, _Harper's
+Weekly_ dwelt upon the Mulligan scandal; _The Nation_, while deploring
+the incident in Cleveland's past, considered even so grave a mistake as
+less important than Blaine's, since the latter's vices were those by
+which "governments are overthrown, states brought to naught, and the
+haunts of commerce turned into dens of thieves."
+
+As the campaign neared an end it appeared that the result would turn
+upon New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Indiana, and especially upon
+the first of these. In New York several elements combined to make the
+situation doubtful and interesting. Tammany's dislike of Cleveland was
+well-known, but open opposition, at least, was quelled before election
+day. Roscoe Conkling, still influential despite his retirement, refused
+to take the stump in behalf of Blaine, declaring that he did not engage
+in "criminal practice." The Republicans also feared the competition of
+the Prohibitionists, because they attracted some Republicans who refused
+to vote for Blaine and could not bring themselves to support a Democrat.
+On the eve of the election an incident occurred which would have been of
+no importance if it had not been for the closeness of the contest. As
+Blaine was returning from a speaking tour in the West, he was given a
+reception in New York by a delegation of clergymen. The spokesman of the
+group, the Reverend Dr. Burchard, referred to the Democrats as the party
+of "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion." Blaine, weary from his tour, failed to
+notice the indiscreet remark, but the opposition seized upon it and used
+it to discredit him in the eyes of the Irish. On the same evening a
+dinner at Delmonico's at which many wealthy men were present, provided
+material for the charge that the Republican candidate was the choice of
+the rich classes.
+
+Early returns on election night indicated that the Democrats had carried
+the South and all the doubtful states, with the possible exception of
+New York. There the result was so close that some days elapsed before a
+final decision could be made. Excitement was intense; and business
+almost stopped, so absorbed were people in the returns. At length it was
+officially decided that Cleveland had received 1,149 more votes than
+Blaine and by this narrow margin the Democrats carried New York, and
+with it the election.
+
+Contemporary explanations of Blaine's defeat were indicated by a
+transparency carried in a Democratic procession which celebrated the
+victory:
+
+    The _World_ Says the Independents Did It
+    The _Tribune_ Says the Stalwarts Did It
+    The _Sun_ Says Burchard Did It
+    Blaine Says St. John Did It
+    Theodore Roosevelt Says It Was the Soft Soap Dinner[1]
+    We Say Blaine's Character Did It
+    But We Don't Care What Did It
+             It's Done.
+
+None of these explanations took into account the strength of Cleveland,
+but the closeness of the result made all of them important. From the
+vantage ground of later times, however, it could be seen that greater
+forces were at work. By 1884 the day had passed when political contests
+could be won on Civil War issues. The younger voters had no recollections
+of Gettysburg and felt no animosity toward the Democratic South. Moreover,
+Cleveland's success was the culmination of a long-continued demand for
+reform, which he satisfied better than Blaine.
+
+The opening of the first Democratic administration since Buchanan's time
+excited great interest in every detail of Cleveland's activities and
+characteristics.[2] Moreover, many who had voted for him distrusted his
+party and were apprehensive lest it turn out that a mistake had been
+made in placing such great confidence in one man. The more stiffly
+partisan Republicans firmly believed that Democratic success meant a
+triumphant South, with the "rebels" again in the saddle. Sherman
+declared that Cleveland's choice of southern advisors was a "reproach to
+the civilization of the age," and Joseph B. Foraker, speaking in an Ohio
+campaign, found that the people wished to hear Cleveland "flayed" and
+wanted plenty of "hot stuff."
+
+The President's early acts indicated that the partisans were unduly
+disturbed. His inaugural address was characterized by straightforward
+earnestness. The exploitation of western lands by fraudulent claimants
+was sharply halted. The cabinet, while inexperienced, contained several
+able men, of whom Thomas F. Bayard, Secretary of State, William C.
+Whitney, Secretary of the Navy, and L.Q.C. Lamar, the Secretary of the
+Interior, were best known.[3]
+
+The first great obstacle that Cleveland faced was well portrayed by one
+of Nast's cartoons, in which the President, with an "Independent" club
+in his hand, was approaching a snarling, open-jawed tiger, which
+represented the office-seeking classes. The drawing was entitled
+"Beware! For He is Very Hungry and Very Thirsty." It was not difficult
+to foresee grave trouble ahead in connection with the civil service. The
+Democrats had been out of power for twenty-four years, the offices were
+full of Republicans, about 100,000 positions were at the disposal of the
+administration, and current political practice looked with indifference
+upon the use of these places as rewards for party work. Hordes of
+office-seekers descended upon congressmen, in order to get introductions
+to department chiefs; they filled the waiting rooms of cabinet officers;
+they besieged Cleveland. Disappointed applicants and displaced officers
+added to the clamor and confusion.
+
+The President's policy, as it worked out in practice, was a compromise
+between his ideals and the wishes of the party leaders. He earnestly
+approved the Pendleton act and desired to carry out both its letter and
+its spirit. He removed office holders who were offensively partisan and
+who used their positions for political purposes. He gave the South a
+larger share in the activities of the government, both in the cabinet
+and in the diplomatic and other branches of the service. When the term
+of a Republican office holder expired he filled the place with a fit
+Democrat, if one could be found, in order to equalize the share of the
+two parties in the patronage. Nearly half of the diplomatic and consular
+appointments went to southerners, and eventually most of the Republicans
+were supplanted.
+
+The displacement of so many officials gave the Republicans an
+opportunity to attempt to discredit the President in the eyes of his
+mugwump supporters. An amended law of 1869 gave the Senate a certain
+control over removals, although the constant practice of early times had
+been to give the executive a free hand. Moreover the law had fallen into
+disuse--or, as the President put it--into "innocuous desuetude." The
+case on which the Senate chose to force the issue was the removal of
+George M. Duskin, United States District Attorney in Alabama, and the
+nomination of John D. Burnett in his place. The Senate called upon the
+Attorney-General to transmit all papers relating to the removal; the
+President directed him to refuse, on the ground that papers of such a
+sort were not official papers, to which the Senate had a right, and also
+on the ground that the power of removal was vested, by the Constitution,
+in the president alone. In the meantime it had been hinted to Cleveland
+that his nominations would be confirmed without difficulty if it were
+acknowledged that the suspensions were the usual partisan removals. To
+do this would, of course, make his reform utterances look hypocritical
+and he refused to comply:
+
+    I ... dispute the right of the Senate ... in any way save
+    through the judicial process of trial on impeachment, to review
+    or reverse the acts of the Executive in the suspension, during
+    the recess of the Senate, of Federal officials.
+
+As he was immovable and was taking precisely the position that such
+Republican leaders as President Grant had previously taken, the Senate
+was obliged to give way. Although it relieved its feelings by censuring
+the Attorney-General, it later repealed the remains of the Tenure of
+Office act of 1869, leaving victory with the President.
+
+In connection with the less important offices Cleveland was forced to
+compromise between the desirable and the practicable. Most of the
+postmasters were changed, although in New York City an efficient officer
+was retained who had originally been appointed by Garfield. All the
+internal revenue collectors and nearly all the collectors of customs
+were replaced. On the other hand, the classified service was somewhat
+extended by the inclusion of the railway mail service, a change which,
+with other increases, enlarged the classified lists by 12,000 offices.
+
+It seems evident that Cleveland pressed reform far enough to alienate
+the politicians but not so far as to satisfy the reformers. When he
+withstood Democratic clamor for office, the Independents applauded, and
+the spoilsmen in his own party accused him of treason. When he listened
+to the demands of the partisans, the reformers became disgusted and many
+of them returned to their former party allegiance. Eugene Field
+expressed Republican exultation at the dissension in the enemy's ranks:
+
+    ... the Mugwump scorned the Democrat's wail,
+    And flirting its false fantastic tail,
+    It spread its wings and it soared away,
+    And left the Democrat in dismay,
+            Too hoo!
+
+Aside from the President, official Washington seems to have had but
+little real interest in reform. The Vice-President, Hendricks, was a
+partisan of the old school, and so many members of Congress were out of
+sympathy with the system that they attempted to annul the law by
+refusing appropriations for its continuance. On the whole a fair
+judgment was that of Charles Francis Adams, a Republican, who thought
+that Cleveland showed himself as much in advance of both parties as it
+was wise for a leader of one of them to be.
+
+In addition to further improvements in the civil service laws, Cleveland
+was interested in a long list of reforms which he placed before Congress
+in his first message: the improvement of the diplomatic and consular
+service; the reduction of the tariff; the repeal of the Bland-Allison
+silver-coinage act; the development of the navy, which he characterized
+as a "shabby ornament" and a naval reminder "of the days that are past";
+better care of the Indians; and a means of preventing individuals from
+acquiring large areas of the public lands. The fact that Hayes and
+Arthur had urged similar reforms showed how little Cleveland differed
+from his Republican predecessors. It was not likely, however, that the
+program would be carried out, for Congress was not in a reforming mood
+and the Republicans controlled the upper house so that they could block
+any attempt at constructive policies.
+
+The latent hostility which many of the Civil War veterans felt toward
+the Democratic party was fanned into flame by Cleveland's attitude
+toward pension legislation. The sympathy of the country for its disabled
+soldiers had early resulted in a system of pensions for disability if
+due either to wounds or to disease contracted in the service. Early in
+the seventies the number of pensioners had seemed to have reached a
+maximum. Two new centers of agitation, however, had appeared, the Grand
+Army of the Republic and the pension agent. The former was originally a
+social organization but later it took a hand in the campaign for new
+pension legislation. The agents were persons familiar with the laws, who
+busied themselves in finding possible pensioners and getting their
+claims established. The agitation of the subject had resulted in the
+arrears act of 1879, which gave the claimant back-pensions from the day
+of his discharge from the army to the date of filing his claim,
+regardless of the time when his disability began. As the average first
+payment to the pensioner under this act was about $1,000, the number of
+claims filed had grown enormously and the pension agents had enjoyed a
+rich harvest. The next step was the dependent pensions bill, which
+granted a pension to all who had served three months, were dependent on
+their daily toil, and were incapable of earning their livelihood,
+whether the incapacity was due to wounds and disease or not. President
+Cleveland's veto of the measure aroused a hostility which was deepened
+by his attitude toward private pension acts.
+
+For some time it had been customary to pass special acts providing
+pensions for persons whose claims had already been rejected by the
+pension bureau as defective or fraudulent. So little attention was paid
+to private bills in Congress that 1454 of them passed between 1885 and
+1889, generally without debate and often even without the presence of a
+quorum of members. Two hours on a day in April, 1886, sufficed for the
+passage of five hundred such bills. Nobody would now deny that many were
+frauds, pure and simple. Cleveland was too frugal and conscientious to
+pass such bills without examination and he began to veto some of the
+worst of them. Each veto message explained the grounds for his dissent,
+sometimes patiently, sometimes with a sharp sarcasm that must have made
+the victim writhe. In one case where a widow sought a pension because of
+the death of her soldier husband it was discovered that he had been
+accidentally shot by a neighbor while hunting. Another claimant was one
+who had enlisted at the close of the war, served nine days, had been
+admitted to the hospital with measles and then mustered out. Fifteen
+years later he claimed a pension. The President vetoed the bill,
+scoffing at the applicant's "valiant service" and "terrific encounter
+with the measles." Altogether he vetoed about two hundred and thirty
+private bills. Time after time he expressed his sympathy with the
+deserving pensioner and his desire to purge the list of dishonorable
+names, and many applauded his courageous efforts. Nevertheless, his
+pension policy presented an opportunity for hostile criticism which his
+Republican opponents were not slow to embrace. His efforts in behalf of
+pension reform were said to originate in hostility to the old soldiers
+and in lack of sympathy with the northern cause. In 1887 it even became
+necessary for him to withdraw his acceptance of an invitation to attend
+a meeting of the Grand Army in St. Louis, because of danger that he
+might be subjected to downright insult.[4]
+
+Before the hostility due to the pension vetoes had subsided,
+Adjutant-General Drum called the attention of the President to the fact
+that flags taken from Confederate regiments by Union soldiers during the
+war and also certain flags formerly belonging to northern troops had for
+many years lain packed in boxes in the attic and cellar of the War
+Department. At his suggestion Cleveland ordered the return of these
+trophies to the states which the regiments had represented. Although
+recommended by Drum as a "graceful act," it was looked upon by the old
+soldiers with the utmost wrath. The commander of the Grand Army called
+upon Heaven to avenge so wicked an order and such politicians as
+Governor Foraker of Ohio gained temporary prominence by their bitter
+condemnation of it. Eventually the clamor was so great that the
+President rescinded the order on the ground that the final disposition
+of the flags was within the sphere of action of Congress only. In
+February, 1905, however, Congress passed a resolution providing for the
+return of the flags and the exchange was effected without excitement.
+
+For the reasons already mentioned, little legislation was passed during
+President Cleveland's administration that was of permanent importance.
+An exception was the Interstate Commerce Act, which is a subject for
+later discussion. A Presidential Succession Act, which has earlier been
+described, provided for the succession of the members of the cabinet in
+case of the removal or death of the president and vice-president. The
+Electoral Count Act placed on the states the burden of deciding contests
+arising from the choice of presidential electors. When more than one set
+of electoral returns come from a state, each purporting to be legal,
+Congress must decide which shall be counted. Of some importance, too,
+was the establishment of the Department of Agriculture in 1889 and the
+inclusion of its secretary in the cabinet. The admission of the Dakotas,
+Montana and Washington as states took place in the same year. The
+improvement of the navy, begun so auspiciously by Secretary Chandler
+under President Arthur, was continued with enthusiasm and vigor, and the
+vessels constructed formed an important part of our navy.
+
+Of less popular interest than many of the political questions, but of
+more lasting importance, was the rapid reduction of the public land
+supply. The purpose of the Homestead law of 1862 had been to supply land
+at low rates and in small amounts to _bona fide_ settlers, but the
+beneficent design of the nation had been somewhat nullified by the
+constant evasion of the spirit of the laws. Squatters had occupied land
+without reference to legal forms; cattlemen had fenced in large tracts
+for their own use and forcibly resisted attempts to oust them; by hook
+and by crook individuals and companies had got large areas into their
+possession and held them for speculative returns. Western public opinion
+looked upon many such violations with equanimity until the supply of
+land began to grow small. Then came the demand for the opening of the
+Indian reservations, which comprised 250,000 square miles in 1885. The
+Dawes act of 1887 provided for individual ownership of small amounts of
+land by the Indians instead of tribal ownership in large reservations.
+By this means a considerable amount of good land was made available for
+settlement by whites. The dwindling supply of western land also called
+attention to certain delinquencies on the part of the railway companies.
+Many of them had been granted enormous amounts of land on certain
+conditions, such as that specified parts of the roads be constructed
+within a given time. This agreement, with others, was frequently broken,
+and question arose as to whether the companies should be forced to
+forfeit their claims. Cleveland turned to the problem with energy and
+forced the return of some millions of acres. Nevertheless, the fact that
+it was becoming necessary to be less prodigal with the public land
+indicated that the supply was no longer inexhaustible, and led the
+President in his last annual message to urge that the remaining supply
+be husbanded with great care. Congress was not alert to the demands of
+the time, however, and no effective steps were taken for many years.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+H.C. Thomas, _The Return of the Democratic Party to Power in 1884_
+(1919), is most complete and scholarly on the subject; Sparks, Curtis,
+Dewey, and Stanwood continue useful; H.T. Peck, _Twenty Years of the
+Republic, 1885-1905_ (1907), is illuminating and interesting; H.J. Ford,
+_Cleveland Era_ (1919), is brief; the files of _The Nation_ and
+_Harper's Weekly_ are essential, while those of the New York _Sun,
+Evening Post_ and _Tribune_ add a few points. The Mulligan letters are
+reprinted in _Harper's Weekly_ (1884, 643-646).
+
+On the administration, consult the general texts and the special volumes
+mentioned in chapter V; G.F. Parker, _Recollections of Grover Cleveland_
+(1909); and _Political Science Quarterly_ (June, 1918), "Official
+Characteristics of President Cleveland," give something on the personal
+side; J.L. Whittle, _Grover Cleveland_ (1896), is by an English admirer;
+Cleveland's own side of one of his controversies is in Grover Cleveland,
+_Presidential Problems_ (1904); on Blaine, Edward Stanwood, _James G.
+Blaine_ (1905). The _Annual Cyclopaedia_ has useful biographical
+articles.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] A reference to the Dorsey dinner at which Arthur told how Indiana
+was carried.
+
+[2] His marriage to Miss Frances Folsom, which occurred in 1886,
+occasioned lively interest.
+
+[3] Other members were: Daniel Manning, N.Y., Secretary of the
+Treasury; William C. Endicott, Mass., Secretary of War; A.H. Garland,
+Ark., Attorney-General; William F. Vilas, Wis., Postmaster-General.
+
+[4] President Cleveland also frequently used his veto power to prevent
+the passage of appropriations for federal buildings which he deemed
+unnecessary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+TRANSPORTATION AND ITS CONTROL
+
+The most significant legislative act of President Cleveland's
+administration was due primarily neither to him nor to the great
+political parties. It concerned the relation between the government
+and the railroads, and the force which led to its passage originated
+outside of Congress. The growth of the transportation system,
+therefore, the economic benefits which resulted, the complaints which
+arose and the means through which the complaints found voice were
+subjects of primary importance.
+
+Beginning with the construction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
+about 1830, the extension of the railways went forward with increasing
+rapidity so that they soon formed a veritable network: between 1830
+and 1850 over 7,000 miles were laid; by 1860 the total was 30,000
+miles; the Civil War and the financial depression of 1873 retarded
+progress somewhat, but such delays were temporary, and by 1890 the
+total exceeded 160,000 miles. In the earlier decades most construction
+took place in the Northeast, where capital was most plentiful and
+population most dense. Later activity in the Northeast was devoted to
+building "feeders" or branch lines. In the South, the relatively
+smaller progress which had been made before the war had been undone
+for the most part by the wear and tear of the conflict, but the
+twenty-five years afterward saw greatly renewed construction. The most
+surprising expansion took place in Texas where the 711 miles of 1870
+were increased to 8,754 by 1890. In the Middle West, roads were
+rapidly built just before the war and immediately after it, and the
+first connection with the Pacific Coast, as has been shown, was made
+in 1869.
+
+[Illustration:
+Railroad Mileage, 1860-1910, in thousands of miles]
+
+Many of the circumstances accompanying this rapid expansion were novel
+and important. Beginning with a federal grant to the Illinois Central,
+for example, in the middle of the century, both the nation and the
+states assisted the roads by gifts of millions of acres of land. It
+was to the advantage of the companies to procure the grants on the
+best possible terms, and they exerted constant pressure upon
+congressmen whose votes and influence they desired. Frequently the
+agents of the roads were thoroughly unscrupulous, and such scandals as
+that connected with the Credit Mobilier were the result. More
+important still, the fact that the federal and state governments had
+aided the railroads so greatly gave them a strong justification for
+investigating and regulating the activities of the companies.
+
+Mechanical inventions and improvements had no small part in the
+development of the transportation system. The early tracks,
+constructed of wood beams on which were fastened iron strips, and
+sometimes described as barrel-hoops tacked to laths, were replaced by
+iron, and still later by heavy steel rails. By 1890 about eighty per
+cent. of the mileage was composed of steel. Heavy rails were
+accompanied by improved roadbeds, heavier equipment and greater speed.
+A simple improvement was the gradual adoption of a standard
+gauge--four feet eight and a half inches--which replaced the earlier
+lack of uniformity. The process was substantially completed by the
+middle eighties, when many thousands of miles in the South were
+standardized. On the Louisville and Nashville, for example, a force of
+8,763 men made the change on 1,806 miles of track in a single day. The
+inauguration of "standard" time also took place during the eighties.
+Hitherto there had been a wide variety of time standards and different
+roads even in the same city despatched their trains on different
+systems. In 1883 the country was divided into five vertical zones each
+approximately fifteen degrees or, in sun-time, an hour wide. Both the
+roads and the public then conformed to the standard time of the zone
+in which they were.
+
+[Illustration:
+Map of the United States showing railroads in 1870]
+
+Of greater importance was the consolidation of large numbers of small
+lines into the extensive systems which are now familiar. The first
+roads covered such short distances that numerous bothersome transfers
+of passengers, freight and baggage from the end of one line to the
+beginning of the next were necessary on every considerable journey. No
+fewer than five companies, for example, divided the three hundred
+miles between Albany and Buffalo, no one of them operating more than
+seventy-six miles. In 1853, these five with five others were
+consolidated into the New York Central Railroad. Sixteen years later,
+in 1869, the Central combined with the Hudson River, and soon
+afterwards procured substantial control of the Lake Shore and Michigan
+Southern, the Rock Island, and the Chicago and Northwestern. As the
+result of this process a single group of men directed the interests of
+a system of railroads from New York through Chicago to Omaha. The
+Pennsylvania Railroad began with a short line from Philadelphia to the
+Susquehanna River, picked up smaller roads here and there--eventually
+one hundred and thirty-eight of them, representing two hundred and
+fifty-six separate corporations--reached out through the Middle West
+to Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis, and in 1871 controlled over
+three thousand miles of track, with an annual income of over forty
+million dollars. In the eighties a railroad war in northern New
+England started the consolidation of the Boston and Maine system.
+
+The beneficial results of the growth of the transportation facilities
+of the nation were immediate and revolutionary. The fact that average
+freight rates were cut in halves between 1867 and 1890 helped make
+possible the economic readjustments after the Civil War to a degree
+that is not likely to be overestimated. Not only did railway
+construction supply work for large numbers of laborers and help bring
+about an ever greater westward migration, but it opened a market for
+the huge agricultural surplus of the Middle West. Without the market
+in the cities of the populous Atlantic Coast and Europe, the expansion
+of the West would have been impossible. Moreover, the railways brought
+coal, ore, cotton, wool and other raw materials to the Northeast, and
+thus enabled that section to develop its manufacturing interests.
+
+[Illustration:
+Map of the United States showing railroads in 1890]
+
+Despite the admittedly great benefits resulting from the railroad
+system, there was a rising tide of complaint on the part of the public
+in regard to some aspects of its construction and management. It was
+objected, for example, that many of the western roads especially were
+purely speculative undertakings. Lines were sometimes built into new
+territory where competition did not exist and where, consequently, the
+rates could be kept at a high point. The Chicago, Burlington and
+Quincy presented such a case in 1856. Profits were so great as to
+embarrass the company, since the payment of large dividends was sure
+to arouse the hostility of the farmers who paid the freight rates.
+"This, indeed," declared the biographer of one of the presidents of
+the road, "was the time of glad, confident morning, never again to
+occur in the history of railroad-building in the United States."
+Sometimes lines were driven into territory which was already
+sufficiently supplied with transportation facilities, in order to
+compel the company already on the ground to buy out the new road. If,
+as time went on, traffic enough for both roads did not appear, they
+had to be kept alive through the imposition of high rates; otherwise,
+one of them failed and the investors suffered a loss. The
+opportunities for profit, however, were so numerous that the amount of
+capital reported invested in railways increased by $3,200,000,000
+during the five years preceding 1885.
+
+A practice which was productive of much wrong-doing and which was
+suggestive of more dishonesty than could be proved, related to the
+letting of contracts for the construction of new lines. The directors
+of a road frequently formed part or all of the board of directors of a
+construction company. In their capacity as railroad directors they
+voted advantageous contracts to themselves in their other capacity,
+giving no opportunity to independent construction companies who might
+agree to build at a lower cost. As the cost of construction was part
+of the debt of the road, the directors were adding generously to their
+own wealth, while the company was being saddled with an increased
+burden. It cost only $58,000,000, for example, to build the Central
+Pacific, but a construction company was paid $120,000,000 for its
+services. When John Murray Forbes was investigating the Chicago,
+Burlington and Quincy he found that the president of the road was
+paying himself a salary as president of a construction company, out of
+the railroad's funds, without the supervision of the treasurer or any
+one else, and without any auditing of his accounts. Moreover, six of
+the twelve members of the board of directors were also members of the
+construction company. Such an attempt to "run with the hare and hunt
+with the hounds" was suggestive, to say the least, of great
+possibilities of profit to the directors and a constant invitation to
+unnecessary construction.
+
+Another grievance against the railways was the reckless, irresponsible
+and arrogant management under which some of them operated. An eminent
+expert testified before an investigating commission in 1885 that Jay
+Gould once sold $40,000,000 of Erie Railway stock and pocketed the
+proceeds himself. Most of the energy of the officers of some roads was
+expended in deceiving and cheating competitors. "Railroad
+financiering" became a "by-word for whatever is financially loose,
+corrupt and dishonest." If certain roads demonstrated by successful
+operation that honest methods were better in the long run, their
+probity received scant advertisement in comparison with the
+unscrupulous practices of their less respectable neighbors. It is to
+be remembered, also, that the growth of the railway system had been so
+rapid and so huge that it was impossible to meet the demand for
+trained administrators. Naturally, men possessed of little or no
+technical understanding of transportation problems could not provide
+highly responsible management.
+
+The dishonest manipulation of the issues and sales of railroad stocks
+is a practice that was not confined solely to the twenty-five years
+after the Civil War, but the numerous examples of it which occurred
+during that period aggravated the exasperation which has already been
+mentioned. Daniel Drew, the treasurer of the Erie Railway in 1866,
+furnished an excellent illustration of this type of activity. Drew had
+in his possession a large amount of Erie stock which had been secretly
+issued to him in return for a loan to the company. The stock in the
+market was selling near par and still rising. Drew instructed his
+agents to make contracts for the future delivery of stock at prices
+current at the time when the contracts were made. When the time came
+for fulfilling his contracts, Drew suddenly threw the secret stock on
+the market, drove general market prices on Erie stock down from
+ninety-five to fifty, bought at the low figure, and sold at the high
+price which was called for in the contracts made by his agents. The
+effect of such sharp dealing on investors, the railroad or the public
+seems not to have entered into the calculation. Indeed, the Erie and
+many another road was looked upon by its owners merely as a convenient
+piece of machinery for producing fortunes.
+
+Gould, Drew and other railroad men of their time were also expert in
+the practice of "stock-watering." This consists in expanding the
+nominal capitalization of an enterprise without an equivalent addition
+to the actual capital. The rates which the railway has to charge the
+public tend to increase by approximately whatever dividends are paid
+on the water.[1] Then, as later, when a road was prospering greatly
+it would sometimes declare a "stock dividend," that is, give its
+stockholders additional stock in proportion to what they already
+owned. The addition would frequently be water. Its purpose might be to
+cover up the great profits made by the company. If, on a million
+dollars' worth of stock, it was paying ten per cent. dividends, the
+public might demand lower freight and passenger rates; but if the
+stock were doubled and earnings remained stationary, then the
+dividends would appear as five per cent.--an amount to which there
+could be no objection. H.V. Poor, the railroad expert, declared before
+a commission of investigation in 1885 that the New York Central
+Railroad was carrying $48,000,000 of water, on which it had paid eight
+per cent. dividends for fifteen years. He also estimated that of the
+seven and a half billions of indebtedness which the roads of the
+country were carrying in 1883, two billions represented water. Others
+thought that the proportion of water was greater. In any case the
+unnecessary burden upon business to provide dividends for the watered
+stock was an item of some magnitude. The investor, however, looked
+upon stock-watering with other eyes. The building of a new road was a
+speculation; the profits might be large, to be sure, but there might
+in many cases be a loss. In order to tempt money into railroad
+enterprises, therefore, inducements in the form of generous stock
+bonuses were necessary.
+
+The rate wars of the seventies gave wide advertisement to another
+aspect of railroad history. The most famous of these contests had
+their origin in the grain-carrying trade from the Lakes to the
+sea-board. The entry of the Baltimore and Ohio and the Grand Trunk
+into Chicago in 1874, stimulated a four-cornered competition among
+these roads and the Pennsylvania and New York Central for the traffic
+between the upper Mississippi Valley and the coast. Rates on grain and
+other products were cut, and cut again; freight charges dropped to a
+figure which wiped out profits; yet it was impossible for any line to
+drop out of the competition until exhaustion forced all to do so. A
+railroad can not suspend business when profits disappear, for fixed
+expenses continue and the depreciation of the value of the property,
+especially of the stations, tracks and rolling stock, is extreme.
+Since the rate wars were clearly bringing ruin in their train, rate
+agreements and pooling arrangements were devised. The latter took
+several forms. Sometimes a group of competing roads agreed to divide
+the business among the competitors on the basis of an agreed-upon
+percentage. Another plan was to pool earnings at the close of a period
+and divide according to a prearranged ratio. Sometimes destructive
+competition was prevented by a division of the territory, each company
+being allowed a free hand in its own field. In general, pooling
+agreements were likely to break down, although a southern pool
+organized by Albert Fink on a very extensive scale lasted for many
+years and was thought to have had a vital influence in eliminating
+rate-wars. Their efficacy depended mainly on good faith, and good
+faith was a rarity among railroad officials in the seventies and
+eighties. In the eyes of the public, rate agreements and pools were
+vicious conspiracies which left the rights and well-being of the
+private shipper completely out of the calculation.
+
+Still another indictment of the railways resulted from their
+participation in politics. It was inevitable, of course, that the
+roads should be drawn into the field of legislation--the grants of
+public land, for example, helped bring about the result. It early
+seemed advantageous to attempt to influence state legislatures to pass
+favorable laws, and it seemed a necessity to bring pressure to bear in
+order to protect the roads from hostile acts. The methods used by the
+railway agents in their political activity naturally varied all the
+way from legitimate agitation to crude and subtle forms of bribery. An
+insidious method of influencing both law-making and litigation was the
+pass system. Under it the roads were accustomed to give free
+transportation to a long list of federal and state judges, legislators
+and politicians. For a judge to accept such favors from a corporation
+which might at any time be haled before his court, and for a
+legislator to receive a gift from a body that was constantly in need
+of legislative attention is now held to be improper in the extreme.
+But in those days a less sensitive public opinion felt hardly a qualm.
+That the practice was likely to arouse an unconscious bias in the
+minds of public officials is hardly debatable. The more crude forms of
+bribery, too, were not uncommon. It was testified before a committee
+of investigation that the Erie Railway Company in one year expended
+$700,000 as a corruption fund and for legal expenses, carrying the
+amount on the books in the "India-rubber account." The manipulation of
+the courts of New York by the Erie and the New York Central during the
+late sixties was nothing short of a scandal. Alliances between
+political rings and railroad officials for the purpose of caring for
+their mutual interests were so common that reformers questioned
+whether the American people could be said to possess self-government
+in actuality. Immediately after the Civil War, Charles Francis Adams,
+an acute student of transportation, declared that it was scarcely an
+exaggeration to say that the state legislatures were becoming a
+species of irregular boards of railroad direction. The evils of the
+alliance between the roads and politics were not, of course, due
+entirely to the former. The receiver of a pass shared with the giver
+the evil of the system. Many a legislator was corrupt; more shared in
+practices which were little removed from dishonorable. Adams, for
+example, gives an account of his experiences, as a director of the
+Union Pacific, in dealing with a United States senator in 1884. The
+congressman was ready to take excellent care of railroad corporations
+which retained him as counsel, but was a corrupt and ill-mannered
+bully toward the Union Pacific, which had not employed him.[2]
+
+The most constant grievance was discrimination--that the roads varied
+their rates for the benefit or detriment of especial types of freight,
+of individuals and of entire localities. Through business between
+competing points was carried at a low figure, while the roads recouped
+themselves by charging heavily in towns where competition was absent.
+Shippers complained that rates between St. Paul and Chicago, for
+example, where competition existed were hardly more than half the
+charges to places at a similar distance where a single road was in a
+position to demand what it pleased. Manufacturers in Rochester could
+send goods to New York City and reship them to Cincinnati, back
+through Rochester, for less than the rate direct to their destination.
+Yet the direct haul was seven hundred miles shorter than the indirect.
+Secret arrangements were commonly made with favored shippers by which
+they secured lower rates than their competitors. When it became
+evident that transportation cost entered into the price of
+substantially everything which the ordinary citizen consumed, and when
+it was considered that a slight rise in railroad rates might easily
+amount to a heavy tax on a shipper or an entire region, it was seen
+that uniformity of rates was a matter of the utmost concern.
+
+In brief, then, it was complained that the growth of the
+transportation system had placed enormous power in the hands of a
+small group of men, many of whom had indicated by their selfishness,
+arrogance and questionable practices that they ought not to be
+entrusted with so great a measure of authority.
+
+The best example of the American railroad president after the war was
+Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt began his career by
+ferrying passengers and freight between Staten Island and New York
+City. Later he turned his attention to shipping, in which he made a
+fortune, and planned the operation of steamships on a large scale.
+Becoming interested in railroading, he clearly perceived the
+importance of the western trade and the necessity of consolidation.
+Vanderbilt was a man of vision, a man who combined magnitude of plan
+with the vigorous grasp of the practical details necessary for the
+realization of his ambitions. He was buoyant, energetic, confident,
+ambitious, determined, despotic. Unhampered by modern conceptions of
+public duty, undeterred by the hostility of powerful opponents, with
+eyes fixed upon the combination and control of a great transportation
+system, Vanderbilt entered courageously upon bitter struggles for
+supremacy which involved the misuse of the courts, the control of the
+New York state legislature and a thousand charges of corrupt influence
+and bribery, but he welded railroads together, replaced wood and iron
+with steel, and constructed tracks and terminals. At his death in 1877
+he left a huge fortune and bequeathed to his successors a great,
+consolidated railroad enterprise, skillfully and successfully
+administered. The great weakness of Commodore Vanderbilt and his
+associates, and of those who later imitated his work was their
+fundamental conception of the railroad as a private venture. Success
+consisted in bigness, great profits, crushing or buying out
+competitors, and administering the business for the best good of the
+few owners, regardless of the interests of the region through which
+the railway passed. Vanderbilt and many of his contemporaries were men
+of business sagacity and foresight, but their ethical outlook was
+restricted and their sense of public responsibility not well
+developed.
+
+So considerable a list of grievances naturally bestirred the people to
+seek relief at the hands of their legislators. Two lines of action
+were followed. In Massachusetts, as early as 1869, a state commission
+was formed with purely advisory powers. Under the able leadership of
+Charles Francis Adams it attained great influence and worked
+effectively for the elimination of railroad abuses through conference
+and the weight of public opinion. In Illinois, on the other hand,
+reliance was placed upon compulsory action. The state constitution of
+1870 declared the railroads to be public highways and required the
+legislature to fix rates for the carriage of freight and passengers,
+and to pass laws to correct abuses connected with the railways and
+grain warehouses. In compliance with the constitution the state passed
+the necessary legislation and placed their execution in the hands of a
+commission with considerable power. Other western states followed the
+Illinois model.
+
+On the national scale the agitation for government action began with
+the minor parties. In 1872 the Labor Reformers demanded fair rates and
+no discrimination; in 1876 the Prohibitionists called for lower rates;
+in 1880 the Greenbackers stood for fair and uniform rates; four years
+later they urged laws which would put an end to pooling,
+stock-watering and discrimination, and in the same year the
+Republicans promised an act to regulate commerce if they were elected.
+The most effective force behind the demand for railroad regulation was
+the Patrons of Husbandry, better known as the "Grange." This society
+was founded by O.H. Kelley, a government clerk in Washington, in 1867.
+Its initial purpose was the organization of the agricultural classes
+for social and intellectual improvement, but later it engaged in the
+effort to correct transportation abuses and to arouse cooperation
+among the farmers in other ways. The movement grew astonishingly,
+especially in the Middle West, where its membership reached nearly
+759,000 in 1875.
+
+Transportation conditions in the West had not reached the relatively
+stable situation which characterized those of the East. In the West
+much new work was being done, with the attendant evils of construction
+companies and unnecessary and speculative undertakings. Much of the
+railroad stock was in the hands of eastern investors whom the western
+farmers pictured as living in idle ease on swollen incomes, careless
+of the high rates and unfair discriminations under which the farmer
+groaned. The constantly falling prices, which influenced the West in
+so many other ways, served to heighten the discontent with any abuse
+which increased the farmer's burden. Moreover, the western states had
+contributed huge amounts of land to help build the railways and they
+were not minded to give up the hold which their generosity had
+justified.
+
+Impelled, then, by such force as the Grange and similar organizations
+supplied, the western states proceeded to the adoption of laws whose
+purposes ordinarily included railroad rate-making by the legislature
+or by a commission, the doing away with such abuses as discrimination,
+and the prohibition of free passes. The railroads promptly opposed the
+laws and carried the battle to the courts. The so-called "Granger
+Cases" resulted. Three of these were representative of the general
+trend of the decisions.
+
+The famous case Munn _v._ Illinois, which was decided by the Supreme
+Court in 1876 was possibly the most vital case in the history of the
+regulation of public service corporations after the Civil War. The
+legislature of Illinois, in conformity with the state constitution of
+1870, had passed a law fixing maximum charges for the storage of grain
+in warehouses. The owners of a certain warehouse refused compliance
+with the law on the ground that it was contrary to the Constitution
+and hence null and void. They argued that when the state fixed rates
+it deprived the owners of the right to set higher charges and so, in
+effect, deprived them of their property, in defiance of that portion
+of the Fourteenth Amendment forbidding a state to "deprive any person
+of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."
+
+On examination of the history of the control of such enterprises, the
+Court found that it had been customary in England for many centuries
+and in this country from the beginning, to regulate rates on ferries,
+charges at inns, and similar public enterprises, and that it had never
+been thought that such action deprived persons of property without due
+process of law. In other words, the established common law, at the
+time of the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, did not look upon
+rate regulation as a deprivation of property. The Court, therefore,
+declared the Illinois warehouse law constitutional, and in doing so
+made the following statement:
+
+    Property does become clothed with a public interest when
+    used in a manner to make it of public consequence, and affect
+    the community at large. When, therefore, one devotes his
+    property to a use in which the public has an interest, he, in
+    effect, grants to the public an interest in that use, and must
+    submit to be controlled by the public for the common good,
+    to the extent of the interest he has thus created.
+
+While the Munn case was before the Court, the case Peik _v._ the
+Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company was raising a question which
+struck at the heart of the chief practical impediment in the way of
+state control of transportation. The central question in the
+litigation was whether the legislature of Wisconsin could lawfully
+regulate rates on railroads inside the state. Since the bulk of the
+traffic on most roads crosses state borders at one time or another in
+its transit, the regulation of rates within a state normally affects
+interstate commerce. But the regulation of interstate commerce is
+vested in Congress by the terms of the Constitution. The railroad was
+quick to take advantage of the division of power between the states
+and the nation. Indeed, when fighting state legislation, the roads
+earnestly emphasized the exclusive power of Congress over interstate
+commerce; but when fighting national regulation, they equally
+deprecated any interference with the reserved rights of the states.
+Acting in accordance with its established practice, the Court decided
+that the state was authorized to regulate rates within its borders,
+even though such regulation indirectly affected persons outside, until
+Congress passed legislation concerning interstate commerce. Obviously
+this decision allowed the states to work out their railroad problems
+unhampered, and constituted one of the chief victories for the
+Grangers.
+
+In 1886, however, the Court overturned some of the principles which
+had been established in the Munn and Peik cases. The new development
+came about in connection with the Wabash railroad. It appeared that
+the road had been carrying freight from Peoria, Illinois, to New York
+for smaller rates than were charged from Gilman to New York, despite
+the fact that Peoria was eighty-six miles farther away. Since Illinois
+law forbade a road to levy a greater charge for a short haul than for
+a long one, a suit was instituted and carried to the Supreme Court.
+The company held that the Illinois legislation affected interstate
+commerce and hence trenched upon the constitutional power of Congress.
+This time the Court upheld the road. It decided that the
+transportation of goods from Illinois to New York was commerce among
+the states, that such commerce was subject to regulation by Congress
+exclusively, and that the Illinois statute was void. It seemed, then,
+that state regulation was a broken reed on which nobody could safely
+lean, and attention thereupon turned to the federal government.
+
+Congress had already been discussing federal regulation intermittently
+for some years. The so-called "Windom Report" of 1874 had advised
+federal construction and improvement of transportation facilities in
+order to lower rates through competition, but no action had resulted.
+In 1878 the "Reagan bill" had proposed government regulation, and from
+that time the subject had been almost continuously before Congress. In
+1885 the Senate had appointed a select committee of five to
+investigate and report upon the regulation of freight and passenger
+transportation. The committee was headed by Shelby M. Cullom, who had
+been a member of the legislature of Illinois and later governor, in
+the years when the railroad and warehouse laws were being put into
+effect. It endeavored to discover all shades of opinion by visiting
+the leading commercial centers, and by consulting business men, state
+commissioners of railroads, Granger officials and others. After a
+somewhat thorough investigation, the committee expressed its
+conviction that no general question of governmental policy occupied so
+prominent a place in the attention of the public as that of
+controlling the growth and influence of corporations. The needed
+relief might be obtained, the committee thought, through any one of
+four methods: private ownership and management, with a greater or less
+degree of government oversight; government ownership and management;
+government ownership with private management under public regulations;
+partial state ownership and management in competition with private
+companies. The widespread opposition to state ownership of railroads,
+the commission thought, seemed to point to some form of government
+regulation and control of the existing situation.
+
+Impressed with the magnitude of the abuses involved, and the
+hopelessness of regulation through state laws, the committee presented
+a bill designed to bring about regulation on a national scale through
+a federal agency. The resulting law was the Interstate Commerce Act of
+February 4, 1887. It provided that all railway charges should be
+reasonable and just; forbade the roads to grant rebates, or to give
+preferences to any person, locality or class of freight, or to charge
+more for a short haul than for a long one except with the consent of
+the proper authorities; it made pooling unlawful; and it ordered the
+companies to post printed copies of their rates, which were not to be
+altered except after ten days' public notice. The act also created an
+Interstate Commerce Commission of five members to serve six-year
+terms, into whose hands the administration of the measure was placed.
+Persons who claimed that the railways were violating the provisions of
+the law could make complaint to the Commission, or bring suit in a
+United States Court. In order that the Commission might know the
+condition of the roads, it was given power to call upon the carriers
+for information, to demand annual reports from them, and to require
+the attendance of witnesses. If the railroads refused to carry out the
+orders of the Commission, they could be brought before a United States
+district court.
+
+In forbidding pools, the Act committed the railroads to the policy of
+enforced competition, a policy which was commonly accepted at the time
+as the best one for the public interest. Such experts, however, as
+Professor A.T. Hadley and Charles Francis Adams, Jr., raised important
+objections. They cited the rate wars to indicate the results of
+competition and declared that railroads ought to be monopolies. If two
+grocery stores are established where trade enough exists for only one,
+they asserted, the weaker competitor can close his doors and the
+public loss is not heavy; but in the case of the railways a weak
+competitor must continue business even at disastrously low rates
+because all his interest charges continue and the depreciation on his
+property is extreme. The construction of an unnecessary road and its
+subsequent operation at a loss, its failure or its abandonment,
+constitute a great drain upon the public. Such objectors contended
+that pooling combinations did away with many of the evils of
+cut-throat competition, and they accordingly urged that the carriers
+be permitted to make such arrangements, under whatever government
+regulation might be needed to prevent unreasonable charges. By such
+means the available business of a region might be fairly divided among
+the roads entering it, without resort to competitive rate-cutting and
+its consequent evils.
+
+The passage of the law was looked upon with much hostility on the part
+of the railroad interests. James J. Hill thought that the railroads
+might survive, although the country would be ruined, and he predicted
+that Congress would shortly be called in special session to repeal the
+act. More important than mere hostility was the constant opposition
+and evasion which characterized the attitude of the carriers toward
+the operation of the law. Discriminations were commonly practiced and
+hidden away in accounts under false or misleading headings. Rebates
+were given and received, a fact which was due in no small degree to
+the shippers themselves. A large shipper might demand advantageous
+rates and threaten to turn his trade over to a rival road. As the
+arrangement would be secret, and the likelihood of discovery small,
+the temptation to break the law was correspondingly great.
+
+The good results of the passage of the law were disappointingly
+slight. To be sure, the Commission was gaining experience,
+administrative precedents were being established and injustice was
+somewhat less common than before. The first chairman was Judge T.M.
+Cooley, a noted lawyer whose appointment was considered an admirable
+one. Most important of all, the principle of government regulation was
+established. Nevertheless, progress was so slow as to be almost
+invisible. The courts hampered the activities of the Commission. When
+cases arose involving its decisions, they allowed a retrial of the
+entire case from the beginning, permitting the introduction of facts
+which had been designedly withheld by the carriers in order to
+undermine the influence of the Commission, and sometimes they reversed
+its findings and so dulled the effectiveness of its labors. Eleven
+years after the Act was passed the Commission declared that abuses
+were so constant that the situation was intolerable; a prominent
+railroad president made the charge that "good faith had departed from
+the railway world"; and an important authority on railroad affairs
+declared that the Commission had become an impotent bureau of
+statistics.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+More study has been made of railroad regulation and the technical side
+of railroading than of the history of transportation and the effects
+of the roads on the political and economic life of the people. An
+excellent single volume is John Moody, _The Railroad Builders_ (1919),
+which devotes attention to the important personages of railroad
+history, discusses the growth of large systems and contains valuable
+maps; the best concise account of the history of the railways is W.Z.
+Ripley, _Railroads: Rates and Regulation_ (1912). Chap. I; W.Z.
+Ripley, _Railway Problems_ (rev. ed., 1913), is reliable; E.R. Johnson
+and T.W. Van Metre, _Principles of Railroad Transportation_ (1916),
+has some excellent chapters and several informing maps; C.F. Carter,
+_When Railroads were New_, (1909), is a popular account; C.F. Adams,
+_Chapters of Erie_ (1886), exposes early railroad practices; H.G.
+Pearson, _An American Railroad Builder_ (1911), presents the career
+of J.M. Forbes as a railroad president; A.T. Hadley, _Railroad
+Transportation_ (1886), is a classic, early account. Consult also E.R.
+Johnson, _American Railway Transportation_ (1903); Frank Parsons,
+_Heart of the Railroad Problem_ (1906); C.F. Adams, Jr., _Railroads:
+Their Origin and Problems_ (1878, rev. ed., 1893); "A Decade of
+Federal Railway Regulation," in _Atlantic Monthly_ (Apr., 1898). On
+the personal side, the following are valuable: E.P. Oberholtzer, _Jay
+Cooke, Financier of the Civil War_ (2 vols., 1907); J.G. Pyle, _Life
+of J.J. Hill_ (2 vols., 1917); _Memoirs of Henry Villard_ (1909). On
+the subject of land grants and regulation: L.H. Haney, _Congressional
+History of Railways_ (2 vols., 1910); S.J. Buck, _The Granger
+Movement_ (1913), and the same author's _The Agrarian Crusade_ (1920),
+are best on the relation of unrest among the agricultural classes to
+the railroad problem. The "Cullom Report" is in Senate Reports, 49th
+Congress, 1st session (Serial Number 2356), in 2 vols., and is a mine
+of information on early abuses. The most important Granger cases are
+in _United States Reports_, vol. 94, p. 113 (Munn _v._ Ill.), and vol.
+118, p. 557 (Wabash case).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] For example, an investor might contribute $100 in cash to an
+enterprise. The "paid in capital" or "actual" capital would, then be
+$100. He might receive in return $100 in stock and $100 in bonds, in
+which case the "nominal capital" would be $200; the additional $100
+would be "water." If the enterprise paid interest on the bonds, and
+dividends on the stock, it would, of course, be paying a return on the
+water. The practice of stock-watering did not end with the days of
+Gould and Drew.
+
+[2] In this connection Professor Farrand mentions the statement of a
+railroad magnate that "in Republican counties he was a Republican, and
+in Democratic counties he was a Democrat, but that everywhere he was
+for the railroad." _Development of the United States_, p. 290.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+EXTREME REPUBLICANISM
+
+That the election of 1888 differed from its predecessors since 1865 was
+due chiefly to the independence, courage and political insight of
+President Cleveland. Hitherto campaigns had been contested with as
+little reference to real issues as conditions rendered possible.
+Neither party had possessed leaders with sufficient understanding of
+the needs of the nation to force a genuine settlement of an important
+issue. That 1888 saw a clear contest made it a memorable year in recent
+politics.
+
+It will be remembered that the tariff act of 1883 had been satisfactory
+only to a minority in Congress, because it retained the high level of
+customs duties that had been established during the Civil War. The
+congressional election of 1882 had resulted in the choice of a
+Democratic House of Representatives and had offered another opportunity
+for downward revision. Early in 1884, therefore, William R. Morrison
+presented a bill making considerable additions to the free list and
+providing for a "horizontal" reduction of about twenty per cent. on all
+other duties as levied under the act of 1883. The measure was defeated
+by four votes. Opposed to it were substantially all the Republicans and
+forty-one Democrats, most of them from the industrial states of New
+York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The Democratic tariff plank of
+1884, as has been seen, was practically meaningless, but the election
+of Cleveland, and the choice of a Democratic House gave another
+opportunity for revision. Again Morrison attempted a reduction, and
+again he was defeated by Samuel J. Randall and the other protectionist
+Democrats.
+
+The entire matter, however, was about to receive a new and important
+development at the hands of President Cleveland and John G. Carlisle,
+who was the Speaker of the House during the four years from 1885 to
+1889. Carlisle was a Kentuckian, a man of grave bearing, unflagging
+industry and substantial attainments. His tariff principles were in
+accord with those of the President, and his position as Speaker enabled
+him to determine the make-up of the Committee on Ways and Means, which
+would frame any tariff legislation. Cleveland had expressed his belief
+in the desirability of tariff reduction in his messages to Congress of
+1885 and 1886, basing his recommendations on the same facts that had
+earlier actuated President Arthur in making similar suggestions. His
+recommendations, however, had received the same slight consideration
+that had been accorded those of his Republican predecessor. He
+therefore determined to challenge the attention of the country and of
+Congress by means of a novel expedient.
+
+Previous presidential messages had covered a wide variety of
+subjects--foreign relations, domestic affairs, and recommendations of
+all kinds. Departing from this custom, the President made up his mind
+to devote an entire message to tariff reform. His project was startling
+from the political point of view, for his party was far from being a
+unit in its attitude toward reduction, a presidential campaign was at
+hand, and the Independents, who had had a strong influence in bringing
+about his success in 1884, sent word to him that a reform message would
+imperil his chances of re-election. This type of argument had little
+weight with Cleveland, however, and his reply was brief: "Do you not
+think that the people of the United States are entitled to some
+instruction on this subject?"
+
+On December 6, 1887, therefore, he sent to Congress his famous message
+urging the downward revision of the tariff. The immediate occasion of
+his recommendation, he declared, was the surplus of income over
+expenditure, which was piling up in the treasury at a rapid rate and
+which was a constant invitation to reckless appropriations. The portion
+of the public debt which was payable had already been redeemed, so that
+whatever surplus was not expended would be stored in the vaults, thus
+reducing the amount of currency in circulation, and making likely a
+financial crisis. The simplest remedy for the situation seemed to
+Cleveland to lie in a reduction of the income, and the most desirable
+means of reduction seemed to be the downward revision of the tariff, a
+system of "unnecessary taxation" which he denominated "vicious,
+inequitable, and illogical." Disclaiming any wish to advocate free
+trade, he expressed the hope that Congress would turn its attention to
+the practical problem before it:
+
+    Our progress toward a wise conclusion will not be improved by
+    dwelling upon the theories of protection and free trade. This
+    savors too much of bandying epithets. It is a _condition_ which
+    confronts us, not a theory.
+
+The effect of the message was immediate. Men began at once to take
+sides as if everybody had been waiting for a leader to speak his mind;
+and the parties adopted the definite principles to which they adhered
+for many years afterwards. The Democrats very generally rallied to the
+support of their champion; gaps in the ranks were closed up; and
+doubtless the usual pressure was applied to obstinate members who were
+disinclined to follow the leader. The Republican attitude was well
+expressed in the phrase of one of the politicians: "It is free-trade,
+and we have 'em!" The most prominent Republican, James G. Blaine, was
+in Paris, but true to his instinctive recognition of a good political
+opportunity he gave an interview which was immediately cabled to
+America. In it Blaine maintained that tariff reduction would harm the
+entire country, and especially the South and the farmers, and urged the
+reduction of the surplus by the abolition of the tax on tobacco, which
+he termed the poor man's luxury. The "Paris Message" was generally
+looked upon as the Republican answer to Cleveland, and as pointing to
+Blaine as the inevitable candidate for the ensuing campaign. On one
+point, most men of both parties were agreed--that the President had
+displayed great courage. "The presidential chair," declared James
+Russell Lowell, "has a MAN in it, and this means that every word he
+_says_ is weighted with what he _is_."
+
+The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in the House of
+Representatives, Roger Q. Mills, promptly presented a bill which
+conformed to the principles for which the President had argued. The
+discussion of the Mills bill was long known as the "Great Tariff Debate
+of 1888." The House seethed with it for more than a month. Mills and
+Carlisle on one side and William McKinley and Thomas B. Reed on the
+other typified the new leadership and the new positions which the
+parties were taking. Senator Morrill's idea that the war tariff was a
+temporary one, President Arthur's advice that the tariff be revised,
+the recommendations of the Tariff Commission of 1882 that reductions
+were necessary,--all these were no longer heard. Instead, the
+Republicans upheld the protective system as the cause of the unexampled
+prosperity of the nation. It is not to be supposed that protectionist
+or reductionist converts were made by the endless discussion, but the
+initial prejudices of each side were undoubtedly deepened. Each telling
+blow on either side was applauded by the partisans of each particular
+speaker, so that "applause" fairly dots the dull pages of the
+Congressional Record. McKinley enlivened his colleagues by pulling from
+his desk and exhibiting a suit of clothes which he had purchased for
+$10.00, a figure, he asserted, which proved that the tariff did not
+raise prices beyond the reach of the laboring man. Mills tracked down
+the cost of the suit and the tariff on the materials composing it, and
+further entertained the House by an exhibit showing that it cost $4.98
+to manufacture the suit and that the remainder of the price which the
+laborer paid was due to the tariff. In the end, the Mills bill passed
+the House with but four Democrats voting against it. Randall was so ill
+that he was unable to be present when the final vote was taken, but a
+letter from him declaring his opposition to the bill was greeted with
+great applause on the Republican side. Randall's day was past, however,
+and leadership was passing to new men.
+
+Meanwhile the Republicans in the Senate, where they were in control,
+had prepared a tariff bill which was designed to give evidence of the
+sort of act which would be passed if they were successful in the
+campaign. Senator Allison and Senator Aldrich were influential in this
+connection. The passage of leadership in tariff matters to Senator
+Aldrich and men of his type was as significant as the transition in the
+House. Aldrich was from Rhode Island, an able man who had had
+experience in state affairs, had served in the federal House of
+Representatives and had been in the Senate since 1881. He had already
+laid the foundations of the great financial and industrial connections
+which gave him an intimate, personal interest in protection and which
+later made him an important figure in American industry and politics.
+Since neither party controlled both branches of Congress, it was
+impossible to pass either the Mills bill or the Senate measure; but the
+proposed legislation indicated what might be expected to result from
+the election. Each side had thoroughly committed itself on the tariff
+question.
+
+In the meanwhile, great interest attached to the question of leaders
+for the campaign. Opposition to Cleveland was not lacking. His efforts
+in behalf of civil service reform had not endeared him to the
+office-seekers, and the hostility of the Democrats in the Senate was
+shown by their feeble support of him. The West did not relish his
+opposition to silver coinage, while his vetoes of pension legislation
+were productive of some hostility, even in his own party. Nor was the
+personality of the President such as to allay ill-feeling. Indeed,
+Cleveland was in a position comparable to that of Hayes eight years
+before. He was the titular party leader, but the most prominent
+Democratic politicians were not in agreement with his principles, and
+any step taken by him was likely to arouse as much hostility in some
+Democratic quarters as among the Republicans. Opposition to his
+nomination focused upon David B. Hill, Governor of New York, a man who
+was looked upon as better disposed towards the claims of party workers
+for office. Other leaders like Bayard, Thurman and Carlisle aroused
+little enthusiasm, and the gradual drift of sentiment toward Cleveland
+became unmistakable. If the politicians did not accept him with joy,
+they at least accepted him; for he was master of the party for the
+moment at least, and his hold on a large body of the rank and file was
+not to be doubted. When the Democratic convention met in St. Louis in
+June, 1888, his nomination was made without the formality of a
+ballot.[1]
+
+The platform was devoted, for the most part, to the question of revenue
+reform, indorsing the President's tariff message and urging that the
+party be given control of Congress in order that Democratic principles
+might be put into effect. Resolutions were also adopted recommending
+the passage of the Mills bill, which was still under discussion when
+the convention met.
+
+Among the Republicans the choice of a candidate was a far more
+difficult matter. The probable choice of the party was Blaine, but his
+letter from Italy, where he was travelling early in the convention
+year, forbade the use of his name and opened the contest to a great
+number of less well-known leaders. Publicly it was stated that Blaine
+refused for reasons which were "entirely personal," but intimate
+friends knew that he would accept a nomination if it came without
+solicitation and as the result of a unanimous party call. Although the
+demand for him still continued, there were smaller "booms" for various
+favorite sons, and as his ill health continued he made known his
+irrevocable decision to withdraw. Except for Blaine, the most prominent
+contender was Senator Sherman, whose candidacy reached larger
+proportions than ever before. The Ohio delegation was unitedly in his
+favor and considerable numbers of southern delegates were expected to
+vote for him. On the other hand, his lack of personal magnetism was
+against him and his career had been connected with technical matters
+which did not make a popular appeal. On the first ballot in the
+nominating convention his lead was considerable, although not decisive,
+but no fewer than thirteen other leaders also received votes. One of
+these was Senator Benjamin Harrison of Indiana whom Blaine had
+suggested as an available man and whom the New York delegation
+considered a strong candidate because he was poor, a reputable senator,
+a distinguished volunteer officer in the war and a grandson of William
+H. Harrison of Tippecanoe fame. Further voting only emphasized the lack
+of unanimity until the eighth ballot, when the delegates suddenly
+turned to Harrison and nominated him.
+
+The platform was long and verbose. It devoted much attention to the
+protective tariff which, in imitation of Henry Clay, it entitled the
+"American system"; it advocated the reduction of internal revenue
+duties, if necessary to cut down the surplus; and it urged civil
+service reform, liberal pensions and laws to control oppressive
+corporations.
+
+Two factions of the Labor party, as well as the Prohibitionists,
+nominated candidates and urged programs to which no attention was paid,
+but which were later taken up by both the great parties, such as
+arbitration in labor disputes, an income tax, the popular election of
+senators, woman suffrage and the prohibition of the manufacture of
+alcoholic beverages.
+
+The campaign deserves attention because of the unusual elements that
+entered into it. A spectacular feature which, although not new, was
+developed on a large scale, was the formation of thousands of political
+clubs, which paraded evenings with flaming torches. In this type of
+organization the Republicans were more successful than the Democrats
+and thus steered many young men into the party at a time when they were
+looking forward to casting their first ballot. The most unwholesome
+feature was, as before, the methods used to finance the campaign. In
+this connection both parties were guilty, but the Republicans were able
+to tap a new source of supply. The campaign was in the hands of Matthew
+S. Quay, a Pennsylvania senator whose career as a public official left
+much to be desired. Quay's political methods were vividly described at
+a later time by his friend and admirer Thomas C. Platt, whose account
+lost none of its delightfulness in view of the fact that Platt
+obviously felt that he was complimenting his friend in telling the
+story. Believing in the "rights" of business men in politics, Platt
+declared, Quay was always able to raise any amount of money needed,
+although when funds were raised by business interests against him, he
+lifted the "fiery cross" and virtuously exposed his opponents before
+the people. Having calculated with skill the number of votes needed for
+victory, he found out where he could get them--"and then he got them."
+
+That Quay was able to tap a new source of supply was due to a
+combination of circumstances. It will be remembered that the Pendleton
+civil service act of 1883 had forbidden the assessment of
+office-holders in political campaigns, and had made it necessary to
+procure funds elsewhere. In the campaign of 1888, business men who
+believed that the success of Cleveland would hurt their interests, and
+manufacturers who profited directly by the protective tariff rallied to
+the defence of Harrison and contributed heavily to his campaign
+fund.[2]
+
+The use to which the funds thus contributed were put was revealed in a
+letter written apparently by W.W. Dudley, treasurer of the National
+Republican Committee, and sent to party leaders in Indiana. The latter
+were directed to find out who had the "Democratic boodle" and force
+them, presumably by competition, to pay big prices for their own men.
+The leaders were also instructed to "divide the floaters into blocks of
+five and put a trusted man with the necessary funds in charge of these
+five, and make him responsible that none get away, and that all vote
+our ticket."
+
+On the other hand the most wholesome feature of the campaign was its
+educational aspect. Hundreds of societies, tons of "literature,"
+thousands of stump speeches attacked and defended the tariff.
+Schoolboys glibly retailed the standard arguments on one side or the
+other. Attention was centered, as it had not been since the war, on an
+important issue.
+
+At the close of the campaign the Republicans played a trick which was
+reminiscent of the Morey letter of Garfield's day. A letter purporting
+to be from a Charles F. Murchison, a naturalized American of English
+birth, was sent to the British minister in Washington, Lord
+Sackville-West. Murchison requested the minister's opinion as to
+whether President Cleveland's hostile policy in a recent controversy
+with Canada had been adopted for campaign purposes and whether after
+election the President would be more friendly toward England. Lord
+Sackville indiscreetly replied that he believed President Cleveland
+would show a conciliatory spirit toward Great Britain. The
+correspondence was held back until shortly before the election and was
+then published in the newspapers and on hand bills. Republicans
+triumphantly declared that Cleveland was the "British candidate." The
+President was at first inclined to overlook the incident but eventually
+gave way to pressure and dismissed the minister, whereupon the English
+government refused to fill the vacancy until there was a change of
+administration.
+
+In the ensuing election the vote cast was unusually heavy; the
+protectionists felt that a supreme effort must be made to preserve the
+tariff system, and the Democrats, having experienced the joys of power,
+were determined not to loosen their grip on authority; the
+Prohibitionists increased their vote over that of 1884 by 100,000,
+while the Labor party cast 147,000, almost as many ballots as the
+Prohibitionists had numbered in the earlier year. Cleveland received
+somewhat over 100,000 more votes than Harrison, but his support was so
+placed that his electoral vote was sixty-five less than his opponent's.
+
+From the standpoint of political history the result was unfortunate.
+The tariff question had been sadly in need of a definite answer, the
+people had been educated upon it and had given a decision, but the
+electoral system placed in power the party pledged to the theories of
+the minority. Aside from the unusual effect of our machinery of
+election, many small elements entered into the Republican victory. Some
+of the Independents had become disaffected since 1884 and had returned
+to the Republican fold. Disgruntled office-seekers opposed a President
+who did not reward his workers. In New York, which was the decisive
+factor, Hill was a candidate for re-election as governor and was
+elected by a small majority, while Cleveland lost the state by 7,000
+votes. This gave color to charges that the enemies of the President had
+made a bargain with the Republicans by which the latter voted for Hill
+as governor and the Democrats for Harrison as President.
+
+Benjamin Harrison, veteran of the Civil War in which he had attained
+the rank of brevet brigadier-general, and senator from Indiana for a
+single term, was hardly a party leader when he was nominated for the
+presidency. Although he was by no means unknown, he had been
+sufficiently obscure to be unconnected with factional party quarrels,
+and his career and character were without blemish. At the time of his
+accession to the executive chair he was fifty-six years of age, a short
+man with bearded face, and with head set well down between his
+shoulders. Accounts of his characteristics, drawn by his party
+associates, did not differ in any essential detail. As a public
+speaker, the new President was a man of unusual charm--felicitous in
+his remarks, versatile, tactful. In a famous trip through the South and
+West in 1891, he made speech after speech at a wide variety of places
+and occasions, and created a genuine enthusiasm. His remarks were
+widely read and highly regarded. Nevertheless there seems to have been
+some truth in the remark of one of his contemporaries that he could
+charm ten thousand men in a public speech but meet them individually
+and send every one away his enemy. His manner, even to senators and
+representatives of his own party, was reserved to the point of
+frigidity. When he granted requests for patronage he was so ungracious
+as to anger the recipients of favor. Although his personal character
+and integrity were as unquestioned as those of Hayes, and although he
+was a man of cultured tastes, well-informed, thoughtful and
+conscientious, it must be admitted that he lacked robust leadership and
+breadth of vision, and that he did not understand the real purposes of
+the policies which his party associates were embarking upon, or if he
+did that he tamely acquiesced in them. The party leaders were soon
+engaged in initiating practices and passing legislation which would
+strengthen the organization with certain groups of interested persons.
+Harrison, conscientious but aloof, provided no compelling force to turn
+attention toward wider and deeper needs.
+
+Two appointments to the cabinet were important. Since Blaine was the
+foremost leader of the party and had done much to bring about the
+election of Harrison, it was well-nigh impossible for the latter to
+fail to offer him the position of Secretary of State. The appointment
+was so natural that popular opinion looked upon it as the only
+possibility, yet the natures of the two men were so diverse and their
+positions in the party so different that friction seemed likely to
+result. Even before the administration began it was freely predicted
+that Blaine would "dominate" the cabinet, a prophecy that might well
+create a feeling of restraint between the two. The invitation to John
+Wanamaker to become Postmaster-General was regarded as significant.
+Wanamaker was a wealthy merchant of Philadelphia, who had organized an
+advisory campaign committee of business men which contributed and
+expended large sums of money during the canvass. Critical reformers
+like the editor of _The Nation_ were not slow to connect Wanamaker's
+large contribution to the campaign fund with his elevation to the
+cabinet, and to suggest that the business interests were being brought
+into close relations with the administration. T.C. Platt, expectant of
+a return for his campaign assistance, in the form of a cabinet
+position, and in fact understanding that a pledge had been made that he
+would be appointed, found himself superseded by William Windom of
+Minnesota in the Treasury and became a bitter opponent of the
+President.[3]
+
+It was an odd turn of the fortune of politics that brought Benjamin
+Harrison face to face with the responsibility for furthering the cause
+of civil service reform--the same Harrison who, as a senator, had
+sneered at Cleveland for surrendering to difficulties. The party
+platform had urged the continuation of reform, which had been
+"auspiciously begun under the Republican administration" and had
+declared that the party promises would not be broken as Democratic
+pledges had been; and Harrison had announced his adherence to the party
+statement. In some respects real progress was made. Secretary of the
+Navy Tracy introduced reform methods in his department. The appointment
+of Theodore Roosevelt to the Civil Service Commission was productive of
+good results. The work of reform was defended forcefully and
+successfully; its opponents were challenged to substantiate their
+charges. When Senator Gorman declared that in an examination for letter
+carriers in Baltimore the candidates were asked to tell the most direct
+route from Baltimore to China, Roosevelt at once wrote asking him to
+state the time and place of the examination himself or to send somebody
+to look over the papers, copies of which were in the commission's
+office. The senator did not reply.
+
+The removal of office holders, however, proceeded with amazing
+rapidity. The First Assistant Postmaster-General was J.S. Clarkson, who
+had been vice-chairman of the Republican National Campaign Committee.
+The speed with which he cleared the service of Democrats earned him the
+title "headsman" and is indicated by the estimate that he removed one
+every three minutes for the first year. When the force of clerks was
+increased for the taking of the census of 1890, the superintendent of
+the census office found himself "waist deep in congressmen" trying to
+get places for friends. The Republican postmaster of New York who had
+been continued by Cleveland was not re-appointed. It was soon
+discovered, also, that the President was placing his own and his wife's
+relatives in office and giving positions to large numbers of newspaper
+editors, thus indirectly subsidizing the press. The Commissioner of
+Pensions, Corporal James Tanner, distributed pensions so freely as to
+arouse wide-spread comment and was soon relieved of his position.[4]
+
+Curtis, addressing the National Civil Service Reform League, flayed the
+President because he had despoiled the service. A Republican newspaper,
+he declared, had said that the administration whistled reform down the
+wind "as remorselessly as it would dismiss an objectionable tramp."
+Prominent members of the party went to the President in person to urge
+on him the redemption of the platform promises.
+
+Although progress was not general, nevertheless there were particular
+reforms that commended themselves. The offensive Clarkson gave way to
+hostile criticism and retired. During the last half of the
+administration, the civil service rules were amended so as to add a
+considerable number of employees to the classified service, especially
+in the post office department. Quay and Dudley found their methods
+condemned by public opinion and resigned their positions on the
+National Republican Committee.[5]
+
+Aside from his choice of subordinates, Harrison contributed little to
+the political history of his administration, for the leadership was
+seized by a small coterie of extreme Republicans in the House of
+Representatives, of whom the chief figure was the Speaker, Thomas B.
+Reed. The House which had been elected with Harrison contained 159
+Democrats and 166 Republicans. The Republican majority was too slight
+for safety, for the questions which were coming before Congress were
+such as to arouse party feeling to a high pitch. The Republicans felt
+themselves commissioned, by a successful election, to put the party
+program into force, but so powerful a minority could readily block any
+legislation under the existing parliamentary rules. Only Reed knew what
+expedient would be resorted to in the attempt to put through the party
+program, and not even he could guarantee that the adventure would be
+successful.
+
+Thomas B. Reed had long represented Maine in the House of
+Representatives. He was a man of huge bulk, bland in appearance,
+imperturbable in his serenity, caustic, concise and witty of tongue,
+rough, sharp, strong, droll. In the cut-and-thrust of parliamentary
+debate and manoeuvre, as well as in his knowledge of the intricacies of
+procedure, Reed was a past master. He worsted his adversaries by
+turning the laugh on them, and his stinging retorts, which swept the
+House "like grapeshot," made him a powerful factor in partisan
+contests.[6]
+
+The political and economic philosophy of Reed and his associates was
+unusually important, because it controlled their action during the time
+when they dominated the House and determined the character of the
+legislation passed during Harrison's time. When President Cleveland's
+tariff message welded the Democrats together to demand reduction, it
+likewise influenced the Republicans to adopt the other extreme. That is
+not to say, of course, that the Republican attitude was due solely to
+Cleveland, for the party was already committed to protectionism.
+Nevertheless, many of its prominent leaders, including its presidents,
+had urged revision. That recommendation was now no longer heard. Such
+men as McKinley in the House fairly apotheosized the protective system.
+The philosophy of the party leaders received full exposition in a
+volume edited by John D. Long, ex-governor of Massachusetts, and
+composed of articles written by sixteen of the most prominent
+Republicans. It had been published during the campaign. The attitude of
+the party toward its chief tenet was expressed in the phrase, "The
+Republican party enacted a protective tariff which made the United
+States the greatest manufacturing nation on earth"; and its conception
+of the Democratic party in the statement that the Democrats were mainly
+old slave-holders, liquor dealers and criminals in the great northern
+cities. In the field of national expenditure, also, the party reacted
+from Cleveland's frugality. Senator Dolph frankly urged the expenditure
+of the surplus revenue rather than the reduction of taxation. McKinley
+took the position that prices might be too low. "I do not prize the word
+cheap," he said; "cheap merchandise means cheap men and cheap men mean
+a cheap country." Harrison remarked that it was "no time to be weighing
+the claims of old soldiers with apothecary's scales." This philosophy
+was now to have its trial, but first the obstructive power of the
+minority must be curbed. Reed's plan for accomplishing this result
+appeared late in January, 1890.
+
+A contested election case was up for decision in the House. The roll
+was called and three less than a quorum of representatives answered.
+Scores of Democrats were present, but by merely refusing to answer to
+their names they could be officially absent. Unless the Republicans
+could provide a quorum--that is, more than half the total membership of
+the chamber of their own number, they were helpless. Clearly they
+could not muster their full force at all times and especially on
+questions upon which the party might be divided. On the other hand, the
+right to refuse to vote was a long-standing one and had been used over
+and over again by Republicans as well as Democrats. Reed, however, had
+made up his mind to cut the Gordian knot. Looking over the House he
+called the names of about forty Democrats, directed the clerk to make
+note of them and then declared a quorum present. The meaning of the act
+was not lost on the opposition. Pandemonium broke loose. Members rushed
+up the aisle as if to attack the Speaker, but Reed, huge, fearless and
+undisturbed, stood his ground. The Democrats hissed and jeered and
+denounced him with a wrath which was not mollified by the derisive
+laughter of the Republicans, who were surprised by the ruling, but
+rallied to their leader. Two days later, when a member moved to
+adjourn, the Speaker ruled the motion out of order and refused to
+entertain any appeal from his decision. He then firmly but quietly
+stated his belief that the will of the majority ought not to be
+nullified by a minority and that if parliamentary rules were used
+solely for purposes of delay, it was the duty of the Speaker to take
+"the proper course."
+
+The rules committee then presented a series of recommendations designed
+to expedite business. One of the proposed changes provided that the
+chair should entertain no dilatory motions. Such motions, whose purpose
+was merely to obstruct action, had long been common. The Republicans
+were said to have alternated motions to adjourn and to fix a day for
+adjournment no less than one hundred and twenty-eight times in an
+attempt to defeat the Kansas-Nebraska bill in 1854. The second rule
+allowed the speaker to count members who were present and not voting in
+determining whether a quorum was present. Other rules systematized
+procedure and facilitated the passage of legislation. The Democrats
+raged, denounced Reed as a "Czar," fought against the adoption of the
+rules--all to no avail. The majority had its way; the Speaker
+dominated legislation.[7]
+
+The efficacy of the Reed reforms in expediting legislation was quickly
+demonstrated. One of the earliest proposals to pass the House was Henry
+Cabot Lodge's federal election law, which was intended to insure
+federal control at polling places. Theoretically the measure was
+applicable to the North as well as to the South, but no doubt existed
+that it was really designed to prevent southern suppression of the
+negro vote. The Democrats rallied to the opposition and denounced
+Lodge's plan as a "force act." Despite objections it passed the House,
+but it languished in the Senate and finally was abandoned. The generous
+expenditure policy which the new philosophy called for brought forth
+certain increases which were noteworthy. The dependent pension bill
+which Cleveland had vetoed was passed, and a direct tax which had been
+levied on the states during the Civil War was refunded. Another extreme
+party measure was the Sherman silver act which became law on July 14,
+1890. By it, 4,500,000 ounces of silver were to be purchased each
+month. Its partisan character was indicated by the fact that no
+Republicans voted against it, and no Democrats for it. Since the amount
+of silver to be purchased was practically the total output of the
+country, it was evident that the western mine owners were receiving the
+same attention that was being accorded manufacturers who sought
+protective tariff laws. Indeed, western Republicans, who were opposed
+to the high tariff which eastern Republicans favored, were brought to
+support such legislation only by a bargain through which each side
+assisted the other in getting what it desired.[8]
+
+The tariff measure which was thus entwined with the silver bill was
+intended to carry out the pledge made in the party platform. Harrison
+had early called the attention of Congress to the need of a reduction
+of the surplus, had urged the passage of a new tariff law and the
+removal of the tobacco tax which, he declared, would take a burden from
+an "important agricultural product." The framing of the bill was in the
+hands of William McKinley, the chairman of the Committee on Ways and
+Means. McKinley was a thorough-going protectionist whose attitude on
+the question had already been expressed somewhat as follows: previous
+Democratic tariffs have brought the country to the brink of financial
+ruin; without the protective tariff English manufacturers would
+monopolize American markets; under the protective system the foreign
+manufacturer largely pays the tax through lessened profits; under
+protection the American laborer is the best paid, clothed and contented
+workingman in the world; since it is necessary, then, to preserve
+protection, the surplus should be reduced by the elimination of the
+internal revenues; and protective tariff duties should be raised and
+retained, not gradually lowered and done away with.
+
+The Committee early proceeded to hold public hearings at which
+testimony was taken, and to which manufacturers came from all over the
+country to make known what duties they thought they ought to have. The
+bill which was finally presented to the House proposed a level of
+duties which was so high that it has generally been considered the
+extreme of protection. McKinley himself justified the high rates only
+on the ground that without them the bill could not be passed. With the
+help of the Reed rules and the western Republicans the McKinley tariff
+reached the President and was signed by him on October 1, 1890. It went
+into effect at once.
+
+The more prominent features of the measure sprang from the tariff creed
+which had been advocated through the campaign. In order to conciliate
+the farmers, the protective principle was applied to agricultural
+products, and tariffs were laid on such articles as cereals, potatoes
+and flax. On the cheaper grades of wool and woolens and on carpet wools
+there was a slight rise over even the rates of 1883. On the higher
+grades of woolen, linen and clothing the increase was marked. The duty
+on raw sugar was removed and one-half cent per pound retained on the
+refined product, but domestic sugar producers were given a bounty of
+two cents a pound in order to protect them against the free importation
+of the raw material. As the sugar duty had been productive of large
+amounts of revenue, its remission reduced the surplus by about sixty to
+seventy millions of dollars. In order to encourage the manufacture of
+tin-plates, a considerable duty was imposed, which was to cease after
+1897 unless domestic production reached specified amounts. As the
+result of Blaine's urgency, a reciprocity feature was introduced. The
+usual plan had been to reduce duties on certain products in case
+concessions to American goods were given by the exporting countries,
+but in the McKinley act the Senate inserted a novel provision. Instead
+of being given power to lower duties in case reciprocal reductions were
+made, the President was authorized to impose duties on certain articles
+on the free list when the exporting nation levied "unjust or
+unreasonable" customs charges on American products. It was expected
+that this plan would be applied to Latin-American countries and would
+increase our exports to them in return for sugar, molasses, tea, coffee
+and hides. In general, the McKinley act was the climax of protection.
+Under the impetus of President Cleveland's reduction challenge, the
+Republican party had recoiled to the extreme.
+
+The high rates levied by the new tariff act were quickly reflected in
+retail prices and caused immediate and wide-spread discontent. The
+benefits which the farmer had been led to expect did not put in their
+appearance. Unhappily for McKinley and his associates the congressional
+elections occurred early in November, scarcely a month after the new
+law went into effect, and when the dissatisfaction was at its height.
+The result was a stinging defeat for the Republicans. The 159 Democrats
+were increased to 235, and the 166 Republicans dwindled to 88. Even in
+New England the Democrats gained eleven members, in New York eight, and
+in Iowa five. In Wisconsin not one Republican survived, and among the
+lost in Ohio was McKinley himself.
+
+Although the Republicans retained control of the Senate after 1890, the
+Democratic House brought an end for a time to the domination of Reed
+and the primacy of the lower chamber in the government. Such extreme
+legislation as had characterized the first half of the Harrison regime
+stopped abruptly. The role played in all this by Harrison himself seems
+to have been a minor one. Many of his recommendations lacked the solid
+character of those made by Hayes, Arthur and Cleveland, and he did not
+make his influence felt in connection with the silver legislation, of
+which he probably disapproved. It is significant that the one piece of
+legislation which had the most enduring results was not a partisan act.
+This act, the Sherman Anti-Trust law, demands attention in detail.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+In addition to the general and special works already mentioned, C.
+Hedges, _Benjamin Harrison: Speeches_ (1892), provides useful material;
+Cleveland's tariff message of Dec. 6, 1887 is in J.D. Richardson,
+_Messages and Papers of the Presidents_, VIII, 580-591.
+
+On the administration, and particularly the ascendancy of the House of
+Representatives under Reed, consult: De A.S. Alexander, _History and
+Procedure of the House of Representatives_ (1916); Mary P. Follett,
+_Speaker of the House of Representatives_ (1896); C.S. Olcott, _William
+McKinley_ (2 vols., 1916); J.G. Cannon in _Harper's Magazine_ (Mar.,
+1920); _Annual Cyclopaedia_, 1890, pp. 181-191; S.W. McCall, _Thomas B.
+Reed_ (1914), well written, although adding little to what was already
+known; H.D. Croly, _Marcus A. Hanna_ (1912); W.D. Foulke, _Fighting the
+Spoilsman_ (1919), on Harrison and the civil service; G.W. Curtis,
+_Orations and Addresses_ (2 vols., 1894), summarizes the
+administration's attitude toward civil service; T.B. Reed, _Reed's
+Rules, A Manual of General Parliamentary Law_ (1894), gives a concise
+summary of parliamentary conditions from Reed's standpoint; H.B.
+Fuller, _The Speakers of the House_ (1909), excellent on the personal
+side. The tariff is well treated in Stanwood, Taussig and Tarbell. On
+pensions consult W.H. Glasson, _History of Military Pension Legislation
+in the United States_ (1900), or better, the same author's _Federal
+Military Pensions in the United States_ (1918).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The vice-presidential candidate was Allan G. Thurman of Ohio,
+affectionately known as the "noble old Roman," one of whose titles to
+fame was the ownership of a large red bandanna handkerchief which he
+nourished on all occasions.
+
+[2] A party worker who realized the opportunity which this fact
+presented complained that Pennsylvania manufacturers who made fortunes
+under protection did not contribute to the Republican campaign fund,
+and remarked: "If I had my way about it I would put the manufacturers
+of Pennsylvania under the fire and fry all the fat out of them."
+
+[3] The remaining members of the cabinet were: Redfield Proctor, Vt.,
+Secretary of War; W.H.H. Miller, Ind., Attorney-General; B.F. Tracy,
+N.Y., Secretary of the Navy; J.W. Noble, Mo., Secretary of the
+Interior; J.M. Rusk, Wis., Secretary of Agriculture.
+
+[4] Corporal Tanner is commonly supposed to have been so anxious to
+have a hand in the generous distribution of government revenue among
+the old soldiers that he declared one morning as he seated himself at
+his desk, "God help the surplus." This is a mistake, although the
+Corporal seems to have been more ready than the President to act
+quickly and generously on claims.
+
+[5] The open character of the financial corruption of the campaign
+also gave impetus to the movement for the secret or Australian ballot
+which was first introduced in Louisville, Ky., on Feb. 28, 1888, and in
+Massachusetts on May 29, of the same year. Another reform movement was
+that which resulted in the destruction of the Louisiana lottery. Cf.
+A.K. McClure, _Recollections_, 173-183, and Peck, _Twenty Years_,
+215-220.
+
+[6] An incident which occurred when he was not speaker may serve to
+illustrate the manner in which he routed his opponents. Representative
+Springer, of Illinois, who had a reputation for loquacity and
+insincerity, once asked for unanimous consent to correct a statement
+which he had previously made in debate. "No correction needed," shouted
+Reed. "We didn't think it was so when you made it."
+
+[7] In his _Manual of General Parliamentary Law_, Reed declared that
+the House prior to 1890 was the most unwieldy parliamentary body in the
+world. Three resolute men, he asserted, could stop all public business.
+A few years later, when the Democrats were in power, they adopted the
+plans which Reed had so successfully used.
+
+[8] These acts were part of the general financial history of the
+period and in that connection demand fuller discussion at a later
+point. Cf. Chap. XV.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+INDUSTRY AND _LAISSEZ FAIRE_
+
+About the time the Sherman Anti-trust law was being passed, in 1890,
+Henry D. Lloyd was writing his book _Wealth Against Commonwealth_, in
+which occurred a memorable passage:
+
+    A small number of men are obtaining the power to forbid any but
+    themselves to supply the people with fire in nearly every form known
+    to modern life and industry, from matches to locomotives and
+    electricity. They control our hard coal and much of the soft, and
+    stoves, furnaces, and steam and hot-water heaters; the governors on
+    steam-boilers and the boilers; gas and gas-fixtures; natural gas and
+    gas-pipes; electric lighting, and all the appurtenances. You cannot
+    free yourself by changing from electricity to gas, or from the gas
+    of the city to the gas of the fields. If you fly from kerosene to
+    candles, you are still under the ban.
+
+To understand the dangers of the monopolies which Lloyd feared and
+denounced, it is necessary to know the principal features in the
+development of American industry from the close of the Civil War to
+1890.
+
+It will be remembered that the consolidation of small railroad lines
+into large systems was accompanied by such advantages to the companies
+and to the travelling public, as to demonstrate that combination was the
+inevitable order of the day. The similar integration of small industrial
+and commercial enterprises took place more slowly between 1870 and 1890,
+but the process was no less inevitable on that account. The census of
+1890 indicated that the production of manufactured articles had greatly
+increased since 1870; more capital was engaged; the product was more
+valuable; and more workmen were employed. Nevertheless the number of
+establishments which were in operation had shown a considerable decline
+in many industries. An army of 100,000 employees represented the
+expansion of the wage-earning force in the iron and steel works, for
+example, and $270,000,000 the increase in the value of their products;
+yet the number of establishments engaged showed a shrinkage of nearly
+fourteen per cent. The workers in the textile mills grew from 275,000 to
+512,000, and the capital outlay from $300,000,000 to $750,000,000, but
+the number of factories declined from 4,790 to 4,114. A cartoon in
+_Puck_ on January 26, 1881, remarked that "the telegraph companies have
+been consolidated, which in simple language means that Mr. Jay Gould
+controls every wire in the United States over which a telegram can be
+sent."
+
+Some of the reasons for the prevalent tendency toward combination were
+not hard to discover. In the first place, although industrial
+organizations fought one another with the utmost bitterness, it was in
+the nature of things for them to combine if threatened by any common
+foe. Moreover, production on a large scale made possible savings and
+improvements that were outside the grasp of more modest enterprises;
+buying and selling large quantities of goods commanded opportunities for
+profit; waste products could be made use of and costly scientific
+investigations conducted in order to discover improved methods, overcome
+difficulties and open new avenues of activity; large salaries and
+important positions could be offered to men of executive capacity; and
+expensive equipment could be purchased and utilized.[1] An effective
+force which tended to drive industries to combine was the cut-throat
+competition which prevailed. Herbert Croly in his stimulating book _The
+Promise of American Life_ vividly describes the bitter, warlike
+character of industrial competition after 1865. Competition was battle
+to the knife and tomahawk. The leaders were constantly seeking bigger
+operations, to which the bigger risks only added zest. A company might
+be making unbelievable profits one year and "skirting" bankruptcy the
+next. Exciting as all this was, however, the desire for adventure was
+not as powerful as the desire for profits, and cut-throat competition in
+industry led as naturally to combination, as rate-wars on the railroads
+led to pooling agreements.
+
+An important factor in the development of large corporations was the
+increasing use of the corporation form of industrial organization, as
+contrasted with the co-partnership plan. If a few men enter a
+copartnership, each of them must supply a considerable amount of
+capital; but if a corporation is formed and stock is sold, the par value
+of the shares may be placed at a low figure--$100 or less, for
+example--and thus a large number of persons may be able to establish an
+industry which is far beyond the financial resources of any individual
+or small group among them. The corporation, moreover, is relatively
+permanent, for the death of one stock-holder among many is unimportant
+as compared with that of one member of a co-partnership. In case of
+disaster to the enterprise the liability of the stock-holder in a
+corporation is limited to the amount which he has invested, while any
+member of a partnership may be legally held for all the debts of the
+organization. With such advantages in its favor the corporation plan
+largely dominated the organization of industry.
+
+The most famous example of combination before 1890 was the Standard Oil
+Company, which was the cause of more litigation, more study and more
+complaint than any other industrial organization that has ever existed
+in America. In 1865 Rockefeller & Andrews started an oil-refining
+business in Cleveland, Ohio. Samuel Andrews was a mechanical genius and
+he attended to the technical end of the industry; John D. Rockefeller
+had bargaining capacity, and to him fell the task of buying the crude
+oil, providing barrels and other materials and selling the product. The
+firm prospered. H.M. Flagler was taken into the company and a branch was
+established in New York. In 1870 these three with a few others organized
+the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, with a capitalization of a million
+dollars. It controlled not over ten percent. of the business of
+oil-refining in the United States at that time. But the oil business was
+so profitable that capital flowed into it and competition became keen.
+Rockefeller and some associates, therefore, devised the South
+Improvement Company of Pennsylvania, a combination of refiners, headed
+and controlled by the Standard, the purpose of which was to make
+advantageous arrangements With the railroads for transportation
+facilities. Early in 1872, a most remarkable contract was signed between
+the company and the important railroads of the oil country--the
+Pennsylvania, the New York Central and the Erie. By it the roads agreed
+to establish certain freight rates from the crude-oil producing region
+of western Pennsylvania to such refining and shipping centers as New
+York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburg and Cleveland. From these rates
+the South Improvement Company was to receive substantial rebates,
+amounting to forty or fifty per cent. on crude oil and twenty-five to
+forty-five per cent. on refined. On their side the railroads were
+promised the entire freight business of the Company, each to have an
+assured proportion of the traffic, with freedom from rate-cutting
+competition. All this was the common railroad practice of the times.
+
+But another portion of the contract was not so common. It provided that
+the roads should give the South Improvement Company rebates on all oil
+shipped by its competitors and furnish it with full way-bills of all
+such shipments each day. In other words, the Company was to know exactly
+the amount of the business of its competitors and with whom it was being
+done. The contract allowed the roads to make similar rebates with
+anybody offering an equal amount of traffic, but the likelihood of such
+an outcome was slender in the extreme. Armed with this powerful weapon,
+Rockefeller entered upon a campaign to eliminate competition by offering
+to buy out independent refiners either with cash or with Standard Oil
+stock, at his estimate of the value of their property. Those who
+objected to selling were shown that the alliance between the South
+Improvement Company and the railroads was so strong that they faced the
+alternative of giving way or being crushed. Of the twenty-six refineries
+in Cleveland, at least twenty-one yielded. The capacity of the Standard
+leaped from 1,500 to 10,000 barrels a day and it controlled a fifth of
+the refining business of the country. When these facts came to be known
+in the oil country, the bitter Oil War of 1872 began. Independent
+producers joined to fight for existence, and at length the railroads
+gave way and agreed to abandon the contract with the South Improvement
+Company, and the legislature of Pennsylvania annulled its charter,
+although in one way or another rebates continued and the absorption of
+rivals went on. In 1882 the entire combination--thirty-nine refiners,
+controlling ninety to ninety-five per cent. of the product--was
+organized as the Standard Oil Trust. All stock-holders in the combining
+companies surrendered their certificates and received in return receipts
+or "trust-certificates," which showed the amount of the owner's interest
+in the trust. In order to secure unity of purpose and management, the
+affairs of the combination were put into the hands of nine trustees,
+with Rockefeller at the head.
+
+The wonderful success of the Standard Oil Company, however, was not due
+solely to the alliance with the railroads, although this advantage came
+at a strategic time when it was fighting for supremacy. Its marketing
+department gave it an unenviable reputation, but achieved amazing
+success. The department was organized to cover the country, find out
+everything possible about competitors, and then kill them off by
+price-cutting or other means. The great resources of the Company enabled
+it to undersell rivals, going below cost if necessary, and thus wearing
+out opposition. Continuity of control, also, contributed to Standard
+success; the narrow limits of the area in which the crude oil was
+produced before 1890 rendered the problem of securing a monopoly
+somewhat easier; the organization was extremely efficient and the
+constituent companies were stimulated to a high degree of productivity
+by encouraging the spirit of emulation; men of ability were called to
+its high positions; the policy of gaining the mastery over the trade in
+petroleum and its products was kept definitely and persistently to the
+front; and then there was John D. Rockefeller.
+
+Rockefeller was what used to be called a "self-made" man. He began his
+business life in Cleveland as a clerk at an extremely modest salary.
+Capacity for details and for shrewd bargaining, patience, frugality,
+seriousness, secretiveness, caution, an instinctive sense for business
+openings, self-control--all these were characteristic both of the
+Cleveland clerk and the later oil-refiner. In the bigger field he
+developed a daring caution, a quick understanding of the value of new
+inventions, a capacity for organization, quick grasp of essentials and a
+resourcefulness that dominated the entire Standard combination. He built
+his own barrels, owned the pipe-lines, tank-cars, tank-wagons and
+warehouses. Consolidation, magnitude and financial returns were his
+aims, and in achieving these he and his associates were so successful as
+to make the Standard a leader in all branches of business, except the
+ethics of industry. Litigation has been the constant accompaniment of
+Standard progress.
+
+Following the Standard Oil Company, other combinations found the trust
+form of organization a convenient one. The cotton trust, the whiskey
+trust, and the sugar, cotton bagging, copper and salt trusts made the
+public familiar with the term. Moreover, popular suspicion and hostility
+became aroused, and the word "trust" began to acquire something of the
+unpleasant connotation which it later possessed.
+
+Although it was upon the Standard Oil Company that people turned when
+they denounced the trusts and feared or condemned their practices, the
+principles to which the Standard adhered when under the strain of
+competition were the practices which were followed by their
+contemporaries, both big and little. When the Diamond Match Company, for
+example, was before the Courts of Michigan in 1889, it appeared that the
+organization was built up for the purpose of controlling the manufacture
+and trade in matches in the United States and Canada. Its policy was to
+buy up and "remove" competition, so that it might monopolize the
+manufacture and sale of matches. It could then fix the price of its
+commodity at such a point that it could recoup itself for the expense of
+eliminating competitors and also make larger profits than were possible
+when its rivals were active.
+
+Still more dangerous was the combination of the hard coal operators. By
+1873, six corporations owned both the hard coal deposits of Pennsylvania
+and the railroads which made it possible to haul the coal out to the
+markets. In the same year and later these companies made agreements
+which determined the amounts of coal that they would mine, the price
+which they would charge, and the proportion of the whole output that
+each company would be allowed to handle. Independent operators--that is,
+operators not in the combination--found their existence precarious in
+the extreme, for their means of transportation was in the hands of the
+six coal-carrying railroads, who could raise rates almost at will and
+find reasons even for refusing service. The states were powerless to
+remedy the situation because their authority did not extend to
+interstate commerce, yet it was intolerable for a small group of
+interested parties to have power to fix the output of so necessary a
+commodity as coal, on no other basis than that provided by their own
+desires.
+
+Other abuses appeared which showed that industrial combinations were
+open to many of the complaints which, in connection with the railroads,
+had led to the Interstate Commerce Act. Industrial pools resembled
+railroad pools and were objected to for similar reasons. Bankers and
+others who organized combinations were given returns that seemed as
+extravagant as the prices paid to railroad construction companies; the
+issues of the stock of corporations were bought and sold by their own
+officers for speculative purposes; and stock-watering was as common as
+in railroading. The industrial combinations also had somewhat the same
+effect on politics that the railroads had. Lloyd declared that the
+Standard Oil Company had done everything with the Pennsylvania
+legislature except refine it.
+
+One of the most noted cases of corporation influence in politics was
+that of the election of Senator Henry B. Payne of Ohio. In 1886 the
+legislature of the state requested the United States Senate to
+investigate the election of Payne because of charges of Standard Oil
+influence. The debate over the case showed clearly the belief on the
+part of many that the Standard, which controlled "business, railroads,
+men and things" was also choosing United States senators. Senator Hoar
+raised the question whether the Standard was represented in the Senate
+and even in the Cabinet. In denying any connection with the Oil Company,
+Payne himself declared that no institution or association had been "to
+so large an expense in money" to accomplish his defeat when he was a
+candidate for election to the lower house. Popular suspicion seemed
+confirmed, therefore, that the Company was taking an active share in
+government. Whether the trust was for or against Payne made little
+difference.
+
+A complaint that brought the trust problem to the attention of many who
+were not interested in its other aspects was the treatment accorded
+independent producers. The rough-shod methods employed by the Standard
+Oil Company, the Diamond Match Company and the coal operators were
+concretely illustrated in many a city and town by such incidents as that
+of a Pennsylvania butcher mentioned by Lloyd. An agent of the great meat
+slaughtering firms ordered the butcher to cease slaughtering cattle, and
+when he refused the agent informed him that his business would be
+destroyed. He then found himself unable to buy any meat whatever from
+Chicago, the meat-packing center, and discovered that the railroad would
+not furnish cars to transport his supplies. Faced by such overwhelming
+force, the independent producer was generally compelled to give way to
+the demands of the big concerns or be driven to the wall. The
+helplessness of the individual under such conditions was strikingly
+expressed by Mr. Justice Harlan of the Supreme Court in a decision in a
+suit against the Standard Oil Company:
+
+    All who recall the condition of the country in 1890 will remember
+    that there was everywhere, among the people generally, a deep
+    feeling of unrest. The Nation had been rid of human slavery ...
+    but the conviction was universal that the country was in real danger
+    from another kind of slavery sought to be fastened on the American
+    people, namely, the slavery that would result from aggregations of
+    capital in the hands of a few ... controlling, for their own ...
+    advantage exclusively, the entire business of the country, including
+    the production and sale of the necessaries of life.
+
+Observers noted that fortunes which outstripped the possessions of
+princes were being amassed for the few by combinations which sometimes,
+if not frequently, resorted to illegal and unfair practices, and they
+compared these conditions with the labor unrest, the discontent and the
+poverty which was the lot of the many.
+
+In the meanwhile there had arisen a growing demand for action which
+would give relief from the conditions just described. As early as 1879
+the Hepburn committee appointed by the New York Assembly had
+investigated the railroads and had made public a mass of information
+concerning the relation of the transportation system to the industrial
+combinations. In 1880 Henry George had published _Progress and Poverty_
+in which he had contended that the entire burden of taxation should be
+laid upon land values, in order to overcome the advantage which the
+ownership of land gave to monopoly. In 1881 Henry D. Lloyd had fired
+his first volley, "The Story of a Great Monopoly," an attack on the
+Standard Oil Company which was published in the _Atlantic Monthly_ and
+which caused that number of the periodical to go through seven
+editions.[2] In 1888 Edward Bellamy's _Looking Backward_ had pictured
+a socialized Utopian state in which the luxuries as well as the
+necessities of life were produced for the common benefit of all the
+people. Societies had been formed for the propagation of Bellamy's
+ideas, and the parlor study of socialism had become popular.
+
+The platforms of the political parties had given evidence of a
+continuing unrest without presenting any definite proposals for relief.
+As far back as 1872 the Labor Reformers had condemned the "capitalists"
+for importing Chinese laborers; in the same year the Republicans and
+Democrats had opposed further grants of public land to corporations and
+monopolies--referring in the main to the railroads; in 1880 the
+Greenbackers and in 1884 the Anti-Monopolists, the Prohibitionists and
+the Democrats had denounced the corporations and called for government
+action to prevent or control them; and in 1888 the Union Labor party,
+the Prohibitionists and the Republicans had urged legislation for doing
+away with or regulating trusts and monopolies. By 1890 eight states had
+already passed anti-trust laws. Among unorganized forces, possibly the
+independent producers were as effective as any. Although usually
+overcome by the superior strength of their big opponents, they
+frequently conducted vigorous contests and sometimes carried the issue
+to the courts where damaging evidence was made public.
+
+The solution of the problem of trust control was not easy to discover.
+The amount of property involved was so great that forceful legislation
+would be fought to the last ditch; while legislation that was obviously
+weak, on the other hand, would not satisfy public opinion. Public
+officials were hopelessly divergent in their views. Cleveland had
+called attention to the evils of the trusts in his tariff message of
+1887, but had laid his emphasis on the need of reduced taxation rather
+than upon control of the great combinations. Blaine was opposed to
+federal action. Thomas B. Reed had characteristically ridiculed the
+idea that monopolies existed:
+
+    And yet, outside the Patent Office there are no monopolies in this
+    country, and there never can be. Ah, but what is that I see on the
+    far horizon's edge, with tongue of lambent flame and eye of forked
+    fire, serpent-headed and griffin-clawed?
+
+Surely it must be the great new chimera "Trust." Quick, cries every
+masked member of the Ways and Means. Quick, let us lower the tariff.
+Let us call in the British. Let them save our devastated homes.
+
+More serious was the almost universal lack of knowledge of the elements
+involved in the situation. Industrial leaders were unenlightened and
+wrapped up in the attempt to outdo rivals who were equally
+unenlightened and absorbed; the nation needed instruction and
+leadership, and neither was to be found. Instead, the poorer classes
+became more and more hostile to big business interests; the capitalist
+class set itself stolidly to the preservation of its interests. The one
+saw only the abuses, the other only the benefits of combinations.
+Thoughtful men felt that industrialism was afflicted with a malady
+which would kill the nation unless a remedy were found.
+
+The legal and constitutional position of the trusts was almost
+impregnable. Ever since the decision of the Supreme Court in the
+Dartmouth College case, handed down in 1819, franchises and charters
+granted by states to corporations had been regarded as contracts which
+could not be altered by subsequent legislation. Moreover, the Court had
+so interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment, as has been seen, that the
+states had found great difficulty in framing regulatory legislation
+that would pass muster before the judiciary.[3] It was doubtful
+whether federal attempts at regulation would be more fortunate. More
+fundamental still, for public opinion underlies even constitutional
+interpretation, American industrial and commercial expansion had run
+ahead of our conception of the possible and proper functions of
+government. Government as the protector of property was an ancient
+concept and commonly held in the United States; government as the
+guardian of the individual against the powerful holder of a great deal
+of property was a new idea and not generally looked upon with favor.
+
+It has already been seen that the prevailing economic theory, _laissez
+faire_, was diametrically opposed to government regulation of the
+economic activities of the individual. According to this view,
+unrestricted industrial liberty would result in adjustment by business
+itself on honorable lines. Men whose integrity was such that they were
+in control of great enterprises, asserted an attorney for the Standard
+Oil Company, would be the first to realize that a fair policy toward
+competitors and the public was the most successful policy. Combination
+was declared to be inevitable in modern life and reductions in the
+price of many commodities were pointed to as a justification for
+leaving the trusts unhampered.
+
+Public opinion, however, was reaching the point where it was prepared
+to brush aside theoretical difficulties. President Harrison, Senator
+Sherman and others urged action. Large numbers of anti-monopoly bills
+were presented in Congress. The indifference of some members and the
+opposition of others was somewhat neutralized by the fiery zeal of such
+men as Senator Jones of Arkansas, who declared that the fortunes made
+by the Standard Oil Company did not represent a single dollar of honest
+toil or one trace of benefit to mankind. "The sugar trust," declared
+the senator, "has its 'long, felonious fingers' at this moment in every
+man's pocket in the United States, deftly extracting with the same
+audacity the pennies from the pockets of the poor and the dollars from
+the pockets of the rich."
+
+After much study of the mass of suggested legislation, Congress relied
+upon its constitutional power to regulate commerce among the several
+states and passed the Sherman Anti-trust Act, which received President
+Harrison's signature on July 2, 1890. Its most significant portions are
+the following:
+
+    Sec. 1. Every contract, combination in the form of trust or
+    otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among
+    the several States, or with foreign nations, is ... illegal.
+
+    Sec. 2. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize,
+    or combine or conspire with any other such person ... to monopolize
+    any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with
+    foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of misdemeanor.
+
+The purpose of the framers of the Act seems clearly to have been to
+draw up a general measure whose terms should be those usual in the
+English common law and then rest on the assurance that the courts would
+interpret its meaning in the light of former practice. For some
+centuries restraint of trade had been considered illegal in England,
+but no contract was held to be contrary to law if it provided only a
+_reasonable_ restraint--that is, if the restraint was merely minor and
+subsidiary. The Sherman act was a Senate measure, was presented from
+the Judiciary Committee and was passed precisely as drawn up by it. In
+speaking from the Committee, both Edmunds and Hoar took the attitude
+which the latter expressed as follows: "The great thing that this bill
+does ... is to extend the common-law principles, which protected fair
+competition ... in England, to international and interstate commerce in
+the United States." Just how far the members of Congress who were not
+on the Judiciary Committee of the Senate shared in this view or really
+understood the bill can not be said. Indeed, many members of both
+chambers absented themselves when the bill came to a vote.[4]
+
+For a long time the Sherman Act like the Interstate Commerce Act was
+singularly ineffective and futile. Trusts were nominally dissolved, but
+the separate parts were conducted under a common and uniform policy by
+the same board of managers. The Standard Oil Company changed its form
+by selecting the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey as a "holding
+corporation." Stock of the members of the combination was exchanged for
+stock in the New Jersey organization, leaving control in the same hands
+as before. The "same business was carried on in the same way but 'under
+a new sign.'" The wide variety of conditions tolerated under the
+corporation laws of the several states made confusion worse confounded.
+In its early attempts to convict corporations of violation of the law,
+the government was uniformly defeated.
+
+In 1893 came the climax of futility. The American Sugar Refining
+Company had purchased refineries in Philadelphia which enabled it to
+control, with its other plants, ninety-eight per cent. of the refining
+business in the country. The government asked the courts to cancel the
+purchase on the ground that it was contrary to the Sherman law, and to
+order the return of the properties to their former owners. The Supreme
+Court declared that the mere purchase of sugar refineries was not an
+act of interstate commerce and that it could not be said to restrain
+such trade, and it refused to grant the request of the government.
+Unhappily the prosecuting officers of the Attorney-General's office had
+drawn up their case badly, making their complaint the purchase, not the
+resulting restraint. No direct evidence was presented to show that
+interstate commerce in sugar and the control of the sugar business and
+of prices were the chief objects of the combination. To the public it
+seemed that the corporations were impregnable, for even the United
+States government could not control them.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The early history of anti-trust agitation centers about Henry D. Lloyd.
+His earliest article, "The Story of a Great Monopoly," is in _The
+Atlantic Monthly_ (Mar., 1881); his classic account of trust abuses is
+_Wealth against Commonwealth_ (1894); consult also C.A. Lloyd, _Henry
+D. Lloyd_ (2 vols., 1912). Early and valuable articles in periodicals
+are in _Political Science Quarterly_, 1888, pp. 78-98; 1889, pp.
+296-319; W.Z. Ripley, _Trusts, Pools, and Corporations_ (rev. ed.,
+1916), is useful; B.J. Hendrick, _Age of Big Business_ (1919), is
+interesting and contains a bibliography. Ida M. Tarbell, _History of
+the Standard Oil Company_ (2 vols., 1904), is carefully done and a
+pioneer work. Other valuable accounts are: S.C.T. Dodd, _Trusts_
+(1900), by a former Standard Oil attorney; Eliot Jones, _The Anthracite
+Coal Combination in the United States_ (1914); J.W. Jenks, _Trust
+Problem_ (1900), contains a summary of the economies of large scale
+production; J.W. Jenks and W.E. Clark, _The Trust Problem_ (4th ed.,
+1917), is scholarly and complete; J.D. Rockefeller, _Random
+Reminiscences of Men and Events_ (1916), is a brief defence of the
+Standard Oil Company; W.H. Taft, _Anti-Trust Act and the Supreme Court_
+(1914), summarizes a few important decisions on the Sherman law. Edward
+Bellamy, _Looking Backward_ (1888), describes an economic Utopia. Early
+proposed anti-trust laws, together with the Congressional debates on
+the subject are in _Senate Documents_, 57th Congress, 2nd session, vol.
+14, No. 147 (Serial Number 4428). No complete historical study has yet
+been made of the effects of industrial development, immediately after
+the Civil War, on politics and the structure of American society.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Charles M. Schwab mentions an unusual example. Under the direction
+of Andrew Carnegie, the wealthy steel magnate, he had a new mill
+erected, which seemed likely to meet all the demands which would be
+placed upon it. But in the process of building it Schwab had seen a
+single way in which it could be improved. Carnegie at once gave orders
+to have the mill taken down before being used at all, and rebuilt on
+the improved plan.
+
+[2] It was not until 1894 that Lloyd published _Wealth Against
+Commonwealth_, but his pen had been busy constantly between 1881 and
+1894.
+
+[3] Cf. above, pp. 89-93, on Fourteenth Amendment.
+
+[4] The authorship of the Sherman law has often been a source of
+controversy. Senator John Sherman, as well as other members, introduced
+anti-trust bills in the Senate in 1888. Senator Sherman's proposal was
+later referred to the Judiciary Committee, of which he was not a
+member. The Committee thoroughly revised it. Senator Hoar, who was on
+the Committee, thought he remembered having written it word for word as
+it was adopted. Recent investigation seems to prove that the senator's
+recollection was faulty and that Edmunds wrote most of it, while Hoar,
+Ingalls and George wrote a section each and Evarts part of a sentence.
+If this is the fact, it seems most nearly accurate to say that Sherman
+started the enterprise and that almost every member of the Judiciary
+committee, especially Edmunds, shared in its completion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+DEMOCRATIC DEMORALIZATION
+
+In view of the fact that Harrison had been successful in 1888 and that
+Cleveland had been the most able Democratic leader since the Civil War,
+it seemed natural that their parties should renominate them in 1892.
+Yet the men at the oars in the Republican organization were far from
+enthusiastic over their leader. It is probable that Harrison did not
+like the role of dispenser of patronage and that he indicated the fact
+in dealing with his party associates; at any rate, he estranged such
+powerful leaders as Platt, Quay and Reed by his neglect of them in
+disposing of appointments. The reformers were no better satisfied; much
+had been expected of him because his party had taken so definite a
+stand in 1888, and when his choice of subordinates failed to meet
+expectations, the scorn of the Independents found forceful vent. Among
+the rank and file of his party, Harrison had aroused respect but no
+great enthusiasm.
+
+The friends of Blaine were still numerous and active, and they wished
+to see their favorite in the executive chair. Perhaps Blaine felt that
+there would be some impropriety in his becoming an active candidate
+against his chief, while remaining at his post as Secretary of State;
+at any rate he notified the chairman of the National Republican
+Committee, early in 1892, that he was not a candidate for the
+nomination. The demand for him, nevertheless, continued and relations
+between him and Harrison seem to have become strained. Senator Cullom,
+writing nearly twenty years afterward, related a conversation which he
+had had with Harrison at the time. In substance, according to the
+senator, the President declared that he had been doing the work of the
+Department of State himself for a year or more, and that Blaine had
+given out reports of what was being done and had taken the credit
+himself. Cullom's recollection seems to have been accurate, at least as
+far as relations between the two men were concerned, for three days
+before the meeting of the Republican nominating convention Blaine sent
+a curt note to the President resigning his office without giving any
+reason, and asking that his withdrawal take effect immediately. The
+President's reply accepting the resignation was equally cool and
+uninforming. If Blaine expected to take any steps to gain the
+nomination, the available time was far too short. That the act would be
+interpreted as hostile to the interests of Harrison, however, admitted
+of no doubt, and it therefore seems probable that Blaine had changed
+his mind at a late day and really hoped that the party might choose
+him.[1]
+
+Despite Blaine's apparent change of purpose, it seemed necessary to
+renominate Harrison in order to avoid the appearance of discrediting
+his administration, and on the first ballot Harrison received 535 votes
+to Blaine's 183 and was nominated. The only approach to excitement was
+over the currency plank in the platform. Western delegates demanded the
+free coinage of silver, which the East opposed. The plank adopted
+declared that
+
+    The Republican party demands the use of both gold and silver as
+    standard money, with such restrictions and under such provisions,
+    to be determined by legislation, as will secure the maintenance of
+    the parity of values of the two metals.
+
+It was a meaningless compromise, but it seems to have satisfied both
+sides.
+
+Cleveland, during the Harrison administration, had been an object of
+much interest and not a little speculation. After seeing President
+Harrison safely installed in office, he went to New York city where he
+engaged in the practice of law. He himself thought that he was retiring
+permanently and not a few enemies were quite willing that this should
+be the case. The eminent Democratic editor, Henry Watterson, remarked
+that Cleveland in New York was like a stone thrown into a river, "There
+is a 'plunk,' a splash, and then silence.". He was constantly invited,
+nevertheless, to address public assemblies, which provided ample
+opportunity for him to express his thoughts to the country. Moreover,
+the McKinley Act of 1890 and the political reversal which followed
+brought renewed attention to the tariff message of 1887 and to its
+author. In February, 1891, Cleveland was asked to address a meeting of
+New York business men which had been called by the Reform Club to
+express opposition to the free coinage of silver. The question of the
+increased use of silver as a circulating medium, as has been seen, was
+a controverted one; neither party was prepared to take a definite
+stand, and, indeed, division of opinion had taken place on sectional
+rather than partisan lines. While the subject was in this unsettled
+condition Cleveland received his invitation to the Reform Club, and was
+urged by some of his advisors not to endanger his chances of
+renomination by taking sides on the issue. The counsel had no more
+effect than similar advice had produced in 1887 when the tariff was in
+the same unsettled condition. Although unable to attend, Cleveland
+wrote a letter in which he characterized the experiment of free coinage
+as "dangerous and reckless." Whether right or wrong, he was definite;
+people who could not understand the intricacies of currency standards
+and the arguments of the experts understood exactly what Cleveland
+meant. Little doubt now existed but that the name of the ex-president
+would be a powerful one before the nominating convention, for he would
+have the populous East with him on the currency issue--unless David B.
+Hill should upset expectations.
+
+Hill was an example of the shrewd politician. Like Platt, whom he
+resembled in many ways, he was absorbed in the machinery and
+organization of politics, rather than in issues and policies. Beginning
+in 1870, when he was but twenty-seven years of age, he had held public
+office almost continuously. In the state assembly, as Mayor of Elmira,
+as Lieutenant-Governor with Cleveland and later as Governor, he
+developed an unrivalled knowledge of New York as a political arena. In
+1892 he was at the height of his power and the presidency seemed to be
+within his grasp. The methods which he used were typical of the
+man--the manipulation of the machinery of nomination.
+
+The national Democratic nominating convention was called for June 21,
+but the New York state Democratic committee announced that the state
+convention for the choice of delegates would meet on February 22. So
+early a meeting, four months before the national convention, was
+unprecedented, and at once it became clear that a purpose lay behind
+the call. It was to procure the election of members to the state
+convention who would vote for Hill delegates to the nominating
+convention, before Cleveland's supporters could organize in opposition.
+Furthermore, it was expected that the action of New York would
+influence other states where sentiment for Cleveland was not strong.
+Hill's plan worked out as he had expected--at least in so far as the
+state convention was concerned--for delegates pledged to him were
+chosen. Cleveland's supporters, however, denounced the "snap
+convention" and a factional quarrel arose between the "snappers" and
+the "anti-snappers"; outside of New York it was so obvious that the
+snap convention was a mere political trick that the Hill cause was
+scarcely benefited by it. Delegates were chosen in other parts of the
+country who desired the nomination of Cleveland.
+
+The convention met in Chicago on June 21 and proceeded at once to adopt
+a platform of principles. The silver plank was hardly distinguishable
+from that of the Republicans, except that it was enshrouded with a
+trifle more of ambiguity. The adoption of a tariff plank elicited
+considerable difference of opinion, but the final result was an extreme
+statement of Democratic belief. Instead of adopting the cautious
+position taken in 1884, the convention declared that the constitutional
+power of the federal government was limited to the collection of tariff
+duties for purposes of revenue only, and denounced the McKinley act as
+the "culminating atrocity of class legislation."
+
+Although it was evident when the convention met, that the chances of
+Hill for the nomination were slight indeed, the battle was far from
+over. Hill was a "straight" party man, a fact which he reiterated again
+and again in his famous remark, "I am a Democrat." Cleveland was not
+strictly regular, a fact which Hill apparently intended to emphasize by
+constant reference to his own beliefs. The oratorical champion of the
+Hill delegation was Bourke Cockran, an able and appealing stump
+speaker. For two hours he urged that Cleveland could not carry the
+pivotal state, New York, and that it was folly to attempt to elect a
+man who was so handicapped. Eloquence, however, was of no avail. The
+first ballot showed that the Hill strength was practically confined to
+New York, and Cleveland was easily the party choice. For the
+vice-presidency Adlai E. Stevenson, a partisan of the old school, was
+chosen.
+
+Among the smaller parties there appeared for the first time the
+"People's Party," later and better known as the "Populists." Their
+nominee was James B. Weaver, who had led the Greenbackers in 1880.
+Their platform emphasized the economic burdens under which the poorer
+classes were laboring and listed a series of extremely definite
+demands.
+
+The campaign was a quiet one as both Cleveland and Harrison had been
+tried out before. So unenthusiastic were the usual political leaders
+that Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll declared that each party would like
+to beat the other without electing its own candidates. Although the
+financial issue was kept in the background, the tariff was fought out
+again somewhat as it had been in 1888. The New York _Sun_ shed some
+asperity over the contest by calling the friends of Cleveland "the
+adorers of fat witted mediocrity," and the nominee himself as the
+"perpetual candidate" and the "stuffed prophet"; and then added a ray
+of humor by advocating the election of Cleveland. The adoption of the
+Australian ballot, before the election, in thirty-four states and
+territories constituted an important reform; thereafter it was
+impossible for "blocks of five" to march to the polls and deposit their
+ballots within the sight of the purchaser. The Homestead strike near
+Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, somewhat aided the Democrats. The Carnegie
+Steel Company, having reduced wages, precipitated a strike which was
+settled only through the use of the state militia. As the steel
+industry was highly protected by the tariff, it appeared that the wages
+of the laboring man were not so happily affected as Republican orators
+had been asserting.[2]
+
+The result of the election was astonishing. Cleveland carried not
+merely the South but Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Indiana,
+Illinois, Wisconsin and California, while five of Michigan's fourteen
+electoral votes and one of Ohio's twenty-three went to him. In the
+last-named state, which had never gone against the Republicans, their
+vote exceeded that of the Democrats by only 1,072. For the first time
+since Buchanan's day, both Senate and House were to be Democratic. More
+surprising and more significant for the future, was the strength of the
+People's Party. Over a million ballots, twenty-two electoral votes, two
+senators and eleven representatives were included among their trophies.
+It was an important fact, moreover, that twenty-nine out of every
+thirty votes cast for the People's Party were cast west of Pennsylvania
+and south of Maryland. Something apparently was happening, in which the
+East was not a sharer. The politician, particularly in the East, was
+quite content to dismiss the Populists as "born-tired theorists,"
+"quacks," "a clamoring brood of political rainmakers," and "stump
+electricians," but the student of politics and history must appraise
+the movement less provincially and with more information.
+
+It was in the nature of things that the Populist movement should come
+out of the West. From the days of Clay and Jackson the westerner had
+been characterized by his self-confidence, his assertiveness and his
+energy. He had possessed unlimited confidence in ordinary humanity,
+been less inclined to heed authority and more ready to disregard
+precedents and experience. He had expressed his ideals concretely, and
+with vigor and assurance. He had broken an empire to the plow, suffered
+severely from the buffetings of nature and had gradually worked out his
+list of grievances. One or another of his complaints had been presented
+before 1892 in the platforms of uninfluential third parties, but not
+until that year did the dissenting movement reach large proportions.
+
+It has already been seen that the people of the West were in revolt
+against the management of the railroads. They saw roads going bankrupt,
+to be sure, but the owners were making fortunes; they knew that lawyers
+were being corrupted with free passes and the state legislatures
+manipulated by lobbyists; and they believed that rates were
+extortionate. The seizure and purchase of public land, sometimes
+contrary to the letter of the law, more often contrary to its spirit,
+was looked upon as an intolerable evil. Moreover, the westerner was in
+debt. He had borrowed from the East to buy his farm and his machinery
+and to make both ends meet in years when the crops failed. In 1889 it
+was estimated that seventy-five per cent. of the farms of Dakota were
+mortgaged to a total of $50,000,000. Boston and other cities had scores
+of agencies for the negotiation of western farm loans; Philadelphia
+alone was said to absorb $15,000,000 annually. The advantage to the
+West, if conditions were right, is too manifest to need explanation.
+But sometimes the over-optimistic farmer borrowed too heavily;
+sometimes the rates demanded of the needy westerners were usurious;
+often it seemed as if interest charges were like "a mammoth sponge,"
+constantly absorbing the labor of the husbandman. The demand of the
+West for a greater currency supply has already been seen, for it
+appeared in the platforms of minor parties immediately after the Civil
+War. Sometimes it seemed as if nature, also, had entered a conspiracy
+to increase the hardships of the farmer. During the eighties a series
+of rainy years in the more arid parts of the plains encouraged the idea
+that the rain belt was moving westward, and farmers took up land beyond
+the line where adequate moisture could be relied upon. Then came drier
+years; the corn withered to dry stalks; farms were more heavily
+mortgaged or even abandoned; and discontent in the West grew fast.
+
+The complaints of the westerner naturally found expression in the
+agricultural organizations which already existed in many parts of the
+country. The Grange had attacked some of the farmer's problems, but
+interest in it as a political agency had died out. The National
+Farmers' Alliance of 1880 and the National Farmers' Alliance and
+Industrial Union somewhat later were both preceded and followed by many
+smaller societies. Altogether their combined membership began to mount
+into the millions. When, therefore, the Alliances began to turn away
+from the mere discussion of agricultural grievances and toward the
+betterment of conditions by means of legislation, and when their
+principles began to be taken up by discontented labor organizations, it
+looked as if they might constitute a force to be reckoned with.
+
+The remedies which the Alliances suggested for current ills were
+definite. Fundamentally they believed that the government, state and
+federal, could remedy the economic distresses of the people and that it
+ought to do so. At the present day such a suggestion seems commonplace
+enough, but in the eighties the dominant theory was individualism--each
+man for himself and let economic law remedy injustices--and the
+Alliance program seemed like dreaded "socialism." The counterpart of
+the demand for larger governmental activity was a call for the greater
+participation of the people in the operation of the machinery of
+legislation. This lay back of the demand for the initiative, the
+referendum, and the popular election of senators. Currency ills could
+be remedied, the farmers believed, by a national currency which should
+be issued by the federal government only--not by national banks. They
+desired the free coinage of silver and gold until the amount in
+circulation should reach fifty dollars per capita. Lesser
+recommendations were for an income tax and postal savings banks. In
+relation to the transportation system, they declared that "the time has
+come when the railroad corporations will either own the people or the
+people must own the railroads." In order to prevent the waste of the
+public land and to stop its being held for speculative purposes, they
+urged that none be allowed to remain in the hands of aliens and that
+all be taken away from the railroads and corporations which was in
+excess of actual needs.
+
+The power of the new movement first became evident in 1890 and
+distinctly disturbed both the Republican and the Democratic leaders.
+Determined to right their wrongs, the farmers deserted their parties in
+thousands, flocked to conventions and crowded the country schoolhouses
+for the discussion of methods and men. Perhaps it was true, as one of
+their critics asserted, that they put a "gill of fact and grievance
+into a gallon of falsehood and lurid declamation" so as to make an
+"intoxicating mixture." If so, the mixture took immediate effect.
+Alliance governors were elected in several southern states; many state
+legislatures in the South and West had strong farmer delegations; and
+several congressmen and senators were sent to Washington. Success in
+1890 made the Alliances jubilant and they looked to the possibility of
+a countrywide political organization and a share in the campaign of
+1892. The first national convention was held in Omaha in July, 1892, at
+which many of the farmers' organizations together with the Knights of
+Labor and other groups were represented. The name "People's party" was
+adopted, the principles just mentioned were set forth in a platform and
+candidates nominated. In the ensuing election the party exhibited the
+surprising strength which has been seen.
+
+It has taken more time to describe the Populist movement than its
+degree of success in 1892 would justify. But it deserves attention for
+a variety of reasons. Its reform demands were important; it was a
+striking indication of sectional economic interests; it gave evidence
+of an effective participation in politics by the small farmers, the
+mechanics and the less well-to-do professional people--the "middle
+class," in a word; it was a long step toward an expansion of the
+activities of the central government in the fields of economic and
+social legislation; and finally it emphasized the significance of the
+West, as a constructive force in American life. If the Populists should
+capture one of the other parties or be captured by it, nobody could
+foresee what the results would be on American political history.
+
+The second administration of Grover Cleveland, from 1893 to 1897, was
+the most important period of four years for half a century after the
+Civil War. For twenty-five years after 1865 American politicians had
+been sowing the wind. Issues had rarely been met man-fashion, in direct
+combat; instead, they had been evaded, stated with skilful ambiguity,
+or beclouded with ignorance and prejudice. Politics had been concerned
+with the offices--the plunder of government. It could not be that the
+whirlwind would never be reaped.
+
+The situation in 1893 was one that might well have shaken the stoutest
+heart. International difficulties were in sight that threatened unusual
+dangers; labor troubles of unprecedented complexity and importance were
+at hand; the question of the currency remained unsettled, the treasury
+was in a critical condition, and an industrial panic had already begun.
+Each of these difficulties will demand detailed discussion at a later
+point.[3]
+
+To no small degree, the settlement of the political and economic issues
+before the country was complicated by the unmistakable drift toward
+sectionalism, and by the particular characteristics of the President.
+If the administration pressed a tariff reduction policy, it would
+please the South and West but bring hostility in the East. The demands
+of the West, so far as the Populists represented them, were for the
+increased use of the powers of the federal government and the
+application of those powers to social and economic problems; but the
+party in power was traditionally attached to the doctrine of restricted
+activity on the part of the central authority. The sectional aspects of
+the silver question were notorious; and only the eastern Democrats
+fully supported their leader in his stand on the issue.
+
+The personal characteristics of President Cleveland have already
+appeared.[4] He had a burdensome consciousness of his own individual
+duty to conduct the business of his office with faithfulness; a
+courageous sense of justice which impelled him to fight valiantly for a
+cause that he deemed right, however unimportant or hopeless the cause
+might be; a reformer's contempt for hypocrisy and shams, and a blunt
+directness in freeing his mind about wrong of every kind. He had the
+faults of his virtues, likewise. Sure of himself and of the right of
+his position, he had the impatience of an unimaginative man with any
+other point of view; he was intransigent, unyielding, rarely giving
+way a step even to take two forward. It seems likely that his political
+experience had accentuated this characteristic. For years he had thrown
+aside the advice of his counsellors and had shown himself more nearly
+right than they. As Mayor of Buffalo he had used the veto and had been
+made Governor of the state; as Governor he had ruggedly made enemies
+and had become President; as President he had flown in the face of
+caution with his tariff message and his Reform Club letter and had
+three times received a larger popular vote than his competitor. And
+each time his plurality was greater than it had been before. If he
+tended to become over-sure of himself, it should hardly occasion
+surprise. Furthermore he looked upon the duties and possibilities of
+the presidential office as fixed and stationary, rather than elastic
+and developing. He was a strict constructionist and a rigid believer in
+the checks and balances of the Constitution. Although constantly aware
+of the needs and rights of the common people, such as composed the
+Populist movement, his adherence to strict construction was so complete
+that he was unable to advocate much of the federal legislation desired
+by them. It was only with hesitation and constitutional doubts, for
+example, that he had been able to sign even the Interstate Commerce
+Act. In brief, then, the western demand for social and economic
+legislation on a novel and unusual scale was to take its chances with
+an honest, dogged believer in a restricted federal authority.
+
+The experience of the administration with the patronage question
+illustrates how much progress had been made in the direction of reform
+since the beginning of Cleveland's first term in 1885. In the earlier
+year it had required a bitter contest to make even the slightest
+advance; in his second term he retained Roosevelt, a Republican
+reformer, on the Commission and gradually extended the rules so as to
+cover the government printing office, the internal revenue service, the
+pension agencies, and messengers and other minor officials in the
+departments in Washington. Finally on May 6, 1896, he approved an order
+revising the rules, simplifying them and extending them to great
+numbers of places not hitherto included, "the most valuable addition
+ever made at one stroke to the competitive service." The net result was
+that the number of positions in the classified service was more than
+doubled between 1893 and 1897, making a total of 81,889 in a service of
+somewhat over 200,000.[5] By the latter year the argument against
+reform had largely been silenced. The dismal prediction of opponents
+who had feared the establishment of an office-holding aristocracy had
+turned out to have no foundation. Agreement was widespread that the
+government service was greatly improved. There were still branches of
+the service for the reformers to work upon but the great fight was over
+and won.[6]
+
+Although the Democrats came into power in 1893 largely on the tariff
+issue, Cleveland felt that the most urgent need at the beginning of the
+administration was the repeal of the part of the Sherman silver law
+that provided for the purchase of 4,500,000 ounces of silver each
+month. The financial and monetary aspects of this controversy demand
+relation at another point.[7] Politically its results were important.
+Western and southern Democrats, friendly to silver, fought bitterly
+against the repeal, and became thoroughly hostile to Cleveland whom
+they began to distrust as allied to the "money-power" of the East. At
+the time, then, when the President was most in need of united partisan
+support, he found his party crumbling into factions.
+
+Other circumstances which have been mentioned combined to make the time
+inauspicious for a revision of the tariff--the slight Democratic
+majority in the Senate, the deficit caused by rising expenditure and
+falling revenue, the imminent industrial panic and the prevailing labor
+unrest. Nevertheless it seemed necessary to make the attempt. If the
+results of the election of 1892 meant anything, they meant that the
+Democrats were commissioned to revise the tariff.
+
+The chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means was William L.
+Wilson, a sincere and well-read tariff reformer who had been a lawyer
+and a college president, in addition to taking a practical interest in
+politics. The measure which he presented to the House on December 19,
+1893, was not a radical proposal, but it provided for considerable
+tariff reductions and a tax on incomes over $4,000. There was a slight
+defection in party support, but it was unimportant because of the large
+majority which the Democrats possessed, and the bill passed the House
+without unusual difficulty.
+
+In the Senate a different situation presented itself. The Democratic
+majority over the Republicans, provided the Populists voted with the
+former, was only nine; and in case the Populists became disaffected,
+the Democrats could outvote the opposition only by the narrow margin of
+three, even if every member remained with his party. Such a degree of
+unanimity, in the face of prevailing conditions, was extremely
+unlikely. The Louisiana senators were insistent upon protection for
+their sugar; Maryland, West Virginia and Alabama senators looked out
+for coal and iron ore; Senator Hill of New York was unalterably opposed
+to an income tax; Senator Murphy, of the same state, obtained high
+duties on linen collars and cuffs; and Senators Gorman and Brice were
+ready to aid the opposition unless appeased by definite bits of
+protection which they demanded. Many years later Senator Cullom, a
+Republican, explained the practical basis on which the Senate
+proceeded: "The truth is, we were all--Democrats as well as
+Republicans--trying to get in amendments in the interest of protecting
+the industries of our respective States."
+
+The 634 changes made in the Senate were, therefore, mainly in the
+direction of lessening the reductions made by the House. After the bill
+had passed the Senate, it was put into the hands of a conference
+committee, where further changes were made. At this stage of the
+proceedings, Wilson read to the House a letter from the President
+condemning the form which the bill had taken under Senate management,
+and branding the abandonment of Democratic principles as an example of
+"party perfidy and party dishonor." The communication had no effect
+except to intensify differences within the party, and senators made it
+evident that they would have their way or kill the measure. The House
+thereupon capitulated and accepted what became known as the
+Wilson-Gorman act--a law which was only less protectionist than the
+McKinley act. The President, chagrined at the breakdown of the party
+program, allowed the act to pass without his signature, but expressed
+his mingled disappointment and disgust in a letter to Representative
+T.C. Catchings:
+
+    There are provisions in this bill which are not in line with honest
+    tariff reform.... Besides, there were ... incidents accompanying the
+    passage of the bill ... which made every sincere tariff reformer
+    unhappy.... I take my place with the rank and file of the Democratic
+    party ... who refuse to accept the results embodied in this bill as
+    the close of the war, who are not blinded to the fact that the
+    livery of Democratic tariff reform has been stolen and worn in the
+    service of Republican protection, and who have marked the places
+    where the deadly blight of treason has blasted the counsels of the
+    brave in their hour of might.
+
+A few phases of the attempt at tariff reduction indicate the extent to
+which political decay and especially Democratic demoralization had
+gone. As it passed the House, the Wilson bill left both raw and refined
+sugar on the free list. This was unsatisfactory to the Louisiana sugar
+growers, who desired a protective duty on the raw product, and was
+objected to by the Louisiana senators. On the other hand, the American
+Sugar Refining Company, usually known as the "Sugar Trust," desired
+free raw materials but sought protective duties on refined sugar. In
+the Senate, a duty was placed on raw sugar, partly for revenue and
+partly to satisfy the Louisiana senators. On refined sugar, rates were
+fixed which were eminently satisfactory to the Trust. Rumors at once
+began to be spread broadcast over the country that the sugar interests
+had manipulated the Senate. The people were the more ready to believe
+charges of this sort because of experience with previous tariff
+legislation and because the Sugar Trust had been one of the earliest
+and most feared of the monopolies which had already caused so much
+uneasiness. A Senate committee was appointed, composed of two
+Democrats, two Republicans and a Populist, to investigate these and
+other rumors. Their report, which was agreed to by all the members,
+made public a depressing story. It appeared that one lobbyist had
+offered large sums of money for votes against the tariff bill on
+account of the income tax provision. Henry O. Havermeyer, president of
+the American Sugar Refining Company, testified that the company was in
+the habit of contributing to the campaign funds of one political party
+or the other in the states, depending on which party was in the
+ascendancy; that these contributions were carried on the books as
+expense; and that they were given because the party in power "could
+give us the protection we should have." Further, one or more officers
+of the company were in Washington during the entire time when the
+tariff act was pending in the Senate and had conferred with senators
+and committees. Senator Quay testified that he had bought and sold
+sugar stocks while the Senate was engaged in fixing the schedules and
+added: "I do not feel that there is anything in my connection with the
+Senate to interfere with my buying or selling the stock when I please;
+and I propose to do so." Finally the committee summarized the results
+of its investigation, taking the occasion to
+
+    strongly deprecate the importunity and pressure to which Congress
+    and its members are subjected by the representatives of great
+    industrial combinations, whose enormous wealth tends to suggest
+    undue influence, and to create in the public mind a demoralizing
+    belief in the existence of corrupt practices.
+
+Yet one more drop remained to fill the cup of Democratic humiliation to
+overflowing. The constitutionality of the income tax had been assumed
+to have been settled by previous decisions of the Supreme Court,
+especially that in the case Springer _v._ United States, which had been
+decided in 1880, and in which the Court had upheld the law. The new tax
+was brought before the Court in 1894, in Pollock _v._ Farmers' Loan and
+Trust Company. The argument against the tax was pressed with great
+vigor, not merely on constitutional grounds, but for evident social and
+economic reasons. Important financial interests engaged powerful legal
+talent and it became clear that the question to be settled was as much
+a class and sectional controversy as a constitutional problem. Counsel
+urged the Court that the tax scattered to the winds the fundamental
+principles of the rights of private property. Justice Field, deciding
+against the tax, declared it an "assault upon capital" and a step
+toward a war of the poor against the rich. There was fear among some
+that the exemption of the smaller incomes might result in placing the
+entire burden of taxation on the wealthy. Justice Field, for example,
+felt that taxing persons whose income was $4,000 and exempting those
+whose income was less than that amount was like taxing Protestants, as
+a class, at one rate and Catholics at another. The sectional aspects of
+the controversy were brought out in objections that the bulk of the tax
+would fall on the Northeast. The most important point involved was the
+meaning of the word "direct" as used in the Constitution in the phrase
+"direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States ... according
+to their respective Numbers." If an income tax is a direct tax, it must
+be apportioned among the states according to population. Unhappily the
+framers of the Constitution were not clear as to what they meant by
+the word direct, and specifically they could not have told whether an
+income tax was direct or not, because no such tax existed in England
+or America at that time. Hence the Supreme Court was placed in the
+awkward position of defining a word which the framers themselves could
+not define, although the uniform practice hitherto had been to regard
+the income tax as indirect and therefore constitutional, even if not
+apportioned according to population.
+
+The Pollock case was heard twice. The result of the first trial was
+inconclusive and on the central point the Court divided four to four.
+After a rehearing, Justice Jackson, who had been ill and not present at
+the first trial, gave his vote in favor of constitutionality, but in
+the meantime another justice had changed his opinion and voted against
+it. By the narrow margin of five to four, then, and under such
+circumstances, the income tax provision of the Wilson-Gorman act was
+declared null and void. Probably no decision since the Dred Scott case,
+with the single exception of the Legal Tender cases, has put the
+Supreme Court in so unfortunate a light. Certainly in none has it
+seemed more swayed by class prejudice, and so insecure and vacillating
+in its opinion.
+
+Before the question regarding the constitutionality of the income tax
+was settled, the Democrats reaped the political results of the
+Wilson-Gorman tariff act. The law went into force on August 27, 1894;
+the congressional elections came in November. The Democrats were almost
+utterly swept out of the House, except for those from the southern
+states, their number being reduced from 235 to 105. Reed was replaced
+in the speaker's chair; tariff reform had turned out to be
+indistinguishable from protection; and the Democracy, after its only
+opportunity since 1861 to try its hand at government, was demoralized,
+discredited, and in opposition again.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The election of 1892 is described in the standard histories of the
+period, and especially well in Peck.
+
+The rise and growth of the Populist movement resulted in a considerable
+literature of which the following are best: S.J. Buck, _The Agrarian
+Crusade_ (1920), is founded on wide knowledge of the subject and
+contains bibliography; F.J. Turner in _The Atlantic Monthly_ (Sept.,
+1896), gives a brief but keen account; other articles in periodicals
+are F.E. Haynes, in _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, X, 269, W.F.
+Mappin, in _Political Science Quarterly_, IV, 433, and F.B. Tracy, in
+_Forum_, XVI, 240; F.E. Haynes, _Third Party Movements_ (1916), is
+detailed; M.S. Wildman, _Money Inflation in the United States_ (1905),
+presents the psychological and economic basis of inflation; J.A.
+Woodburn, _Political Parties and Party Problems_ (1914); F.L. Paxson,
+_New Nation_ (1915).
+
+Cleveland's administration is well discussed by D.R. Dewey, _National
+Problems_ (1907), and by H.T. Peck, who also presents an unusual
+analysis of Cleveland in _The Personal Equation_ (1898). The income tax
+is best handled by E.R.A. Seligman, _The Income Tax_ (1914).
+Cleveland's own account of the chief difficulties of the administration
+are in his _Presidential Problems_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Blaine died on Jan. 27, 1893.
+
+[2] Below, p. 320, for an account of the strike as an industrial
+dispute.
+
+[3] Below, Chaps. XIII, XIV, XV.
+
+[4] Above, Chap. VIII.
+
+[5] The sweeping reform order of Cleveland late in his second term
+illustrated the most common and effective method of making advance.
+Late in his administration the President adds to the classified
+service; his successor withdraws part of the additions, but more than
+makes up at the end of his term,--a sort of two steps forward and one
+backward process.
+
+[6] Cleveland's second cabinet was composed of the following: W.Q.
+Gresham, Ill., Secretary of State; J.G. Carlisle, Ky., Secretary of
+the Treasury; D.S. Lamont, N.Y., Secretary of War; R. Olney, Mass.,
+Attorney-General; W.S. Bissell, N.Y., Postmaster-General; H.A. Herbert,
+Ala., Secretary of the Navy; Hoke Smith, Ga., Secretary of the
+Interior; J.S. Morton, Neb., Secretary of Agriculture.
+
+[7] Below, pp. 336-340.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+THE TREND OF DIPLOMACY
+
+After the international issues arising from the Civil War were settled,
+and before foreign relations began to become more important late in the
+nineties, our diplomatic history showed the same lack of definiteness
+and continuity that stamped the history of politics during the same
+years. Eleven different men held the post of Secretary of State during
+the thirty-four years from 1865 to 1898, one of them, Blaine, serving
+at two separate times. The political situation in Washington changed
+frequently, few men of outstanding capacity as diplomatists were in the
+cabinets, and most of the problems which arose were not such as would
+excite the interest of great international minds. That any degree of
+unity in our foreign relations was attained is due in part to the
+continuous service of such men as A.A. Adee, who was connected with the
+state department from 1878, and Professor John Bassett Moore, long in
+the department and frequently available as a counselor.[1]
+
+Even before the Civil War, Americans had been interested in the affairs
+of the nations whose shores were touched by the Pacific Ocean.
+Missionaries and traders had long visited China and Japan. During the
+years when the transcontinental railroads were built, as has been seen,
+the construction companies looked to China for a labor supply, and
+there followed a stream of Chinese immigrants who were the cause of
+a difficult international problem. Our relations with Japan were
+extremely friendly. Until the middle of the nineteenth century the
+Japanese had been almost completely cut off from the remainder of the
+world, desiring neither to give to the rest of humanity nor to take
+from them. In 1854 Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the United States
+Navy had succeeded in obtaining permission for American ships to take
+coal and provisions at two Japanese ports. Townsend Harris shortly
+afterwards had been appointed consul-general to Japan and his knowledge
+of the East and his tactful diplomacy had procured increased trade
+rights and other privileges. In 1863 a Japanese prince had sought to
+close the strait of Shimonoseki which connects the inland sea of Japan
+with the outside ocean. American, French and Dutch vessels had been
+fired upon, and eventually an international expedition had been sent to
+open the strait by force. Seventeen ships of war had quickly brought
+the prince to terms. An indemnity had been demanded, of which the
+United States had received a share. The fund remained in the treasury
+untouched until 1883 when it was returned to Japan. The latter received
+the refund as "a strong manifestation of that spirit of justice and
+equity which has always animated the United States in its relations
+with Japan."
+
+The purchase of Alaska in 1867, stretched a long, curved finger out
+towards the Asiatic coast, but there was little interest in the new
+acquisition and no knowledge of its size or resources.[2]
+
+The first tangible and permanent indication that the United States
+might extend its interests into the sphere of the Pacific Ocean
+appeared as early as 1872, when an arrangement with a Samoan chief gave
+us the right to use the harbor of Pagopago on the island of Tutuila.
+Tutuila is far from American shores, being below the equator on the
+under side of the world, but the harbor of Pagopago is an unusually
+good one and its relation to the extension of American commerce in the
+South Pacific was readily seen. Not long afterward, similar trading
+privileges were granted to Germany and Great Britain. Conditions in the
+islands had by no means been peaceful even before the advent of the
+foreigners with their intrigues and jealousies, and in 1885 the
+Germans, taking advantage of a native rebellion, hauled down the Samoan
+flag on the government building in Apia and seemed about to take
+control. In the following year, at the request of the Samoan king, the
+American consul Greenebaum proclaimed a protectorate and hoisted the
+United States flag. The act was unauthorized and was disavowed at once
+by the government at Washington. In the hope of establishing order in
+the islands, Bayard, Secretary of State in President Cleveland's first
+administration, suggested a triple conference of Germany, Great Britain
+and the United States in Washington. During a recess in the conference
+a native rebellion overturned the Samoan government and Germany assumed
+virtual control. While civil war raged among native factions, the
+Germans landed armed forces for the protection of their interests. The
+American and British governments, fearful of danger to their rights,
+already had war vessels in the harbor of Apia and armed conflict seemed
+almost inevitable when a sudden hurricane on March 16, 1889, destroyed
+all the vessels except one. The _Calliope_, (English), steamed out to
+sea in the teeth of the great storm and escaped in safety. In the face
+of such a catastrophe all smaller ills were forgotten and peace reigned
+for the moment in Samoa.
+
+Meanwhile, just as Cleveland was retiring from office for the first
+time, another conference of the three powers was arranged which
+provided a somewhat complicated triple protectorate. After a few years
+of quiet, another native insurrection called attention to the islands.
+Cleveland was again in the presidential chair, and in a message to
+Congress he expressed his belief that the United States had made a
+mistake in departing from its century-old policy of avoiding entangling
+alliances with foreign powers. A year later he returned to the subject
+more earnestly than ever. A report from the Secretary of State
+presented the history of our Samoan relations and ventured a judgment
+that the only fruits which had fallen to the United States were
+expense, responsibility and entanglement. The President thereupon
+invited an expression of opinion from Congress on the advisability of
+withdrawing from our engagements with the other powers. For the time
+nothing came of Cleveland's recommendation, but the continuance of
+native quarrels later necessitated another commission to the islands.
+The American member reported that the harbor of Apia was full of war
+vessels and the region about covered with armed men, but that "not the
+sail or smoke of a single vessel of commerce was to be seen there or
+about the coasts of these beautiful islands." In 1899, the triple
+protectorate was abandoned, as it had complicated the task of governing
+the islands. The United States received Tutuila with the harbor of
+Pagopago, Germany took the remainder of the group, and England retired
+altogether. The trend of Samoan relations was significant: our
+connection with the islands began with the desire to possess a coaling
+station; the possession first resulted in entanglements with other
+nations, and later in the question whether we ought not to withdraw;
+and eventually we withdrew from some of the responsibilities, but not
+from all. Despite its traditional policy of not contracting entangling
+alliances, the United States was in the Pacific to stay.
+
+When Cleveland came into power the first time, he found a long-standing
+disagreement with Canada over the fisheries of the northeastern coast.
+An arrangement which had resulted from the Treaty of Washington in 1871
+came to an end in 1885, and the rights of American fishermen in
+Canadian waters then rested upon a treaty of 1818. This treaty was
+inadequate owing to various changes which had taken place during the
+nearly seventy years that had elapsed since it was drawn up. Several
+difficulties lay in the way of the arrangement of a new treaty, an
+important one being the readiness of the Republican Senate to embarrass
+the President and thus discredit his administration. Matters came to a
+critical point in 1886 when Canadian officials seized two American
+vessels engaged in deep-sea fishing. Cleveland then arranged a treaty
+which provided for reciprocal favors, and when the Senate withheld its
+assent the administration made a temporary agreement, (_modus
+vivendi_), under which American ships were allowed to purchase bait and
+supplies and to use Canadian bays and harbors by paying a license
+fee.[3]
+
+The peculiar geographical configuration of Alaska was, meanwhile,
+bringing the United States into another diplomatic controversy. An arm
+or peninsula of the possession extends far out into the Pacific and is
+continued by the Aleutian Islands, which resemble a series of
+stepping-stones reaching toward Siberia.[4] The Bering Sea is almost
+enclosed by Alaska and the Islands. Within the Sea and particularly on
+the islands of St. Paul and St. George in the Pribilof group, large
+numbers of seals gathered during the spring and summer to rear their
+young. In the autumn the herds migrated to the south, passing out
+through the narrow straits between the members of the Aleutian group,
+and were particularly open to attack at these points. As early as 1870
+the United States government leased the privilege of hunting fur seals
+on St. Paul and St. George to the Alaska Commercial Company, but the
+business was so attractive that vessels came to the Aleutian straits
+from many parts of the Pacific, and it looked as if the United States
+must choose between the annihilation of the herds and the adoption of
+some means for protecting them. The revenue service thereupon began the
+seizure in 1886 of British sealing vessels, taking three in that year
+and six during the next. The British government protested against the
+seizures on the ground that they had taken place more than three miles
+from shore--three miles being the limit to the jurisdiction of any
+nation, according to international law. The Alaskan Court which upheld
+the seizures justified itself by the claim that the whole Bering Sea
+was part of the territory of Alaska and thus was comparable to a harbor
+or closed sea (_mare clausum_), but Secretary Blaine disavowed this
+contention. The United States then requested the governments of several
+European countries, together with Japan, to cooperate for the better
+protection of the fisheries, but no results were reached.
+
+Continuance of the seizures in 1889 brought renewed protests from Lord
+Salisbury, who was in charge of foreign affairs. Blaine retorted that
+the destruction of the herds was _contra bonos mores_ and that it was
+no more defensible even outside the three mile limit than destructive
+fishing on the banks of Newfoundland by the explosion of dynamite would
+be. Lord Salisbury replied that fur seals were wild animals, _ferae
+naturae_, and not the property of any individual until captured. An
+extended diplomatic correspondence ensued, which resulted in a treaty
+of arbitration in 1892.[5]
+
+A tribunal of seven arbitrators was established, two appointed by the
+Queen of England, two by the President, and one each by the rulers of
+France, Italy and Sweden and Norway, the last two being under one
+sovereign at that time. Several questions were submitted to the
+tribunal. What exclusive rights does the United States have in the
+Bering Sea? What right of protection or property does the United States
+have in the seals frequenting the islands in the Sea? If the United
+States has no exclusive rights over the seals, what steps ought to be
+taken to protect them? Great Britain also presented to the arbitrators
+the question whether the seizures of seal-hunting ships had been made
+under the authority of the government of the United States.
+
+The decisions were uniformly against the American contention. It was
+decided that our jurisdiction in the Bering Sea did not extend beyond
+the three mile limit and that therefore the United States had no right
+of protection or property in the seals. A set of regulations for the
+protection of the herds was also drawn up. Another negotiation resulted
+in the payment of $473,000 damages by the United States for the illegal
+seizures of British sealers.[6]
+
+Relations with the Latin American countries south of the Mexican border
+had been unstable since the Mexican War, an unhappy controversy that
+left an ineradicable prejudice against us. John Quincy Adams and Henry
+Clay had hoped for a friendly union of the nations of North and South
+America, led by the United States, but this ideal had turned out to
+have no more substance than a vision. Moreover, the increasing trade
+activity of Great Britain and later of Germany had made a commercial
+bond of connection between South America and Europe which was, perhaps,
+stronger than that which the United States had established. Yet some
+progress was made. Disputes between European governments and the
+governments of Latin American countries were frequently referred to the
+United States for arbitration. An old claim of some British subjects,
+for example, against Colombia was submitted for settlement in 1872 to
+commissioners of whom the United States minister at Bogota was the most
+important. The problem was studied with great care and the award was
+satisfactory to both sides. In 1876 a territorial dispute between
+Argentina and Paraguay was referred to the President of the United
+States. In the case of a boundary controversy between Costa Rica and
+Nicaragua, President Cleveland appointed an arbitrator; Argentina and
+Brazil presented a similar problem which received the attention of
+Presidents Harrison and Cleveland.
+
+It fell to James. G. Blaine to revive the idea of a Pan-American
+conference which had been first conceived by Adams and Clay. As a
+diplomat, Blaine was possessed of outstanding patriotism and
+enthusiastic imagination, even if not of vast technical capacity or of
+an international mind. As Secretary of State under President Garfield
+in 1881 he invited the Latin American countries to share with the
+United States in a conference for the discussion of arbitration. The
+early death of Garfield and the ensuing change in the state department
+resulted in the abandonment of the project for the time being. Blaine,
+however, and other interested persons continued to press the plan and
+in 1888 Congress authorized the President to invite the governments of
+the Latin American countries to send delegates to a conference to be
+held in Washington in the following year. By that time President
+Harrison was in power. Blaine was again Secretary of State and was
+chosen president of the conference. Among the subjects for discussion
+were the preservation of peace, the creation of a customs union,
+uniform systems of weights, measures and coinage, and the promotion of
+frequent inter-communication among the American states. Little was
+accomplished, beyond a few recommendations, except the establishment of
+the International Bureau of American Republics. This was to have no
+governmental power, but was to be supported by the various nations
+concerned and was to collect and disseminate information about their
+laws, products and customs. The Bureau has become permanent under the
+name Pan American Union and is a factor in the preservation of friendly
+relations among the American republics. The reciprocity measure which
+Blaine pressed upon Congress during the pendency of the McKinley tariff
+bill was designed partly to further Pan-American intercourse.
+
+In the case of a disagreement with Chile, Blaine was less successful. A
+revolution against the Chilean President, Balmaceda, resulted in the
+triumph of the insurgents in 1891. The American minister to Chile was
+Patrick Egan, an Irish agitator who sympathized with President
+Balmaceda against the revolutionists and who was _persona non grata_ to
+the strong English and German colonies there. While Chilean affairs
+were in this strained condition, the revolutionists sent a vessel, the
+_Itata_, to San Diego in California for military supplies, and American
+authorities seized it for violating the neutrality laws. While the
+vessel was in the hands of our officers, the Chileans took control of
+it and made their escape. The cruiser _Charleston_ was sent in pursuit
+and thereupon the revolutionists surrendered the _Itata_. Not long
+afterward, however, a United States Court decided that the pursuit had
+been without justification under international law and ordered the
+release of the _Itata_. The result was that the United States seemed to
+have been over-ready to take sides against the revolutionists, and the
+latter became increasingly hostile to Americans.
+
+Relations finally broke under the strain of a street quarrel in the
+city of Valparaiso in the fall of 1891. A number of sailors from the
+United States ship _Baltimore_ were on shore leave and fell in with
+some Chilean sailors in a saloon. A quarrel resulted--just how it
+originated and just who was the aggressor could not be determined--but
+at any rate the Americans were outnumbered and one was killed. The
+administration pressed the case with vigor, declining to look upon the
+incident as a sailors' brawl and considering it a hostile attack upon
+the wearers of an American uniform. For a time the outbreak of war was
+considered likely, but eventually Chile yielded, apologized for its
+acts and made a financial return for the victims of the riot. Later
+students of Chilean relations have not praised Egan as minister or
+Blaine's conduct of the negotiations, but it is fair to note that the
+Chileans were prejudiced against the American Secretary of State
+because of an earlier controversy in which he had sided against them,
+and that the affair was complicated by the presence of powerful
+European colonies and by the passions which the revolution had aroused.
+
+Blaine was compelled to face another embarrassing situation in dealing
+with Italy in 1891-1892. In October, 1890, the chief of police of New
+Orleans, D.C. Hennessy, had been murdered and circumstances indicated
+that the deed had been committed by members of an Italian secret
+society called the Mafia. A number of Italians were arrested, of whom
+three were acquitted, five were held for trial and three were to be
+tried a second time. One morning a mob of citizens, believing that
+there had been a miscarriage of justice, seized the eleven and killed
+all of them. The Italian government immediately demanded protection for
+Italians in New Orleans, as well as punishment of the persons concerned
+in the attack, and later somewhat impatiently demanded federal
+assurance that the guilty parties would be brought to trial and an
+acknowledgment that an indemnity was due to the relatives of the
+victims of the mob. Failing to obtain these guarantees, the Italian
+government withdrew its minister. When a grand jury in New Orleans
+investigated the affair it excused the participants and none of them
+was brought to trial.
+
+The government at Washington was hampered by the fact that judicial
+action in such a case lies with the individual state under our form of
+government, whereas diplomatic action is of course entirely federal. If
+the states are tardy or derelict in action, the national government is
+almost helpless. President Harrison urged Congress to make offenses
+against the treaty rights of foreigners cognizable in the federal
+courts, but this was never done. Diplomatic activity, however, brought
+better results, and an expression of regret on the part of the United
+States, together with the payment of an indemnity of $24,000 closed the
+incident.
+
+Among the many troublesome questions that faced President Cleveland
+when he entered upon the Presidency in 1893 for the second time, the
+status of the Hawaiian Islands was important. Since the development of
+the Pacific Coast of the United States in the forties and fifties,
+there had been a growing trade between the islands and this country.
+Reciprocity and even annexation had been projected. In 1875 a
+reciprocity arrangement was consummated, a part of which was a
+stipulation that none of the territory of Hawaii should be leased or
+disposed of to any other power. In this way a suggestion was made of
+ultimate annexation. Moreover the commercial results of the treaty were
+such as to make a friendly connection with the United States a matter
+of moment to Hawaii. The value of Hawaiian exports had increased,
+government revenues enlarged, and many public improvements had been
+made. In 1884 the grant of Pearl Harbor to the United States as a naval
+station made still another bond of connection between the islands and
+their big neighbor.
+
+The King of Hawaii during this period of prosperity was Kalakaua.
+During a visit to the United States, and later during a tour of the
+world he was royally received, whereupon he returned to his island
+kingdom with expanded theories of the position which a king should
+occupy. Unhappily he dwelt more on the pleasures which a king might
+enjoy than upon the obligations of a ruler to his people. At his death
+in 1891 Princess Liliuokalani became Queen and at once gave evidence of
+a disposition to rule autocratically. Because of her attempts to revise
+the Hawaiian system of government so as to increase the power of the
+crown, the more influential citizens assembled, appointed a committee
+of public safety and organized for resistance. On January 17, 1893, the
+revolutionary elements gathered, proclaimed the end of the monarchical
+regime and established a provisional government under the leadership of
+Judge S.B. Dole. The new authorities immediately proposed annexation to
+the United States and a treaty was promptly drawn up in accord with
+President Harrison's wishes, and presented to the Senate. At this point
+the Harrison administration ended and Cleveland became President.
+
+Cleveland immediately withdrew the treaty for examination and sent
+James H. Blount to the islands to investigate the relation of American
+officials to the recent revolution. The appointment of Blount was made
+without the advice and consent of the Senate and was denounced by the
+President's enemies, although such special missions have been more or
+less common since the beginning of our history.[7] Blount reported
+that the United States minister to Hawaii, J.L. Stevens, had for some
+time been favorably disposed to a revolution in the islands and had
+written almost a year before that event asking how far he and the naval
+commander might deviate from established international rules in the
+contingency of a rebellion. "The Hawaiian pear is now fully ripe,"
+Stevens had written to the State Department, early in 1893, "and this
+is the golden hour for the United States to pluck it." Blount also
+informed the President that the monarchy had been overturned with the
+active aid of Stevens and through the intimidation caused by the
+presence of an armed naval force of the United States.
+
+The blunt language which Cleveland employed in his message to Congress
+on the subject, left no doubt about his opinion of the transaction.
+"The control of both sides of a bargain acquired in such a manner is
+called by a familiar and unpleasant name when found in private
+transactions." Believing that an injustice had been done and that the
+only honorable course was to undo the wrong, he sent A.S. Willis as
+successor to Stevens to express the President's regret and to attempt
+to make amends. One of the conditions however which President Cleveland
+placed upon the restoration of the Queen was a promise of amnesty to
+all who had shared in the revolution. The Queen was at first unwilling
+to bind herself and when she later agreed, a new obstacle appeared in
+the refusal of the provisional government to surrender its authority.
+Indeed it began to appear that the President's sense of justice was
+forcing him to attempt the impossible. The provisional government had
+already been recognized by the United States and by other powers, the
+deposition of the Queen was a _fait accompli_ and her restoration
+partook of the nature of turning back the clock. Moreover, force would
+have to be used to supplant the revolutionary authorities,--a task for
+which Americans had no desire. The President, in fact, had exhausted
+his powers and now referred the whole affair to Congress. The House
+condemned Stevens for assisting in the overturn of the monarchy and
+went on record as opposed to either annexation or an American
+protectorate. Sentiment was less nearly uniform in the upper chamber.
+The Democrats tended to uphold the President, the Republicans to
+condemn him. Although a majority of the committee on foreign relations
+exonerated Stevens, yet no opposition appeared to a declaration which
+passed the Senate on May 31, 1894, maintaining that the United States
+ought not to intervene in Hawaiian affairs and that interference by any
+other government would be regarded as unfriendly to this country.
+
+In the outcome, these events merely delayed annexation; they could not
+prevent it. In Hawaii the more influential and the propertied classes
+supported the revolution and desired annexation. In the United States
+the desire for expansion was stimulated by the fear that some other
+nation might seize the prize. The military and naval situation in 1898
+increased the demand for annexation, and in the summer of that year the
+acquisition was completed by means of a joint resolution of the two
+houses of Congress.[8] While negotiations were in progress Japan
+protested that her interests in the Pacific were endangered. Assurances
+were given, however, that Japanese treaty rights would not be affected
+by the annexation and the protest was withdrawn. The United States was
+now "half-way across to Asia."
+
+Most dangerous in its possibilities was the controversy with Great
+Britain over the boundary between British Guiana and Venezuela. British
+Guiana lies on the northern coast of South America, next to Venezuela
+and extends inland, with its western boundary roughly parallel to the
+valley of the Orinoco River. A long-standing disagreement had existed
+about the exact position of the line between the two countries--a
+disagreement which harked back to the claims of the Dutch, who had
+acquired Guiana in 1613 and had turned it over to the British in 1814.
+In 1840 England commissioned a surveyor named Schomburgk to fix the
+boundary but his decision was objected to by the Venezuelans who
+claimed that he included a great area that rightfully belonged to them.
+Gradually the British claims included more and more of the territory
+claimed by Venezuela, and the discovery of gold in the disputed region
+not only drew attention to the necessity of a settlement of the
+boundary but also attracted prospectors who began to occupy the land.
+In 1876 Venezuela began negotiations for some means of deciding the
+dispute and came to the conclusion that arbitration was her only
+recourse. On the refusal of Great Britain to heed her protests, the
+Venezuelan government suspended diplomatic relations in 1887, although
+the United States attempted to prevent a rupture by suggesting the
+submission of the difference to an arbitral tribunal. This offer was
+not accepted by Great Britain, and repeated exertions on the part of
+both Venezuela and the United States at later times failed to produce
+better results. When Cleveland returned to the presidency in 1893 he
+again became interested in the Venezuelan matter and Secretary of State
+Gresham urged the attention of the British government to the
+desirability of arbitration.
+
+President Cleveland was a man of great courage and had a very keen
+sense of justice. In his opinion a great nation was playing the bully
+with a small one, and the injustice stirred his feelings to the depths.
+With the President's approval Secretary Olney, who had succeeded
+Gresham on the death of the latter, drew up an exposition of the Monroe
+doctrine which was communicated to Lord Salisbury. This despatch, which
+was dated July 20, 1895, brought matters to a climax. In brief the
+administration took the position that under the Monroe doctrine the
+United States adhered to the principle that no European nation might
+deprive an American state of the right and power of self-government.
+This had been established American policy for seventy years. The
+Venezuelan boundary controversy was within the scope of the doctrine
+since Great Britain asserted title to disputed territory, substantially
+appropriating it, and refused to have her title investigated. At the
+same time Secretary Olney disclaimed any intention of taking sides in
+the controversy until the merits of the case were authoritatively
+ascertained, although the general argument of the despatch seemed to
+place the United States on the side of Venezuela. Moreover, Secretary
+Olney adopted a swaggering and aggressive, not to say truculent tone.
+He drew a contrast between monarchical Europe and self-governing
+America, particularly the United States, which "has furnished to the
+world the most conspicuous ... example ... of the excellence of free
+institutions, whether from the standpoint of national greatness or of
+individual happiness." The United States, he asserted, is "practically
+sovereign on this continent" because "wisdom and justice and equity are
+the invariable characteristics" of its dealings with others and because
+"its infinite resources combined with its isolated position render it
+master of the situation ... as against any or all other powers."
+
+Lord Salisbury did not reply to Secretary Olney for more than four
+months. He then asserted that President Monroe's message of 1823 had
+laid down two propositions: that America was no longer to be looked
+upon as a field for European colonization; and that Europe must not
+attempt to extend its political system to America, or to control the
+political condition of any of the American communities. In Lord
+Salisbury's opinion Olney was asserting that the Monroe doctrine
+conferred upon the United States the right to demand arbitration
+whenever a European power had a frontier difference with a South
+American community. He suggested that the Monroe doctrine was not a
+part of international law, that the boundary dispute had no relation to
+the dangers which President Monroe had feared and that the United
+States had no "apparent practical concern" with the controversy between
+Great Britain and Venezuela. He also raised some objections to
+arbitration as a method of settling disputes and asserted the
+willingness of Great Britain to arbitrate her title to part of the
+lands claimed. The remainder, he declared, could be thought of as
+Venezuelan only by extravagant claims based on the pretensions of
+Spanish officials in the last century. This area he expressly refused
+to submit to arbitration. The language of the Salisbury note was
+diplomatically correct, a fact which did not detract from the effect of
+the patronizing tone which characterized it.
+
+President Cleveland doggedly proceeded with his demands. On December
+17, (1895), he laid before Congress the correspondence with Lord
+Salisbury, together with a statement of his own position on the matter.
+Disclaiming any preconceived conviction as to the merits of the
+dispute, he nevertheless deprecated the possibility that a European
+country, by extending its boundaries, might take possession of the
+territory of one of its neighbors. Inasmuch as Great Britain had
+refused to submit to arbitration, he believed it incumbent upon the
+United States to take measures to determine the true divisional line.
+He suggested therefore that Congress empower the executive to appoint a
+commission to investigate and report. His closing words were so grave
+as to arouse the country to a realization of the dangerous pitch to
+which negotiations had mounted:
+
+    When such report is made and accepted it will in my opinion be the
+    duty of the United States to resist ... the appropriation by Great
+    Britain of any ... territory which after investigation we have
+    determined of right belongs to Venezuela. In making these
+    recommendations I am fully alive to the responsibility incurred,
+    and keenly realize all the consequences that may follow. I am
+    nevertheless firm in my conviction that while it is a grievous thing
+    to contemplate the two great English-speaking peoples ... as being
+    otherwise than friendly ... there is no calamity ... which equals
+    that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice.
+
+Congress at once acceded to Cleveland's wishes and appropriated
+$100,000 for the proposed investigation. For a brief moment neither
+Great Britain nor America quite realized the meaning of the President's
+warlike utterance. In America it had generally been felt previously
+that his foreign policy was conciliatory rather than aggressive and,
+besides, the Venezuelan dispute had but little occupied popular
+attention. When it became evident that war was a definite possibility,
+public interest followed every step with anxiety. Newspaper sentiment
+divided. The press generally judged Cleveland's stand strong and
+"American." On the other hand, a few periodicals like the _Nation_
+insinuated that the President was actuated by the desire to make
+political capital for a third term campaign and characterized his
+action as "criminally rash and insensate," "ignorant and reckless,"
+"impudent and insulting." Influential citizens in both countries made
+energetic attempts to prevent anything that might make war inevitable.
+The Prince of Wales and Lord Roseberry threw their influence on the
+side of conciliation. A.J. Balfour declared that a conflict with the
+United States would carry something of the "horror of civil war" and
+looked forward to the time when the country would "feel that they and
+we have a common duty to perform, a common office to fulfill among the
+nations of the world."
+
+The President appointed a commission which set to work to obtain the
+information necessary for a judicial settlement of the boundary, and
+both Great Britain and Venezuela tactfully expressed a readiness to
+cooperate. Their labors, however, were brought to a close by a treaty
+between the two disputants providing for arbitration. A prominent
+feature of the treaty was an agreement that fifty years' control or
+settlement of an area should be sufficient to constitute a title, a
+provision which withdrew from consideration much of the territory to
+which Venezuela had laid claim. In October, 1899, the arbitration was
+concluded. The award did not meet the extreme claims of either party,
+but gave Great Britain the larger share of the disputed area, although
+assigning the entire mouth of the Orinoco River to Venezuela.
+
+Besides giving new life to the Monroe doctrine as an integral part of
+our foreign policy, the incident served to illustrate the dangers of
+settling international disputes in haphazard fashion. In January, 1897,
+therefore, Secretary Olney and the British Ambassador at Washington,
+Sir Julian Pauncefote, negotiated a general treaty for the settlement
+of disputes between the two countries by arbitration. Even with the
+example of the possible consequences of the Venezuelan controversy
+before it, however, the Senate failed to see the necessity for such an
+expedient, defeated the treaty by a narrow margin and left the greatest
+problem of international relations--the settlement of controversies on
+the basis of justice rather than force--to the care of a future
+generation.
+
+On the whole, as has already been noted, the history of American
+diplomacy from 1877 to 1897 is scarcely more than an account of a
+series of unrelated incidents. Not only did the foreign policy of
+Blaine differ sharply from that of Cleveland, but there was no great
+question upon which public interest came to a focus, except temporarily
+over the Venezuelan matter, and no lesser problems that continued long
+enough to challenge attention to the fact that they remained unsolved.
+There were visible, nevertheless, several important tendencies. Our
+attitude toward Samoa and Hawaii indicated that the instinctive desire
+to annex territory had not disappeared with the rounding out of the
+continental possessions of the United States; American interest in
+arbitration as a method of settling disputes was expressed again and
+again; the place of the Monroe doctrine in American international
+policy was clearly shown; and the determination of the United States to
+be heard in all affairs that touched her interests was demonstrated
+without any possibility of doubt.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The most complete and reliable authority is J.B. Moore, _A Digest of
+International Law_ (8 vols. 1906), by one who was intimately connected
+with many of the incidents of which he wrote; the text of the treaties
+is in W.M. Malloy, _Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, etc.,
+between the United States of America and other Powers_ (2 vols., 1910).
+Valuable single volumes are: J.B. Moore, _American Diplomacy_ (1905);
+and C.B. Fish, _American Diplomacy_ (1915). W.F. Johnson, _America's
+Foreign Relations_ (2 vols., 1916), is interesting but somewhat marred
+by the author's tendency to take sides on controversial points; see
+also J.B. Henderson, _American Diplomatic Questions_ (1901). J.S.
+Bassett, _Short History of the United States_ (1913), contains a brief
+and compact chapter.
+
+Essential material on particular incidents is found in the following.
+On Japan, "Our War with One Gun" in _New England Magazine_, XXVIII,
+662; J.M. Callahan, _American Relations in the Pacific and the Far
+East_ (1901); W.E. Griffis, _Townsend Harris_ (1896). On Samoa, J.W.
+Foster, _American Diplomacy in the Orient_ (1903); R.L. Stevenson,
+_Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa_ (1892). On the seal fisheries, J.W.
+Foster, _Diplomatic Memoirs_ (2 vols., 1909). On Hawaii, Cleveland's
+message in J.D. Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the Presidents_,
+IX, 460. On Venezuela, Grover Cleveland, _Presidential Problems_,
+Chap. IV.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The development of the United States as a commercial power was
+seen in the increased use of consuls as agents for procuring and
+publishing industrial and commercial information.
+
+[2] Cf. Fish, _American Diplomacy_, 398.
+
+[3] For later aspects of the controversy, see below, pp. 532-533.
+
+[4] Cf. map p. 10.
+
+[5] J.W. Foster, who was intimately connected with the case, suggests
+that the defects in the American argument were due partly to following
+briefs prepared by an agent of the Alaska Commercial Company in
+Washington. The agent was interested in getting everything possible for
+his company but his knowledge of the law in the case was slight. Cf.
+Foster, _Memoirs_, II, 26 f.; Moore, _American Diplomacy_, 97-104.
+
+[6] The attempts to protect the herds by government regulation failed
+to have any important results. An international arrangement was made in
+1911, but the slaughter had proceeded so far that grave question arose
+whether any agreement would be effective short of absolute prohibition.
+In 1912 Congress passed a law forbidding any killing on the land for a
+term of five years; in 1917 when the restrictions were released the
+herds had greatly increased. In 1918 the seals numbered 530,480.
+_American Year Book_, 1918, 503-4.
+
+[7] Cf. _Political Science Review_, Aug., 1916, 481-499.
+
+[8] Cf. below, p. 387 ff. Hawaii was brought into the Union as a
+territory in 1900.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+THE RISE OF THE WAGE EARNER
+
+In their handling of the labor problem, the governments of the states
+and the nation showed greater ignorance and less foresight than
+characterized their treatment of any of the other issues of the
+quarter century following the Civil War. Yet the building of the
+railroads and their consolidation into great systems, the development
+of manufacturing and its concentration into large concerns, and the
+growth of an army of wage earners brought about a problem of such size
+and complexity as to demand all the information and vision that the
+country could muster.
+
+The phenomenal accumulation of wealth in the fields of mining,
+transportation and manufacturing which characterized the new
+industrial America formed the basis of a powerful propertied class.
+Some of the wealth was amassed by such unscrupulous methods as those
+which caused the popular demand for government regulation of the
+railroads and trusts. The prizes of success were big. The men who made
+their way to the top--men like Gould, Fisk, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller
+and Carnegie--were pioneers whose courage, foresight, and daring were
+combined with sufficient ruthlessness to enable them to triumph where
+others failed. A few of them, like Carnegie, had some slight
+conception of the meaning of the labor problem; most of them did not.
+Linked to the industrial pioneer by community of interest was the
+holder of the war bonds of the federal government. These securities
+were purchased with depreciated paper currency but increased very
+greatly in value after the successful outcome of the struggle, and
+formed an investment whose value it is extremely difficult to
+estimate. The owners of the stocks and bonds of the railroads and
+manufacturing combinations further swelled the ranks of the propertied
+class. Stability, continuous business and large earnings were the
+immediate considerations to this group. Anything which interfered was,
+naturally, a thing to be fought. Never before, unless in the South in
+slavery days, had a more powerful social class existed in the United
+States. A large fraction of the group was composed of men who had
+risen from poverty to wealth in a short time. From one point of view
+such a man is a "self-made" man, industrious, frugal, able, energetic,
+bold. From another point of view he is a _parvenu_, narrow,
+overbearing, ostentatious, proud, conceited, uncultivated. The
+relatively small size of the propertied class and an obvious community
+of interest tended to make its members reach a class consciousness
+even during the Civil War. The success of the group in preventing all
+tariff reduction after 1865 was a striking example of the solidarity
+of its membership and its readiness for action.
+
+Class consciousness among the wage earners developed much more slowly,
+and in the nature of things was much less definite. Nevertheless the
+history of the industrial turmoil of the quarter century after the
+Civil War is the history of a class groping for political, social and
+economic recognition.
+
+At the close of the war the labor situation was confused and
+complicated. A million and a half of men in the North and South had to
+be readmitted to the ranks of industry. Approximately another million
+had died or been more or less disabled during the conflict. A stream
+of immigrants, already large and constantly increasing, was pouring
+into the North and seeking a means of livelihood. As has been seen,
+most of these settled in the manufacturing and mining sections of the
+northern and eastern states, helped to crowd the cities, and
+overflowed into the fertile, free lands of the mid-West. Nearly
+800,000 of them reached the United States in one year, 1882. Most of
+them were men--an overwhelming portion of them men of working age,
+unskilled, frequently illiterate and hence compelled to seek
+employment in a relatively small number of occupations. Both the
+chances of unemployment and the danger of a lowered standard of living
+were increased by the immigrants.
+
+The greater use of machinery during the progress of the war has
+already been alluded to, but some of its results demand further
+mention.[1] Most evident was the huge increase in the volume and
+value of the products of the factories. The labor of a single worker
+increased in effectiveness many times; in other words, the labor cost
+of a unit of production greatly diminished with the improvement of
+mechanical devices. The labor cost of making nails by hand in 1813 was
+seventy fold the cost of making them by machinery in 1899; loading ore
+by hand was seventy-three times as expensive in 1891 as machine
+loading was in 1896. Increased production encouraged greater
+consumption, enhanced competition for markets, and opened the world to
+the products of American labor. Moreover, the introduction of
+machinery emphasized the importance of capital. When iron was rolled
+by hand, when cloth was produced by the use of the spinning wheel and
+hand-loom, when fields were tilled by inexpensive plow and hoe,
+relatively small amounts of capital were needed by the man who started
+in to work. Mechanical inventions revolutionized the situation. A
+costly power-loom enabled its owner to eliminate handworking
+competitors. If a workman could raise sufficient money or credit to
+purchase a supply of machines he could "set up in business," employ a
+number of "hands" and merely direct or manage the enterprise. Under
+such a system the employer must make enough profit to pay interest on
+his investment and to repair and replace his equipment. His attention
+was fixed on these elements of his industrial problem and the
+well-being of the laborer sank to a lower plane of importance. If the
+employer found the labor supply plentiful he had the upper hand in
+setting the wage-scale; the unorganized employee was almost completely
+at his mercy, because the employer could find another workman more
+easily than the workman could find another job. Meanwhile the workman
+knew the increased product which he was turning out, and became
+discontented because he did not see a corresponding increase in his
+remuneration.
+
+From about 1830, when the rapid development of the use of mechanical
+appliances began, to the late eighties and early nineties when the new
+regime was meeting its sternest conflicts in the trust problem and the
+militant labor unions, the army of the wage earner was growing faster
+than the population. Between 1870 and 1890, for example, the
+population increased 63 per cent., while the number of laborers
+engaged in manufacturing increased nearly 130 per cent. By the latter
+year, 6,099,058 persons, about a tenth of the total population, were
+employed in transportation, mining and manufacturing.
+
+It was noticeable, also, that the wage earners tended to concentrate.
+The laborers engaged in manufacturing were to be found, for the most
+part, in the Northeast, and especially in such leading industrial
+cities as New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. Furthermore, the
+development of the factory system and the consolidation of many small
+companies into a few great ones tended to localize the labor problem
+still further--in a relatively small number of plants. The
+concentration of industry in great factories where large numbers of
+workers labored side by side ended the paternal care which the
+old-time employer had expended upon his employees. With the
+introduction of machinery, the danger of accidents due to the
+ignorance or carelessness of fellow workmen increased. The use of
+mechanical appliances also gave opportunity for the employment of
+women and children, and thus raised the question whether any
+restrictions ought to be placed upon the employment of these classes
+of people. The construction of factories, their ventilation, sanitary
+appliances, and safe-guards for health and comfort became subjects of
+importance.
+
+With the example of consolidation before them that was presented by
+the railroads and the corporations, it was inevitable that the wage
+earners should organize for their protection and advancement. Labor
+organizations of wage earners have existed in the United States since
+1827, and between that time and 1840 came a considerable awakening
+among the laboring classes which was part of a general humanitarian
+movement throughout the country. Robert Owen, an English industrial
+idealist, had visited this country about 1825 and provided the
+initiative for a short-lived communistic settlement at New Harmony,
+Indiana. Similar enterprises were established at other points; the
+most famous of these was that at Brook Farm in Massachusetts, which
+enlisted the interest and support of many of the literary people of
+New England. The expanding humanitarian and idealistic movement was
+cut short by the Civil War, but the development of industrialism went
+on uninfluenced by the spirit of social progress which might have
+permeated it. After reconstruction was over, a new generation had to
+become impressed with the evils which needed correction and to set
+itself to the task which civil strife had thrust aside.
+
+The need of a responsible organization of wage earners was indicated
+by the career of the Molly Maguires. The Molly Maguires constituted an
+inner circle of Irish Catholics who controlled the activities of the
+branches of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in the hard-coal counties
+of eastern Pennsylvania. During the war and immediately after it the
+group gained a little power in local politics, and also undertook to
+punish mine owners, bosses and superintendents who offended members of
+the Order. Intimidation became common, and even murder was resorted to
+until the region was fairly terrorized. It seemed impossible to combat
+the Mollies because their activities were shrouded in secrecy.
+Usually, for example, when a murder was to be committed, a member
+would be brought in from an outside district in order that he might
+not be recognized if discovered, and he would be aided in escaping
+after the crime. Finally the president of the Philadelphia and Reading
+Railroad procured a Pinkerton detective named James McParlan who went
+into the region and remained for two years. During this time he posed
+as a fugitive from justice and as a counterfeiter, became a member of
+the Order, a confidant of the Molly Maguires, and collected evidence.
+Armed with the knowledge acquired by McParlan, the officials were able
+to arrest and convict twenty-four criminals, of whom ten were
+executed, and the career of the Mollies came to an end.
+
+The activities of the Molly Maguires were symptomatic of what might
+occur throughout the ranks of labor during the confused period of
+adjustment after the war, and yet they were temporary and local in
+their effect on the development of the labor movement. The history of
+the great labor controversies after the war properly begins with the
+Knights of Labor, an association which originated in Philadelphia in
+1869 as the result of the efforts of a garment cutter named Uriah S.
+Stephens.[2] In the beginning, the affairs of the Knights were veiled
+in dense secrecy; even the name of the society was never mentioned but
+was indicated by five stars--*****. As the number of members increased,
+however, all manner of disquieting and untruthful rumors spread
+concerning its purposes, so that the element of secrecy was done away
+with in 1881 and a declaration of principles was made public. The
+fundamental purpose of the Knights was the formation of an order which
+should include all branches of the wage earners and which should aim
+to improve their economic, moral, social and intellectual condition.
+Emphasis was placed, that is to say, on the welfare of the laboring
+classes as a whole, rather than upon that of any particular trade or
+craft. The organization was centralized and the interests of the group
+were developed on a national scale. The growth of the association was
+extremely rapid at times, reaching a climax in the middle eighties
+when about 700,000 members, both men and women, made it a power in
+industrial disputes. Some of the members taken in at this time were
+extremists--European anarchists, for example--who urged a violent
+policy and got almost if not quite out of control of the officers
+during 1886. In the late eighties the membership dwindled rapidly,
+owing to the failure of strikes instituted by the order, and its place
+and influence were largely taken by the American Federation of Labor.
+
+The latter body was the outgrowth of a convention held in Pittsburg in
+1881, but it did not adopt its final name until 1886. Its purpose was
+to group labor organizations of all kinds, leaving the government of
+each affiliated body with the body itself. Each of the members of the
+Federation is composed of workers in a given trade or industry, like
+the International Typographical Union, the United Mine Workers, and
+many others. The annual convention is composed of delegates from the
+constituent societies. The growth of the organization was rapid and
+continuous. Coincidently with the expansion of the Knights of Labor
+and the growth of the American Federation came the great development
+of the labor press. Professor Ely estimated late in the eighties that
+possibly five hundred newspapers were devoted to the needs of the
+labor movement. The numerous farmers' organizations, typified by the
+Patrons of Husbandry, are other examples of the growing tendency
+toward cohesion among the less powerful classes. Indeed, the Grange
+originated only a year earlier than the Knights of Labor, and like it
+was a secret order.
+
+The wage earners, then, were rapidly becoming class-conscious. They
+had found conditions which seemed to them intolerable, had formed
+organizations on a national scale and had drawn up a definite program
+of principles and reforms. The exact grievances which inspired the
+Knights, the Federation and other less important organizations are
+therefore of immediate importance.
+
+In order to secure for the wage earner a sufficient money return for
+his work, and sufficient leisure for the education of his intellectual
+and religious faculties, and to enable him to understand and perform
+his duties as a citizen, the Knights demanded the establishment of
+bureaus of labor for the collection of information; the reservation of
+the public lands for actual settlers; the abrogation of laws that did
+not bear equally on capital and labor; the adoption of measures for
+the health and safety of the working classes; indemnity for injuries
+due to the lack of proper safeguards; the recognition of the
+incorporation of labor unions; laws compelling corporations to pay
+laborers weekly; arbitration in labor disputes; and the prohibition of
+child labor. The Knights of Labor also favored state ownership of
+telegraphs and railroads, as well as an eight hour working day. The
+purposes of the American Federation scarcely differed from this
+program, although its methods and its form of organization were quite
+distinct.
+
+At the present time, when most of these demands have been met in one
+degree or another, it is difficult to see why there should have been
+delay and contention in agreeing to a program which, so far as it
+deals with labor problems pure and simple, appears both modest and
+reasonable. But the state of mind of a large fraction of the nation
+was not in accord with ambitions which doubtless seemed excessively
+radical. Fundamentally a great portion of the propertied classes held
+a low estimate of the value and rights of the laboring people, as well
+as of the possibilities of their development, and feared that evil
+results would follow from attempts to improve their condition. The
+employment of children in factories, it was thought, would inculcate
+in them the needed habits of industry, and the reduction of the
+working hours would merely provide time which would be spent in the
+acquirement of vicious practices. If, in addition, the employers
+opposed such changes as the abolition of child labor and the reduction
+of the working day to eight hours on the ground of the financial
+sacrifice which seemed to be involved, their attitude was in keeping
+with the ruthless exploitation of the human resources of the country
+which was common during this period. It should be remembered, too,
+that the lofty conception which most Americans held of the
+opportunities and customs of their country stood in the way of a frank
+study of conditions and an equally frank admission of abuses. For
+decades we had reiterated that America was the land of opportunity,
+that economic, political and social equality were the foundations of
+American life and that the American workingman was the best fed and
+the best clothed workingman in the world. In the face of this view of
+industrial affairs it was difficult to be alert to manifold abuses and
+needed reforms. To one holding this view of affairs--and it was a
+common view--the laborer who demanded better conditions was
+unreasonable and unappreciative of how "well off" he was. Hence the
+blame for the labor unrest was frequently laid on the foreigner, who
+was supposed to bring to America the opposition to government which
+had been fostered in him by less democratic institutions abroad.
+Undoubtedly immigration greatly complicated industrial conditions, as
+has been indicated, yet essentially the labor question arose from the
+upward progress of a class in American society and was as inevitable,
+foreigner or no foreigner, as the coming of a new century.
+
+Two illustrations will throw light upon some of the demands which the
+wage earners frequently presented. Writing in August, 1886, Andrew
+Carnegie, the prominent steel manufacturer, discussed the proper
+length of the working day. Every ton of pig-iron made in the world,
+with the exception of that made in two establishments, he asserted,
+was made by men working twelve hours a day, with neither holiday nor
+Sunday the year round. Every two weeks it was the practice to change
+the day workers to the night shift and at that time the men labored
+twenty-four hours consecutively. Moreover, twelve to fifteen hours
+constituted a day's work in many other industries. Working hours for
+women and children had almost equally slight reference to their
+physical well-being.
+
+The "truck-system" was a less widespread abuse, but one that caused
+serious trouble at certain points. Under this plan, a corporation
+keeps a store at which employees are expected to trade, or are
+sometimes forced to do so. Obviously such a store might be operated to
+the great benefit of the workman and without loss to the employer, but
+the temptation to make an unfair profit and to keep the laborer always
+in debt to the company was very great. A congressional committee which
+investigated conditions in Pennsylvania in 1888 found that prices
+charged in company stores ran from ten per cent. to 160 per cent.
+higher than prices in other stores in the vicinity, and that a workman
+was more likely to keep his position if he traded with the company.
+
+The most insistent cause of industrial conflict was the question of
+wages. Forty-one per cent. of all the strikes between 1881 and 1900
+were for more pay; twenty-six per cent., for shorter hours. Between
+the close of the war and the early nineties, industrial prosperity was
+widespread except for the period of prostration following 1873 and the
+less important depression of 1884. Not unnaturally the laborer desired
+to have a larger share of the product of his work. The individual,
+however, was impotent before a great corporation, when the wage-scale
+was being determined; hence workmen found it advantageous to combine
+and bargain collectively with their employer, in the expectation that
+he would hesitate to risk the loss of all his laboring force, whereas
+the loss of one or a few would be a matter of indifference.
+
+In the meanwhile, a little ameliorative labor legislation was being
+passed by state legislatures and by Congress. A Massachusetts law of
+1866 forbade the employment of children under ten years of age in
+manufacturing establishments, prohibited the employment of children
+between the ages of ten and fourteen for more than eight hours per
+day, and provided that children who worked in factories must attend
+school at least six months in the year. In 1868 a federal act
+constituted eight hours a day's work for government laborers, workmen
+and mechanics, but some doubt arose as to the intent of part of it and
+the law was not enforced. In many states eight-hour bills were
+introduced, but were defeated in all except six, of which Connecticut,
+Illinois and California were examples, and even in these cases the
+laws were not properly drawn up or were not enforced. In 1869 a Bureau
+of Statistics of Labor was established in Massachusetts which led the
+way for similar enterprises in other states. It collected information
+concerning labor matters and reported annually to the legislature. In
+1874 a Massachusetts ten-hour law forbade the employment of women and
+minors under eighteen for more than sixty hours a week, although
+refraining from the regulation of working hours for men. In 1879, in
+imitation of English factory acts, Massachusetts passed a general law
+relating to the inspection of manufacturing establishments. It
+provided that dangerous machinery must be guarded, proper ventilation
+secured, elevator wells equipped with protective devices and
+fire-escapes constructed. Other states followed slowly, but
+legislation was frequently negatived by lack of effective
+administration. In brief, then, agitation previous to 1877 had
+resulted in the passage of a few protective acts, but even these were
+restricted to a few states and were not well enforced. It was,
+therefore, more than a mere coincidence that the first general strike
+movement spread over the country in this same year, 1877.
+
+It will be remembered that the great railroad strikes of that year
+extended over many of the northern roads but caused most trouble in
+Martinsburg, West Virginia, Pittsburg and other railway centers. Much
+property was destroyed, lives were lost, and the strikers failed to
+obtain their ends.[3] Other effects of the controversy, moreover,
+made it an important landmark in the history of the labor question.
+The inconvenience and suffering which the strike caused in cities far
+distant from the scene of actual conflict indicated that the
+transportation system was already so essential a factor in welding the
+country together that any interruption to its operation had become
+intolerable. The hostility of some of the railway managers to union
+among their laborers and the rumors that they were determined to crush
+such organizations augured ill for the future. The hordes of
+unemployed workmen and the swarms of tramps which had resulted from
+the continued industrial depression of 1873 insured rioting and
+violence during the strike, whether the strikers themselves favored it
+and shared in it or not. The destruction of property which resulted
+from the strike caused many state legislatures to pass conspiracy laws
+directed against labor; more attention was paid to the need of trained
+soldiers for putting down strikes, and the construction of many
+armories followed; and the courts took a more hostile attitude toward
+labor unions. Equally important was the effect on the workmen
+themselves. When the strike became violent and the state militia
+failed to check it, the strikers found themselves face to face with
+federal troops. President Hayes could not, of course, refuse to
+repress the rioters; nevertheless his action aligned the power of the
+central government against the strikers, and seemed to the latter to
+align the government against the laborers as a class. Of a sudden,
+then, the labor problem took on a new and vital interest; workingmen's
+parties "began to spring up like mushrooms"; and the laboring men saw
+more clearly than ever the essential unity of their interests.
+
+Industrial unrest increased rather than diminished during the
+prosperous eighties; for the first five years of the decade, strikes
+and lockouts together averaged somewhat over five hundred annually.
+The climax came in "the great upheaval" of 1884 to 1886.[4] In the
+latter year nearly 1600 controversies involved 610,024 men and a
+financial sacrifice estimated at $34,000,000. Early in May, 1886,
+occurred the memorable Haymarket affair in the city of Chicago. The
+city was a center of labor agitation, some of it peaceful, some of it
+in the hands of radical European anarchists whose methods were shown
+in a statement of one of their newspapers, _The Alarm_, on February
+21, 1885:
+
+    Dynamite! Of all the good stuff, this is the stuff. Stuff several
+    pounds of this sublime stuff into an inch pipe ... plug up both
+    ends, insert a cap with a fuse attached, place this in the
+    immediate neighborhood of a lot of rich loafers ... and light
+    the fuse. A most cheerful and gratifying result will follow.
+
+On May 1 strikes began for the purpose of obtaining an eight hour day.
+During the course of the strike some workmen gathered near the
+McCormick Reaper Works; the police approached, were stoned, and
+retorted by firing upon the strikers, killing four and wounding many
+others. Thereupon the men called a meeting in Haymarket Square to
+protest against the action of the police; in the main they were
+orderly, for Mayor Carter Harrison was present and found nothing
+objectionable. Later in the evening, when the Mayor and most of the
+audience had left, remarks of a violent nature seem to have been made,
+and at this point a force of 180 police marched forward and ordered the
+meeting to disperse. Just then a bomb was thrown into the midst of the
+police, killing seven and wounding many others. The entire nation was
+shocked and terrified by the event, as hitherto anarchy had seemed to
+be a far-away thing, the product of autocratic European governments.
+The thrower of the bomb could not be discovered, but numerous
+anarchists were found who themselves possessed such weapons or had
+urged violence in their speeches or writings. Eight of them, nearly all
+Germans, were tried for murder on the ground that the person who threw
+the bomb must have read the speeches or writings of the accused
+anarchists and have been thereby encouraged to do the act. The
+presiding judge, Joseph E. Gary, was of the opinion that the
+disposition in the guilty man to throw the bomb was the result of the
+teaching and advice of the prisoners. The counsel for the accused
+declared that since the guilty person could not be found it was
+impossible to know whether he had ever heard or read anything said or
+written by the prisoners, or been influenced by their opinions.
+Eventually seven anarchists were convicted, of whom four were hanged,
+one committed suicide, and three were imprisoned. In 1893 the Governor
+of Illinois, John P. Altgeld, pardoned the three prisoners, basing his
+action mainly on the ground that no proof had been brought forward to
+show that they were in any way acquainted with the unknown
+bomb-thrower. The result of the conviction was the break-up of the
+radical anarchistic movement and also the temporary discrediting of the
+general agitation for an eight hour day, although neither the Knights
+of Labor nor the Federation of Labor had any connection with the
+anarchists, and both deprecated violence.
+
+In the meanwhile, Congress had concerned itself slightly with the labor
+problem. In 1884 a Bureau of Labor had been established to collect
+information on the relation of labor and capital. Two years later, just
+before the Haymarket affair, President Cleveland had sent a message to
+Congress in which he adverted to the many disputes which had recently
+arisen between laborers and employers, and urged legislation to meet
+the exigency. Considerations of justice and safety, he thought,
+demanded that the workingmen as a class be looked upon as especially
+entitled to legislative care. Although Cleveland deprecated violence
+and condemned unjustifiable disturbance, he believed that the
+discontent among the employed was due largely to avarice on the part of
+the employing classes and to the feeling among workmen that the
+attention of the government was directed in an unfair degree to the
+interests of capital. On the other hand, he suggested that federal
+action was greatly limited by constitutional restrictions. He
+accordingly urged that the Bureau of Labor be enlarged and that
+permanent officers be appointed to act as a board of arbitration in
+industrial disputes. The legislative branch was not inclined to follow
+Cleveland's lead, although he returned to the subject after the
+Haymarket affair, for it was commonly felt that his suggestion was too
+great a step in the direction of centralization of government. Two
+years later, in 1888, a modest act was passed which provided for the
+investigation of differences between railroads and their employees, but
+only when agreed to by both parties, and no provision was made for the
+enforcement of the decision of the investigators. The practical results
+were not important. Similar action had already been taken in a few
+states. By 1895 fifteen states had laws providing for voluntary
+arbitration, but the results were slight in most cases.
+
+Very little progress was being made in the states in the passage of
+other industrial legislation. In Alabama and Massachusetts in the
+middle eighties acts extended and regulated the liability of employers
+for personal injuries suffered by laborers while at work.[5] At the
+same time the attitude of the legislatures and the courts in some
+states toward strikes underwent a slight modification. In many states
+where the legislatures had not passed definite statutes to the
+contrary, it had been held by the courts that strikers could be tried
+and convicted for conspiracy. In a few cases, states passed acts
+attempting to define more exactly the legal position of strikers. A New
+York court in 1887, for example, held that the law of the state
+permitted workmen to seek an increase of wages by all possible means
+that fell short of threats or violence. Before the close of Cleveland's
+second administration, considerable progress had been made in state
+legislation concerning conditions and hours of labor for women and
+children, protection of workers from dangerous machinery, the payment
+of wages, employer's liability for accidents to workmen, and other
+subjects. On the other hand, in some cases unreasonable or
+ill-considered actions on the part of the unions or their active
+agents--the "walking delegates"--turned popular sentiment against them.
+Particularly was this true in cases of violence and of strikes or
+boycotts by unions in support of workmen in other trades at far distant
+points.
+
+During the presidential campaign of 1892 a violent strike at the
+Carnegie Steel Company's works in Homestead, Pennsylvania, arose from a
+reduction in wages and a refusal of the Company to recognize the Iron
+and Steel Workers' Union. An important feature of this disturbance was
+the use of armed Pinkerton detectives by the Company for the protection
+of its buildings. Armed with rifles they fell into conflict with the
+workmen, a miniature military campaign was carried on, lives were lost
+and large amounts of property destroyed. Eventually the entire militia
+of the state had to be called out to maintain peace.
+
+It remained, however, for Chicago and the year 1894 to present one of
+the most far-reaching, costly and complex labor upheavals that has ever
+disturbed industrial relations in America. So ill understood at the
+time were the real facts of the controversy that it is doubtful whether
+it is possible even now to distinguish between truth and rumor in
+regard to some of its aspects.
+
+The town of Pullman, near Chicago, was the home of the Pullman Palace
+Car Company, a prosperous corporation with a capital of $36,000,000. It
+provided houses for its employees, kept up open stretches of lawn,
+flower beds and lakes. In 1893 and 1894, when general business
+conditions were bad, the Company reduced the wages of its workmen about
+twenty-five per cent. A committee of the men asked for a return to
+former rates, but they were refused, three members of the committee
+were laid off, and the employees then struck. Late in June, 1894, the
+American Railway Union, to which many of the workmen belonged, took up
+the side of the men, and the General Managers' Association, comprising
+officials of twenty-four roads entering Chicago, took the side of the
+Company. Through the entry of the Union and the Association, the
+relatively unimportant Pullman affair expanded to large proportions.
+Violence followed; cars were tipped over and burned; property was
+stolen and tracks ruined; and eventually the United States government
+was drawn into the controversy.
+
+Numerous complaints having reached Washington that the mails were being
+obstructed and interstate commerce interfered with, President Cleveland
+decided to send troops to Chicago. The Constitution requires that the
+United States protect states against domestic violence on the application
+of the legislature, or of the executive when the legislature is not
+in session. Moreover the statutes of the United States empower the
+President to use federal force to execute federal laws. The position
+taken by the Governor of Illinois, John P. Altgeld, was expressed in
+his telegram to President Cleveland protesting against the action of
+the executive:
+
+    Should the situation at any time get so serious that we cannot
+    control it with the State forces, we will promptly and freely ask
+    for Federal assistance; but until such time I protest with all due
+    deference against this uncalled-for reflection upon our people,
+    and again ask for the immediate withdrawal of these troops.
+
+The President replied that troops were being sent in accordance with
+federal law upon complaint that commerce and the passage of the mails
+were being obstructed. A somewhat acrimonious correspondence between
+the Governor and the President resulted but the troops were retained
+and assisted in bringing the strike to a conclusion.
+
+The attitude of the courts, meanwhile, had brought up a serious
+situation. On July 2 a "blanket injunction" was issued by the United
+States District Court of Illinois and posted on the sides of the cars.
+It forbade officers, members of the Union and all other persons to
+interfere in any way with the operation of trains or to force or
+persuade employees to refuse to perform their duties. Under existing
+law, anybody who disobeyed the injunction could be brought before the
+Court for contempt, and sentenced by the judge without opportunity to
+bring witnesses and to be tried before a jury. When Eugene V. Debs, the
+president of the Union, and other officers continued to direct the
+strike they were arrested for contempt of court and imprisoned.[6]
+With federal troops against them and their officers gone, the strikers
+could hardly continue and gave up in defeat. The loss in property and
+wages had already reached $80,000,000.
+
+The apportionment of the blame for so appalling a controversy was not a
+simple task. On the one hand, a writer in the _Forum_ declared that
+
+    The one great question was of the ability of this Government to
+    suppress insurrection. On the one, side was the party of lawlessness,
+    of murder, of incendiarism, and of defiance of authority. On the
+    other side was the party of loyalty to the United States.
+
+But this was a superficial view. A commission of investigation
+appointed by President Cleveland looked into the matter more deeply.
+Its unanimous report made important assertions: the Pullman Company,
+while providing a beautiful town for its employees, charged rents
+twenty to twenty-five per cent. higher than were charged in surrounding
+towns for similar accommodations, and the men felt a compulsion to
+reside in the houses if they wished to retain their positions; when
+wages were reduced, the salaries of the better paid officers were
+untouched, so that the burden of the hard times was placed on the
+poorest paid employees; there was no violence or destruction of
+property in Pullman, and much of the rowdyism in Chicago, but not all
+of it was due to the lawless adventurers and professional criminals who
+filled the city at that time;[7] when various public officials and
+organizations attempted to get the Company to arbitrate the dispute,
+the uniform reply was that the points at issue were matters of fact and
+hence not proper subjects for arbitration; and the Managers'
+Association selected, armed and paid 3,600 federal deputy marshals who
+acted both as railroad employees and as United States officers, under
+the direction of the Managers.
+
+In view of the amount of labor disturbance after the Civil War, it was
+noteworthy that it attracted the interest of political parties to so
+slight a degree previous to 1896. In general the national platforms of
+the two large parties reflected an indefinite if not remote concern
+with the welfare of the wage earner. It was urged, to be sure, by both
+protectionists and tariff reformers that customs duties should be
+framed with the welfare of the laborer in mind, but the sincerity of
+this concern was sometimes open to question. The smaller parties, as
+usual, were far less vague in their demands. The Labor Reformers in
+1872 demanded the eight-hour day, for example; the Greenbackers had a
+definite program for relief in 1880; the Anti-Monopolists in 1884 and
+the Union Labor and the United Labor parties in 1888. By 1892 the great
+parties found themselves face to face with a growing labor vote. The
+labor planks in the two platforms of that year were strikingly similar.
+Each called for federal legislation to protect the employees of
+transportation companies, but looked to the states for the relief of
+employees engaged in manufacturing. Neither the Socialist Labor party
+nor the Populists, however, were greatly troubled by the question of
+the proper distribution between state and nation of the responsibility
+for the welfare of the wage earner. Both proposed definite action; both
+urged the reduction in length of the working day. The Populists
+condemned the use of Pinkertons in labor disputes and the Socialists
+urged arbitration, the prohibition of child labor, restrictions on the
+employment of women in unhealthful industries, employers' liability
+laws and the protection of life and limb.
+
+In brief, then, the situation of the wage-earning classes in the middle
+nineties was becoming accurately defined. The strike as a weapon was
+open to serious objections. The leaders of the two large parties had
+given no evidence of an effective and immediate interest in labor
+unrest. The other political parties were too small to afford chances of
+success. If less reliance was to be placed upon the strike and more
+upon political action, either a third party must be constructed or the
+leadership in one of the old ones must be seized. When the conference
+of labor officials met in Chicago and concluded that the Pullman strike
+was lost, it issued an address to the members of the American Railway
+Union advising a return to work, closer organization of the laboring
+class and the correction of industrial wrongs at the ballot box. If
+this advice should be taken, and if the wage earner should attempt to
+control legislation for his economic interest, as the propertied class
+had long been doing for its benefit, the struggle might be shifted to
+the political arena. The interest of the workers in the South and West
+in the Populist movement suggested the possibility that such a shift
+might occur.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+Surprisingly little attention has been paid to the social aspects of
+the growth of the laboring classes before 1896. There is ample
+material, however, on the more obvious sides of the labor movement,
+such as the growth of the organizations and the use of the strike.
+
+The _Documentary History of American Industrial Society_ (10 vols.,
+1910-1911), contains a little documentary material on the period after
+1865; J.R. Commons and others, _History of Labour in the United States_
+(2 vols., 1918), is the best and most recent historical account; T.S.
+Adams and H.L. Sumner, _Labor Problems_ (1905), is useful; consult also
+R.T. Ely, _Labor Movement in America_ (3rd ed., 1890); C.D. Wright,
+_The Industrial Evolution of the United States_ (1897), by a practical
+expert; G.E. McNeill, _The Labor Movement_ (1887); J.R. Buchanan,
+_Story of a Labor Agitator_ (1903); S.P. Orth, _The Armies of Labor_
+(1919), contains a good bibliography; John Mitchell, _Organized Labor_
+(1903); T.V. Powderly, _Thirty Years of Labor_ (1890); _Quarterly
+Journal of Economics_ (Jan., 1887), Knights of Labor; J.H. Bridge,
+_Inside History of the Carnegie Steel Co._ (1903). On the Haymarket
+affair, compare _Century Magazine_ (Apr., 1893), and J.P. Altgeld,
+_Reasons for Pardoning Fielden, Neebe and Schwab_; on the Pullman
+strike, Grover Cleveland, _Presidential Problems_, and the report of
+the commission of investigation in Senate Executive Documents, 53rd
+Congress, 3rd session, vol. 2 (Serial Number 3276). Edward Stanwood,
+_History of the Presidency_, contains political platform planks on
+labor. The reports of the Commissioner of Labor (1886-), and of the
+state bureaus of statistics of labor in such states as Massachusetts
+(1870-), and New York (1884-), are essential for the investigator.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Cf. above, p. 64
+
+[2] Two earlier organizations had a brief existence, the National
+Labor Union and the Industrial Brotherhood.
+
+[3] Above, pp. 133-134.
+
+[4] For the effect on the Knights of Labor, see p. 310.
+
+[5] For the legal side of this matter, consult Wright, _Industrial
+Evolution_, 278-282.
+
+[6] The Court based its action mainly on the provisions of Section 2
+of the Sherman anti-trust law, which thus had an unforeseen effect. The
+Supreme Court upheld the action, although on broader grounds. Above, p.
+256, cf. 159 _U.S. Reports_, 564.
+
+[7] In 1893 the "World's Fair" in Chicago had celebrated the four
+hundredth anniversary of the landing of Columbus, and many of the
+criminals attracted by the event had remained in the city.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+MONETARY AND FINANCIAL PROBLEMS
+
+The critical monetary and financial situation during Cleveland's second
+administration is understandable only in the light of a series of acts
+which were passed between 1878 and 1893. It will be remembered that in
+the former year the Bland-Allison act had provided for the purchase and
+coinage of two million to four million dollars' worth of silver bullion
+per month, and that the force behind the measure had been found chiefly
+among westerners who wished to see the volume of the currency increased
+and among mine owners who were producing silver.
+
+The passage of the law did not end all opposition to the greater use of
+silver, nor did it solve all our monetary difficulties. In the first
+place, the United States sent delegates to an International Monetary
+Conference in Paris, in conformity with one of the provisions of the
+Bland-Allison act, to discuss a project for the utilization of silver
+through an agreement among the commercial nations of the world. No
+tangible results were obtained, however, so that it was plain that for
+the time, at least, the United States would be alone in its attempt to
+bring about the greater use of the white metal. In the meantime the law
+was put into operation, and the secretary of the treasury exercised his
+option by purchasing the minimum amount, two million dollars' worth of
+bullion. It was impossible to keep the coins in circulation, however,
+mainly because of their weight, and the policy was therefore adopted
+of storing part of the silver in the government vaults and issuing
+paper "silver certificates" in its place. As these were of small
+denominations and circulated on a par with gold, no immediate
+difficulty was experienced in making them part of the currency supply
+of the country.
+
+The currency question, nevertheless, remained as complicated as ever
+and the differences of opinion upon it as diverse as before. The market
+price of silver steadily declined through the eighties and the bullion
+value of the metal in a dollar sank from ninety-three cents in 1878 to
+less than seventy-one cents in 1889. Both Republican and Democratic
+secretaries of the treasury gave warning that the inflow of silver into
+the currency supply was too great. President Arthur urged the repeal of
+the Bland-Allison act in his first annual message; President Cleveland
+again and again reiterated the same advice, warning Congress of the
+danger that silver would be substituted for gold. The argument of the
+opponents of silver could hardly be stated in more concise or complete
+terms. As soon as the supply of currency became too great, he asserted,
+the unnecessary portion would go out of circulation;[1] it was the
+experience of nations that the more desirable coin--gold, in this
+case--would be hoarded by banks and speculators; it would then become
+apparent that the bullion value of the gold dollar was greater than
+that of the silver dollar and the two coins would part company; those
+who, in such a contingency, could get gold dollars would demand a
+premium for them, while the laboring man, unable to demand gold, would
+find his silver dollar sadly shrunken in value.
+
+Although the coinage of silver in the twelve years during which the
+Bland-Allison act was in force amounted to $378,000,000, the danger
+that Cleveland's prophecy would come to pass was lessened by several
+facts. The country was, in the first place, passing through a period of
+industrial expansion that required an enlarged circulating medium; the
+revenues of the government were exceeding expenditures, and part of the
+surplus was being stored in the vaults in Washington; and the volume of
+the national bank notes shrank more than $158,000,000 between 1880 and
+1890. Falling prices for agricultural products continued to keep
+western discontent alive and far from being convinced by Cleveland's
+warnings, western conventions and representatives in Congress continued
+to urge legislation to increase the amount of silver to be coined, and
+free-coinage bills were constantly introduced and frequently near
+passage. Manifestly the demand that something more be done for silver
+was not at an end.
+
+Although agitation over the use of silver currency resulted in no
+further important legislation for the time being, the general financial
+situation was complicated by a series of important acts. During the
+eighties the federal revenues mounted to an unprecedented height and as
+expenses did not increase proportionately, a surplus of large and
+finally of embarrassing and dangerous size appeared.
+
+[Illustration:
+Financial Operations, 1875-1897 in millions]
+
+Between 1880 and 1890 it averaged more than $100,000,000 annually.
+Although part of it was used to reduce the public debt, the remainder
+began to accumulate in the treasury and thereby seriously reduced the
+amount of currency available for the ordinary needs of business. In
+1888, for example, the surplus in the treasury was one-fourth as great
+as the entire estimated sum outside. The one device for doing away with
+the surplus upon which all leaders could unite was the reduction of the
+national debt. Between 1879 and 1890 over $1,000,000,000 were thus
+disposed of. Yet even this process raised difficulties. Although a
+portion of the debt came due in 1881 and could be redeemed at the
+pleasure of the government, other bonds were not redeemable until 1891
+and 1907, unless the federal authorities chose to go into the market
+and buy at a premium. Eventually this was done for a time, although
+prices were thereby forced up to 130 in 1888, and as a result the
+redemption of $95,000,000 during the year cost more than $112,000,000.
+The treasury also adopted the expedient of depositing surplus funds in
+banking institutions, but the plan was open to serious objections. In
+order to qualify for receiving government deposits the banks had to
+present United States bonds as security, but these were already at a
+high premium because of purchase by the treasury itself. There
+remained, therefore, two general policies which might be
+followed--reduction of revenue or enlargement of expenditure.
+
+Both parties were theoretically committed to the economical conduct of
+the nation's business, but Republican advocacy of a high tariff tended
+to restrict that party's answer to the surplus problem. The revenue
+came largely from tariff and internal taxes. The latter were reduced,
+as has been seen, by the tariff act of 1883, but the redundant income
+continued. The Republicans then faced the alternative of lowering the
+customs or turning to the policy of increased expenditure. The latter
+policy would delay the reduction of duties and was in line with the
+Republican tendency toward increased federal activity. For the
+Democrats the problem was easier. Since the party was tending toward
+advocacy of low customs duties, had constantly condemned Republican
+extravagance in administration and was traditionally the party of a
+restricted national authority, it was logical to turn to severe
+reduction of revenue in order to solve the problem of the surplus.
+
+President Cleveland's political and personal philosophy led toward
+economy in expenditure and therefore toward revenue reduction. By
+nature he was frugal; in politics, a strict constructionist. In vetoing
+an appropriation bill he succinctly set forth his creed:
+
+    A large surplus in the Treasury is the parent of many ills, and
+    among them is found a tendency to an extremely liberal, if not
+    loose, construction of the Constitution. It also attracts the gaze
+    of States and individuals with a kind of fascination, and gives
+    rise to plans and pretensions that an uncongested Treasury never
+    could excite.
+
+The Republicans were becoming committed to the policy of large
+expenditures. President Harrison, to be sure, in his first annual
+message urged the reduction of receipts, declaring that the collection
+of money not needed for public use imposed an unnecessary burden upon
+the people and that the presence of a large surplus in the treasury was
+a disturbing element in the conduct of private business. Nevertheless
+such party leaders as Reed and McKinley, who effectively controlled the
+legislation of the Harrison administration, acted on the philosophy of
+Senator Dolph:
+
+    If we were to take our eyes off the increasing surplus in the
+    Treasury and stop bemoaning the prosperity of the country, ... and
+    to devote our energies to the development of the great resources
+    which the Almighty has placed in our hands, to increasing (our
+    products) ... to cheapening transportation by the improving of our
+    rivers and harbors, ... we would act wiser than we do.
+
+Congress was more inclined to follow the policy suggested by Dolph than
+that proposed by Cleveland. One project was the return of the direct
+tax which had been levied on the states at the outbreak of the Civil
+War. At that time Congress had laid a tax of $20,000,000 apportioned
+among the states according to population. About $15,000,000 had been
+collected, mainly, of course, from the northern states. It was
+suggested that the levy be returned, a plan which would give the
+northern states a return in actual cash and the southern states "the
+empty enjoyment of the remission from a tax which no one now dared to
+suggest was ever to be made good." President Cleveland had vetoed such
+a bill, during his first administration, believing it unconstitutional
+and also objectionable as a "sheer, bald gratuity." Under the Harrison
+administration the scheme was revived and carried to completion, March
+2, 1891.
+
+Pension legislation was even more successful as a method of reducing
+the unwieldy surplus. Garfield had declared in 1872, when introducing
+an appropriation bill in the House of Representatives, "We may
+reasonably expect that the expenditures for pensions will hereafter
+steadily decrease, unless our legislation should be unwarrantably
+extravagant," and in fact the cost of pensions for 1878 had been lower
+by more than $7,000,000 than in 1871. The Arrears act of 1879 had given
+a decided upward tendency to pension expense, which amounted to over
+$20,000,000 more in 1880 than in 1879. The surplus was a constant
+invitation to careless generosity. Liberality to the veteran was a
+patriotic duty which lent itself to the fervid stump oratory of the
+time and presented an opportunity to the undeserving applicant to place
+his name on the rolls of pensioners along with his more worthy
+associates. Besides, an administration which seemed niggardly in its
+attitude toward the veterans was certain to lose the soldier vote, and
+neither party was willing to incur such a risk. Hence, despite
+Cleveland's vetoes of private pension legislation, hundreds of such
+measures passed during his first term. The Harrison administration
+proceeded upon the President's theory that it "was no time to be
+weighing the claims of old soldiers with apothecary's scales." A
+dependent pension bill like that which President Cleveland vetoed in
+1887 was passed in 1890. The list of pensioners more than doubled in
+length; the number of applications for aid increased tenfold in two
+years. It became necessary for President Harrison to displace his
+over-liberal commissioner of pensions, but the mischief was already
+done. The total yearly pension expenditure quickly mounted beyond the
+one hundred million mark, where it has remained ever since. Indeed, the
+cost of pensions in 1872 when Garfield made his prophecy was less than
+one-sixth as great as in 1913. Large pension expenditure was clearly a
+permanent charge.
+
+The improvement of the rivers and harbors of the country has always
+been a ready means of disposing of any embarrassing surplus and of
+assisting Congressmen to get money into their districts. "Promoters of
+all sorts of schemes, beggars for the widening of rivulets, the
+deepening of rills" clustered about the treasury during the eighties.
+During the early seventies expenditure on this account had not reached
+$6,500,000 annually, although in 1879 it exceeded $8,000,000. In 1882,
+the year of the mammoth surplus, Congress passed over Arthur's veto a
+bill carrying appropriations which amounted to almost nineteen million
+dollars.[2] Expenditures were somewhat reduced in the years
+immediately following, and Cleveland continued the repressive policy of
+his predecessor. Harrison in his first message to Congress in December,
+1889, recommended appropriations for river and harbor improvement,
+although deprecating the prosecution of works not of public advantage.
+The recommendation fell upon willing ears and appropriations for
+undertakings of this sort at once increased again. Expenditure for
+rivers and harbors, like that for pensions, remained at a high level,
+the wise and necessary portions of such measures being relied upon to
+carry the unwise and unnecessary ones.
+
+A project which lacked many of the unpleasant features of river and
+harbor legislation was the Blair educational bill, which proposed to
+distribute a considerable portion of the surplus among the states. As
+discussion of the Blair bill proceeded, it became clear that its
+results might be more far-reaching than had been anticipated. A gift
+from the national government seemed sure to retard local efforts at
+raising school funds and would initiate a vicious tendency to rely on
+federal bounty. Hence although the Senate passed the bill in 1884, 1886
+and 1888, it never commended itself sufficiently to the House and
+eventually was dropped.
+
+A small portion of the increased expenditure in the eighties was due to
+improvements in the navy, in which both parties shared. Presidents
+Arthur and Cleveland urged upon Congress the need of modern defences.
+Progress was slow and difficult. Although the day of steel ships had
+come, the American navy was composed of wooden relics of earlier days.
+The manufacture of armor and of large guns had to be developed, and
+skill and experience accumulated. Results began to appear in the late
+eighties when the number of modern steel war vessels increased from
+three to twenty-two in four years. Expenditures mounted from less than
+$14,000,000 in 1880 to over $22,000,000 in 1890.
+
+As effective as new expenditure was the McKinley tariff act of 1890,
+the details of which from the point of view of tariff history have
+already been noted.[3] The extremely high rates levied under that
+legislation caused a slight reduction in customs revenue in 1891 and a
+sharp decline in 1892. Moreover the coincidence of instability in the
+currency system, business depression and the relatively high
+Wilson-Gorman tariff schedules of 1894 continued the decline of income
+from customs during the middle nineties.
+
+In the meantime the silver agitation, which had been somewhat repressed
+by the well-known attitude of Cleveland during his first administration
+revived with increased vigor. The election of 1888, it will be
+remembered, had turned wholly on the tariff and had been a victory for
+the Republicans. The western states had almost uniformly supported
+Harrison in the election and during 1889 four more were admitted to the
+Union. Their representatives in Congress were mainly silver advocates.
+In his first message to Congress the President declared that the evil
+anticipations which had accompanied the use of the silver dollar had
+not been realized but he feared nevertheless that either free coinage
+or any "considerable increase" of the present rate of coinage would be
+"disastrous" and "discreditable." He announced that a plan would be
+presented by the Secretary of the Treasury, to which he had been able
+to give only a hasty examination. The scheme for expanding the silver
+coinage which the Secretary, William Windom, presented was not
+acceptable to Congress, but the result of the agitation was the law
+generally known as the Sherman silver purchase act, which was passed on
+July 14, 1890. It directed the secretary of the treasury to purchase
+4,500,000 ounces of silver bullion per month and to issue in payment
+"Treasury notes of the United States." These notes were legal tender
+for all debts and were receivable for customs and all public dues.
+Further, the secretary was directed to redeem the notes in gold or
+silver at his discretion, "it being the established policy of the
+United States to maintain the two metals on a parity with each other."
+
+[Illustration:
+Total Silver Coinage, 1873-1894, in millions of dollars]
+
+The silver to be purchased was substantially the total output of the
+American mines. Fearing the strength of the silver element in the
+Senate and doubtful of the position which the President might take,
+former Secretary Sherman, now in the Senate, supported the act,
+although confessing that he was ready to vote for repeal at any time
+when it could be done without substituting free coinage. The provision
+for the purchase of four and one-half million ounces instead of four
+and one-half million dollars' worth was introduced at Sherman's
+suggestion. This clause kept the amount to be absorbed at a uniform
+level, whereas the purchase of a fixed number of dollars' worth would
+have increased the coinage when the price of bullion fell. The vote on
+the Sherman act was strictly partisan--no Republicans opposing it and
+no Democrats favoring it when the measure was finally passed, although
+116 members of the House failed to answer to their names on the
+roll-call.
+
+In view of the fact that the industrial and commercial countries of
+Europe were almost universally reducing their silver coinage, the
+passage by the United States of an act which substantially doubled
+the amount of silver purchased under the Bland-Allison law seems
+extraordinary. Moreover, only six years later a presidential campaign
+was fought almost wholly on the silver issue and at that time the
+Republican party resolutely opposed free coinage. It is obvious that
+powerful forces must have been at work to align the party so unitedly
+in behalf of the Sherman law. It was to be expected that western
+Republicans would support it, but the eastern members were found
+voting for it as well. Doubtless many things contributed to the
+result. Some perhaps agreed with Sherman that the silver advocates
+were so strong that free coinage would result in case Congress refused
+to pass legislation of any kind. Some may have feared with Platt of
+Connecticut, that a party split would ensue unless the wishes of the
+westerners were acceded to--hence an act which gave liberal assistance
+to silver to please the West and South but stopped short of free
+coinage so as to please the East. That opportunist politics had an
+influence with certain members is indicated by the remarks of a
+Massachusetts Republican representative who later favored the gold
+standard:
+
+    It is pure politics, gentlemen; that is all there is about it.
+    We Republicans want to come back and we do not want you (to
+    the Democratic side) to come back in the majority, because,
+    on the whole, you must excuse us for thinking we are better
+    fellows than you are. That is human nature, that is all there
+    is in this silver bill (laughter on the Republican side); pure
+    politics.
+
+A Democrat who favored free coinage denounced the act as "Janus-Faced,"
+moulded so as to look like silver to the West and gold to the East.
+Important, also, seems to have been the attitude of the western members
+on the tariff. The party had returned to power on the tariff issue and
+it seemed necessary to pass some sort of legislation on the subject.
+Yet the party majority in Senate and House was slight and the
+westerners were understood to be ready to defeat the McKinley bill
+which was then pending, unless something was done for silver. Harrison
+seems to have been unwilling to endanger successful tariff legislation
+by opposing the considerable extension of the coinage of silver.[4]
+
+Contrary to the expectations of the proponents of the act, the price of
+silver fell gradually until the value of the bullion in a dollar was
+sixty cents in 1893 and forty-nine cents in 1894. They who had opposed
+the law saw their fears verified; as they had prophesied, silver began
+to replace gold in circulation; the latter was hoarded and used for
+foreign shipments; customs duties, which had hitherto been paid largely
+in gold, were now paid in paper currency; since gold was now more
+desired than silver, large amounts of paper were presented to the
+government for redemption in the more valuable metal. To be sure, the
+Sherman law allowed the secretary of the treasury to redeem the
+treasury notes of 1890 in gold or silver at his discretion, but it
+contained a proviso that the established policy of the United States
+was to maintain the two metals on a parity or equality. The secretary
+believed that if he refused to redeem the treasury notes in whatever
+coin the holder desired, that is if he insisted on redemption in silver
+only, a discrimination would be made in favor of gold and the equality
+of the two metals would be destroyed. Parity would be maintained, the
+government held, only when any kind of money could be exchanged for any
+other kind, at the option of the holder.
+
+For the redemption of the greenbacks, the government had since 1879
+maintained a fund known as the gold reserve. No law fixed its amount,
+but custom had set $100,000,000 as the minimum. Hitherto a negligible
+amount of paper had been presented for redemption, but as soon as the
+Sherman law came into effective operation the demand for gold became
+increasingly great and the level of the reserve promptly fell. Between
+July 1, 1890, and July 15, 1893, the supply of gold in the treasury
+decreased more than $132,000,000, while the stock of silver increased
+over $147,000,000. Evidently silver was replacing gold in the treasury,
+and it was equally clear that a continuation of the process would
+result in forcing the government to pay its obligations in silver and
+to refuse to redeem paper in gold--in other words, go upon a silver
+standard.
+
+The situation when Cleveland's second administration began on March 4,
+1893, was complex and critical. The annual expenditures had increased
+by $119,000,000 between 1880 and 1893, while the revenue had expanded
+by only half that amount; the surplus had decreased every year during
+Harrison's administration and a deficit had been avoided only by the
+cessation of payments on the public debt; the supply of currency in
+circulation was being heavily increased by the operation of the Sherman
+law; and the gold reserve had been kept at the traditional amount only
+through extraordinary efforts on the part of Harrison's Secretary of
+the Treasury as the administration came to a close.
+
+Cleveland's attitude toward the Sherman law was well-known. He had long
+urged the repeal of the Bland-Allison act; before the election of 1892
+he had predicted disaster in case the nation entered upon "the
+dangerous and reckless experiment of free, unlimited, and independent
+silver coinage"; it was his belief that the distresses under which the
+country labored were due principally to the Sherman silver purchase
+law. He therefore called a special session of Congress for August 7,
+(1893), sent a message giving a succinct account of the operation of
+the law and urged its immediate repeal.[5] In the House, repeal was
+voted with surprising promptness, although a strong free-silver element
+fought vigorously to prevent it. That party lines were broken was
+indicated by the fact that two-thirds of the Democrats and four-fifth
+of the Republicans voted in accord with the President's request.
+
+In the Senate the silver advocates were stronger. The entire history of
+coinage was discussed at length. Members who favored repeal disliked to
+overturn the tradition of the Senate which allowed unlimited debate,
+and the silver senators therefore filibustered through the summer and
+early fall. Senator Jones of Nevada made a single speech that filled a
+hundred dreary pages of the _Congressional Record_. Senator Allen of
+Nebraska quoted more than thirty authorities, ranging from the Pandects
+of Justinian to enlivening doggerel poetry. Feeling ran high. In the
+West, Jones, Allen and others were looked upon as heroes; in the East,
+as villains. To a satirical onlooker it seemed that the nation had
+become insanely obsessed with the question of repeal:
+
+    All men of virtue and intelligence know that all the ills of
+    life--scarcity of money, baldness, the comma bacillus, Home
+    Rule, ... and the Potato Bug--are due to the Sherman Bill. If it
+    is repealed, sin and death will vanish from the world, ... the
+    skies will fall, and we shall all catch larks.
+
+Not until October 30 were the silver supporters overcome. Including
+members who were paired, twenty-two Democrats and twenty-six
+Republicans favored repeal, and twenty-two Democrats, twelve
+Republicans and three Populists opposed. Again the West and South were
+aligned against the North and East. The Democratic party was divided
+and charges and countercharges had been made that augured ill for party
+success, as has been seen, in dealing with the tariff and other
+important problems.[6] Worst of all, the chief question--the volume
+and content of the currency--was still unanswered. Something had been
+done for silver--and undone--but there was no scientific settlement of
+the problem.
+
+The disastrous financial and industrial crisis of 1893 made yet more
+complex the already tangled skein of economic history during President
+Cleveland's second administration. The catastrophe has been ascribed to
+a variety of causes but the relative importance of the various factors
+is still a matter of disagreement. Rash speculation on the part of
+industrial interests here and abroad seems to have made weak links in
+the international commercial chain; financial conditions both in
+Germany and in Great Britain were precarious during the early part of
+1890; the collapse of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad in
+February, 1893, and of the National Cordage Company soon afterwards
+were warnings of what was to follow; the silver purchase law produced
+widespread fear that the United States would not be able to continue
+the redemption of paper currency; and the change of political control
+had produced the usual feeling of uncertainty. The dwindling of the
+gold reserve, which has already been mentioned, assisted in causing a
+critical situation. Foreign investors, fearful of financial conditions
+here, sold their American railroad and other securities and received
+payment in gold. The one place where the yellow metal could be readily
+obtained was the United States treasury and upon it the strain
+centered. People attempted to turn property of all kinds into gold
+before the existing standard should change to a depreciated silver
+basis. At the same time there was a rush to the banks to withdraw
+funds, and the visible supply of currency therefore was seriously
+reduced. "Under these conditions gold seemed scarce. In reality gold
+was only relatively scarce in comparison with the abnormal offering of
+property for sale on account of the fear of the silver standard." In an
+incredibly short time, currency became so scarce as to create a genuine
+panic and was purchased like any commodity at premiums ranging from one
+to three per cent. In order to enable their families to pay the running
+expenses of every day at the summer resorts, business men were
+compelled to buy bills and coin and send them in express packages. The
+national banks were unable to supply the demand for currency so
+quickly, and 158 of them failed in 1893 and hundreds of state and
+private financial institutions were forced to close their doors.
+Industrial firms were affected by the uncertainty and panic and over
+15,000 failures resulted, with liabilities amounting to $347,000,000 in
+the single year. Production of coal and iron fell sharply; railway
+construction nearly ceased and the value of securities shrank to a
+fraction of their former value. The distress among the wage-earners
+became extreme; unemployment was common; strikes, like that beginning
+in Pullman in 1894, were bitter and prolonged. "Coxey's army," composed
+of unemployed workmen, marched to Washington with a petition for
+relief.
+
+As is usually the case in our politics, the blame for the industrial
+disturbance was laid at the door of the party in power. The argument of
+an Ohio congressman in the debate over the repeal of the Sherman law
+typified the political use made of the crisis of 1893. Until November,
+1892, the orator declared, prosperity was undimmed. "Iron furnaces
+throughout the country were in full blast, and their cheerful light was
+going up to heaven notifying the people of the United States of
+existing prosperity and warning them against change of conditions."
+Then came the election of the party "which had declared war on the
+system upon which our whole industrial fabric had been erected." "One
+by one the furnaces went out, one by one the mines closed up, one after
+another the factories shortened their time." Business interests, he
+asserted, were fearful of Democratic rule and especially of tariff
+reform; hence prosperity and confidence could be renewed only by
+leaving the Sherman law intact and by refusing to undertake any
+sweeping revision of the protective tariff.
+
+[Illustration:
+Net Gold in the Treasury, by months,
+Jan., 1883 to Feb., 1896, in millions of dollars]
+
+Further to complicate the financial trials of the burdensome mid-nineties,
+the depletion of the gold reserve demanded immediate attention. During
+the closing months of President Harrison's administration, in fact, the
+Secretary of the Treasury had ordered the preparation of plates for
+engraving an issue of bonds by which to borrow sufficient gold to
+replenish the redemption fund. By a personal appeal to New York bankers,
+however, he was able to exchange paper for gold and so keep the level
+above the one hundred million mark, and when Cleveland succeeded to
+the chair, the reserve was $100,982,410. In the meantime the scarcity
+of gold continued, and the combination of large expenditures and
+slender income severely embarrassed the government in its attempts to
+obtain a sufficient supply of gold to keep the reserve intact. The
+administration, indeed, was all but helpless. Paper presented for
+redemption in gold had to be paid out to meet expenses and was then
+turned in for gold again. Hence, as Cleveland ruefully reminded
+Congress, "we have an endless chain in operation constantly depleting
+the Treasury's gold and never near a final rest." On April 22, 1893,
+the reserve fell momentarily below $100,000,000 and later in the year
+it was apparent that the reduction was likely to become permanent.
+By January, 1894, the reserve was less than $70,000,000, while
+$450,000,000 in paper which might be presented for redemption were in
+actual circulation. Only one resource seemed available--borrowing gold.
+The treasury therefore sold bonds to the value of $50,000,000. Even
+this, however, did not remedy the ill. Bankers obtained gold to
+purchase bonds by presenting paper currency to the government for
+redemption. Relief was temporary. On the last day of May the reserve
+amounted to only $79,000,000; in November, to $59,000,000. Another
+issue of bonds was resorted to in November, but the results were not
+better than before. At the same time the Pullman strike during the
+summer months, the Wilson-Gorman tariff fiasco and an unfortunate
+harvest seemed to indicate that man and nature were determined to make
+1894 a year of ill-omen.
+
+By February, 1895, the treasury found itself confronted with a reserve
+of only $41,000,000. It seemed useless to attempt borrowing under the
+usual conditions, and Cleveland therefore resorted to a new device. A
+contract was made with J.P. Morgan and a group of bankers for the
+purchase of 3,500,000 ounces of gold to be paid for with United States
+four per cent. bonds. In order to protect the reserve from a renewed
+drain, the bankers agreed that at least half the gold should be
+obtained abroad, and they promised to exert all their influence to
+prevent withdrawals of gold from the treasury while the contract was
+being filled. The terms of the contract were favorable to the bankers,
+but the President defended the agreement on the ground that the
+promise to protect the reserve entitled the bankers to a favorable
+bargain. The fact, however, that the Morgan Company was able to market
+the bonds with the public and make a large profit, increased the
+demand that the administration sell directly to the people and make
+the profit itself. In January, 1896, occurred a fourth sale--to the
+public, this time--and 4,640 bids were received, for a total several
+times greater than the $100,000,000 called for. By this time, business
+conditions were improving, confidence was restored among the financial
+classes and gold again began to flow out of hiding and into the
+treasury. The endless chain was broken.
+
+The denunciation which Cleveland received for the untoward monetary and
+industrial events of his administration was unusual even for American
+politics in the middle nineties. Such extreme silver men as Senator
+Stewart of Nevada declared that Cleveland's second administration was
+probably the worst administration that ever occurred in this or any
+other country; that he was a bold and unscrupulous stock-jobber; that
+he deliberately caused the panic of 1893 and that he sent the Venezuela
+message in order to divert the attention of the people from the silver
+question. The New York _World_ described the transaction between the
+government and the Morgan Company as a "bunco" game, and charged that
+Cleveland had dishonest, dishonorable and immoral reasons for bringing
+about the transaction and that he did it for a "consideration."
+Representative W.J. Bryan, who belonged to the President's party and
+who ordinarily was chivalrous to his opponents, declared that Cleveland
+could no more escape unharmed from association with the Morgan
+syndicate than he could expect to escape asphyxiation if he locked
+himself up in a room and turned on the gas. The Democratic party, he
+thought, should feel toward its leader as a confiding ward would feel
+toward a guardian who had squandered a rich estate, or as a passenger
+would feel toward a trainman who opened a switch and precipitated a
+wreck.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The standard works, mentioned under Chapter V, by Dewey, Hepburn and
+Noyes continue valuable. The attitude of Hayes and of succeeding
+Presidents is found in J.D. Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the
+Presidents_; F.W. Taussig, _The Silver Situation in the United States_
+(1892), is concise; _Political Science Quarterly_, III, 226, discusses
+the surplus revenue; _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, III, 436, on the
+direct tax; W.H. Glasson, _Federal Military Pensions_, has already been
+mentioned. W.J. Lauck, _Causes of the Panic of 1893_ (1907), lays the
+blame for the industrial distress of 1893 wholly on the silver law of
+1890. On the gold reserve, consult Grover Cleveland, _Presidential
+Problems_; D.R. Dewey, _National Problems_ (1907); _Political Science
+Quarterly_, X, 573; and _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, XIII, 204.
+"The Silver Debate of 1890," in _Journal of Political Economy_, I, 535,
+contains a detailed account of the discussion in Congress. W.J. Bryan,
+_First Battle_ (1897), should be consulted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] According to the principle known as Gresham's law, bad money tends
+to drive out good; or overvalued money to drive out undervalued money.
+If the face value of a coin is more than its worth as bullion, it is
+"overvalued." Thus, if coins of equal face value, but of different
+bullion value, circulate side by side, there will be a tendency for the
+possessors of the coins to pass on the currency with the smaller
+bullion value and to withdraw the others for sale as bullion and for
+use in the arts.
+
+[2] Above, p. 164.
+
+[3] Above, pp. 238-240.
+
+[4] The law remained in force about three years. During that interval
+nearly $156,000,000 worth of silver bullion was purchased with the new
+treasury notes. The government began retiring these notes in 1900.
+
+[5] The call for the extra session, together with news of the
+suspension of free-coinage in India, sent the bullion price of silver
+down twenty-one cents per ounce in two weeks. The President was
+seriously handicapped at this time by a cancerous growth in the jaw,
+necessitating an operation, news of which was withheld from the public
+for fear of its ill effect on the financial situation. Cf. _Saturday
+Evening Post_, 22 Sept., 1917.
+
+[6] Above, p. 274.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+1896
+
+The political situation in 1896, when the parties began to prepare for
+the presidential election, was more complex than it had been since
+1860. The repeal, in 1893, of the purchase clause of the Sherman silver
+act had divided the Democrats into factions; the financial and
+industrial distress in the same year had been widely attributed to fear
+of Democratic misgovernment; the Wilson-Gorman tariff act of 1894 had
+discredited the party and aroused ill-feeling between the President and
+Congress; the Pullman strike and the use of the injunction had aroused
+bitterness in the labor element against the administration; the income
+tax decision of 1895 had done much to shake popular confidence in the
+Supreme Court; the Hawaiian and Venezuelan incidents had caused minor
+dissent in some quarters; and the bond sales had made Cleveland
+intensely unpopular in the West and South. The Democratic party was
+demoralized and leaderless. The Republicans were better off because
+they had been out of power during the years of dissension and panic,
+but they had been without a leader since the death of Blaine in 1893
+and were far from united in regard to the most pressing issues. Indeed,
+the sectional differences in both parties, and the unexpected strength
+of the Populist movement caused no little anxiety among the political
+leaders. And finally, the volume and character of the currency was
+still undetermined. The Democrats had divided on the question. The
+Republicans were almost as little united; they had played politics in
+passing the Sherman silver act and three years later had assisted a
+President of the opposite party in accomplishing the repeal of its most
+important provision. From the standpoint of the silver supporters
+neither party organization was to be trusted. The outstanding political
+questions of 1896, therefore, were whether the supporters of silver
+could capture the machinery of one of the parties and whether the other
+unsettled issues could ride into the campaign on the strength of the
+financial agitation. The answers to these questions gave the campaign
+and election its peculiar significance.
+
+The background of 1896 is to be found in the South and West, where the
+farmers' alliances and the Populist party continued their success in
+arousing and directing the ambitions of the discontented classes. In
+1892, it will be remembered, the Populists had cast more than a million
+ballots and had chosen twenty-two presidential electors, two senators,
+and eleven representatives. In 1894, at the time of the congressional
+election, they had increased their voting strength more than forty per
+cent., and had elected six senators and six members of the House,
+besides several hundreds of state officials. In the Senate it happened
+that the two great parties had been almost equally strong, after the
+election of 1894, so that the Populist group had held the balance of
+power. The insistence of the South and West that Congress do something
+further for silver had not lessened. A measure providing for the
+coinage of a portion of the silver bullion in the treasury had been
+defeated in 1894 only through the President's veto. Indeed the only
+hope of the East and of the supporters of the gold standard was the
+unflinching determination of the head of a party to which the East and
+the gold supporters were, in the main opposed.
+
+The growing enthusiasm for silver which was sweeping over the South and
+West and rapidly developing into something resembling frenzy was
+difficult for the more stolid East to comprehend. Not merely the
+politician, but the man on the street and in the store, the
+school-teacher, the farmer and the laborer, in those portions of the
+country, fell to discussing the virtues of silver as currency and the
+effect of a greater volume of circulating medium upon prices and
+prosperity. The two metals became personified in the minds of the
+people. Gold was the symbol of cruel, snobbish plutocracy; silver of
+upright democracy. Gold deserted the country in its hour of need;
+silver remained at home to minister to the wants of the people. Such
+arguments as those presented in _Coin's Financial School_, published in
+1894, brought financial policy within the circle of the emotions of its
+readers even if they did not satisfy the more critical student of
+monetary problems. This influential little volume, written by W.H.
+Harvey, acted as a hand-book of free coinage, cleverly setting forth
+the major arguments for the increased use of silver and bringing
+forward objections which were triumphantly demolished. Simple
+illustrations enforced the lessons taught by its pages: a wood-cut of a
+cripple with one leg indicated how handicapped the country was without
+the free coinage of two metals; in another, Senator Sherman and
+President Cleveland were depicted digging out the silver portion of the
+foundations of a house which had been erected on a stable basis of both
+gold and silver; in a third, western farmers were seen industriously
+stuffing fodder into a cow which capitalists were milking for the
+benefit of New York and New England.[1] With the enthusiasm and the
+sincerity of the early crusaders, the people assembled in ten thousand
+schoolhouses to debate the absorbing subject of the currency. Indeed
+the South and West had become convinced that the miseries inflicted
+upon mankind by war, pestilence and famine had been less "cruel,
+unpitying, and unrelenting than the persistent and remorseless
+exaction" which the contraction of the volume of the currency had made
+upon society. Low prices, the stagnation of industry, empty and idle
+stores, workshops and factories, the increase of crime and
+bankruptcy--all were laid at the door of the gold standard.
+
+The East looked upon the rising in the West at first with amusement,
+and was quite ready to accept the diagnosis of a western newspaper man,
+quoted by Peck in his _Twenty Years of the Republic_:
+
+    What's the matter with Kansas?
+
+    We all know; yet here we are at it again. We have an old
+    moss-back Jacksonian who snorts and howls because there is a
+    bath-tub in the State House. We are running that old jay for
+    Governor.... We have raked the ash-heap of failure in the State
+    and found an old human hoop-skirt who has failed as a business
+    man, who has failed as an editor, who has failed as a preacher,
+    and we are going to run him for Congressman-at-large.... Then we
+    have discovered a kid without a law practice and have decided to
+    run him for Attorney-General.
+
+Later the East looked upon tendencies in the West with more concern:
+Roosevelt, although admitting the honesty of the Populists, characterized
+their ignorance as "abysmal"; others were more inclined to doubt their
+sincerity; their conventions were supposed to be made up of cranks and
+unsexed women; and their principles were looked upon as "wild and crazy
+notions."
+
+In fact it was no simple task to distinguish between the legitimate
+grievances and ambitions of the westerners, and their eccentricities
+and errors. Nor was this difficulty lessened by the reputation with
+which some of the proponents of silver were justly or unjustly
+credited. "Sockless Jerry" Simpson and Mrs. Lease were among them--the
+Mrs. Lease to whom was ascribed the remark "Kansas had better stop
+raising corn and begin raising hell!"[2] Benjamin R. Tillman was
+another--a rough, forceful character, leader of the poor whites and
+small farmers of South Carolina, organizer of the "wool hats" against
+the "silk hats" and the "kid gloves"--Governor of the state and later
+member of the federal Senate. Although a Democrat, he was thoroughly at
+odds with Cleveland, and publicly declared it was his ambition to stick
+his pitchfork into the President's sides.[3] Richard P. Bland, of
+Missouri, had the disadvantage of having been one of the earliest of
+the silver supporters, since he had initiated the bill which resulted
+in the Bland-Allison act, and was looked upon in the East as a
+thorough-going, free-silver radical. Governor Altgeld, of Illinois,
+leader of the Democrats of that state from 1892 to 1896, was a
+successful lawyer who was looked upon by his friends as a
+liberal-minded humanitarian, the friend of
+
+    The mocked and the scorned and the wounded,
+    the lame and the poor,
+
+whose sympathies with the laboring classes had given him the support of
+the reformers and the wage earners. But his pardon of the Haymarket
+anarchists and his attitude during the Pullman strike had led the East
+to regard him as a dangerous revolutionist and an enemy to society.[4]
+
+The free-silver movement nevertheless continued to gather momentum. For
+some years influential silver advocates had been associated in the
+Bimetallic League, an organization which supported the free coinage
+of both gold and silver. Among its members were prominent Democrats,
+Republicans and Populists, especially from the western states, and some
+of the foremost labor leaders. At one of its meetings in 1893 it was
+determined to invite every labor and industrial organization in the
+country to send delegates. A few experts, even in the East, gave some
+scientific support to the argument for the greater use of silver.
+Eastern Republicans like Senator Henry Cabot Lodge proposed free coinage
+of both metals by an international agreement, which, they thought,
+might be brought about through threats of tariff discrimination against
+nations refusing to adhere to the arrangement. A silver convention in
+Nebraska in 1894 was attended by a thousand delegates. From the point of
+view of party harmony the subject was a nuisance. Democratic state
+conventions were badly divided. Thirty of them adopted resolutions
+distinctly favorable to free coinage and fourteen opposed. Ten of the
+latter committed themselves definitely to the gold standard. The
+fourteen included all the northeastern states, together with Michigan,
+Wisconsin and Minnesota. Such gold Democrats as President Cleveland
+sought to stem the tide, but Cleveland's control over his followers was
+rapidly dwindling, and it seemed likely that the silver element of the
+party might reach out to seize the organization and displace the former
+leaders.
+
+The Republican professional politicians were as ignorant of technical
+monetary problems as the Democrats, and moreover did not wish to risk
+popular disapproval in any section by utterances which might be
+offensive to that part of the country. The first Republican state
+convention during 1896 was that in Ohio. Its financial plank was
+awaited with interest, because of the early date of the meeting and
+because its proceedings were in the hands of friends of the most
+prominent candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. The
+convention dodged the issue by demanding that all our currency be
+"sound as the Government and as untarnished as its honor," and that
+both metals be used as currency and kept at parity by legislative
+restrictions. The New York _Tribune_ thought that this could mean
+nothing but a gold standard; the _Times_ was fearful that it would lead
+to silver; the _Springfield Republican_ condemned it as "chock full of
+double-dealing." Its ambiguity, however, was in line with the purposes
+and ambitions of two men who were actively preparing for the campaign
+of 1896--Marcus A. Hanna and Major William McKinley.
+
+Marcus A. Hanna, or "Mark" Hanna as he was universally known, was an
+Ohioan, born in 1837.[5] As a young man he entered upon a business
+career in Cleveland, first in a wholesale grocery company, later in a
+coal and iron firm and finally in a variety of industrial and
+commercial enterprises which his energy and ability opened to him. The
+expansion of industrial America after the Civil War was coincident with
+the greater part of Hanna's career and he was a typical product of that
+period in his political, economic and social philosophy. After he had
+attained a degree of business success he became actively interested in
+politics and took a prominent part in placing Joseph B. Foraker in the
+governor's chair in Ohio in 1885. Strained relations between the two
+turned Hanna's attention to the fortunes of John Sherman. When it
+became apparent in 1888 that the presidential campaign would turn upon
+President Cleveland's tariff principles, Hanna, who looked upon the
+protective tariff as synonymous with industrial expansion and even of
+industrial safety, threw his weight upon the side of Sherman, who was
+again seeking the Republican nomination. The failure of Sherman was a
+blow to Hanna, but it called to his attention the pleasing personality
+of a more prominent protectionist, William McKinley. He was an
+important agent in McKinley's successful campaign for the governorship
+of Ohio in 1891. Two years later the Governor met serious financial
+reverses, and again Hanna proved to be a firm friend. Aided by other
+men of means he rescued McKinley from bankruptcy. Between the two there
+sprang up a mutual admiration of unusual strength, and finally, in
+1894-1895, Hanna withdrew from his business enterprises in order to
+devote his entire time to the political fortunes of his friend.
+
+Mark Hanna had extraordinary capacity for leadership. Sociable,
+open-handed, full of energy, direct, aggressive, shrewd, daring, a hard
+fighter, a loyal friend, an organizer and a man of his word, he was
+essentially a man of action. In politics he was practical and
+straight-forward. He wanted results, not reforms, and results meant
+accepting the prevailing methods and using them. When he wished a
+street-railway franchise in Cleveland, he bought enough influence with
+the city government to get what he wanted, as others of his day did. He
+was a strict party man; good government and safety to industry, he
+believed, were dependent upon Republican control. Patriotism therefore
+demanded his utmost energy in getting Republicans elected. In political
+campaigns his counsel, his energy and his money were always available.
+A protective customs tariff, a "sound" currency system and a free hand
+in the conduct of business were the things which he most desired from
+the government.
+
+William McKinley would have been a formidable competitor for the
+presidential nomination in 1896 even without the assistance of his
+rugged friend. His personality was attractive, in a pleasing, soothing,
+tactful, ingratiating way. His military career had been honorable even
+if not famous. For most of the time from 1877 to 1891 he had been a
+member of the House of Representatives, becoming identified
+particularly with the high protective tariff and acting as sponsor for
+the McKinley act of 1890. After being defeated for re-election, just
+subsequent to the passage of the tariff law, he had become Governor of
+Ohio for two terms. The panic of 1893 and the ill-fated Wilson-Gorman
+tariff act during the time when he was Governor caused the tide of
+popular favor to swing away from the Democrats; McKinley, as the
+apostle of protection, appeared in a more favorable light; and his
+partisans began to press him forward as the logical nominee for 1896
+and as "the advance agent of Prosperity." The fact that his home was in
+a populous state in the Middle West was also in his favor, because the
+Republicans had frequently chosen their candidate from this debatable
+ground rather than from the Northeast, where success was to be had
+without a struggle.
+
+Hanna's first care upon determining to devote himself to the interests
+of McKinley was to keep the candidate before the people as the one man
+who could rescue the nation from industrial depression. To that end he
+widely circulated the Cleveland _Leader_, a strong McKinley organ, for
+eighteen months at his own expense; he rented a house in Georgia,
+entertained Governor McKinley there and brought numbers of southern
+politicians to meet the candidate; and experienced political workers
+were sent all over the country and especially to the South to prepare
+the way for the election of delegates to the nominating convention.
+Hanna himself went to the East to discover on what terms the support of
+some of the states in that section could be obtained. On his return he
+reported that aid would be assured by a guarantee that the patronage of
+the administration would go to certain powerful politicians; Hanna
+thought the bargain a desirable one, but the candidate objected and
+Hanna acquiesced. The campaign of publicity and of personal canvass for
+delegates and influence continued. First and last, it is estimated,
+Hanna contributed over $100,000 for this purpose, urging his assistants
+always to use funds only for legitimate ends, although promising
+McKinley partisans who aided in the work that they would be "consulted"
+in the disposition of patronage.
+
+Two difficulties stood in the way of completely ensuring the choice of
+McKinley as the candidate by the convention. Several states had
+"favorite sons" whom they would be sure to present, and if so many of
+these should appear as to prevent McKinley's nomination on the first
+ballot or at least on an early one, there might be a stampede to an
+unknown man--a "dark horse"--and then Hanna's ambitions would be
+frustrated. Thomas B. Reed of Maine was an especial source of anxiety
+as he possessed considerable strength throughout New England. To guard
+against such a danger, Hanna sedulously cultivated the popular demand
+for Governor McKinley and also fought in the state conventions for
+delegates even against favorite sons. A crucial state was Illinois,
+where Senator Cullom was powerful. The Senator says that a
+representative of McKinley offered him "all sorts of inducements" to
+withdraw, but McKinley's biographer mentions no such attempt at a
+bargain. Eventually Cullom made the fight and was defeated, and from
+then on, the nomination of McKinley seemed sure unless he should be
+tripped by the currency issue.
+
+The silver question was the second obstacle in the way of success. Not
+only was the party divided, but McKinley's record on the subject was
+far from consistent. He had voted for the Bland free-silver bill in
+1877, for the Bland-Allison act in 1878 and for the passage of that act
+over President Hayes's veto. In 1890 he had urged the passage of the
+Sherman silver purchase law, intimating that he would support a free
+coinage measure if it were possible to pass it. Hardly more than a year
+later he was campaigning for the governorship of Ohio, and there he
+denounced the free coinage of silver and advocated international
+bimetallism. In 1896 McKinley feared that a definite public utterance
+on the one side or the other of the question would widen the division
+in the party, prevent his nomination and lose the election. Hence the
+ambiguous currency plank in the Ohio state convention and hence, also,
+the refusal of the candidate to commit himself openly. Nevertheless he
+commissioned a friend to go to the East and explain his attitude
+privately to certain leaders and prominent business men, urging them
+not to force a declaration for gold before the convention met. In this
+way, he thought, the currency issue might be subordinated, the tariff
+emphasized and the party held together. In this state of uncertainty
+the currency situation was allowed to rest until the convention met at
+St. Louis on June 16.
+
+The platform adopted was, for the most part, of the usual sort. It
+urged popular attention to the matchless achievements of thirty years
+of Republican rule and contrasted that period of "unequalled success
+and prosperity" with the "unparalleled incapacity, dishonor, and
+disaster" of Democratic government; it promised the "most ample
+protection" to the products of mine, field and factory; generous
+pensions, American control of Hawaii, a Nicaragua canal, the Monroe
+doctrine, restricted immigration and the arbitration of labor disputes
+affecting interstate commerce received the support of the party.
+
+It was the currency plank, however, that differentiated the platform of
+1896 from that of other campaigns. Many Republican leaders and business
+men, particularly in the East, were disposed to call for a definite
+party statement in favor of a gold standard and had reached the point
+where they could not be put off by the usual meaningless straddle.
+Thomas C. Platt, Henry Cabot Lodge, Joseph B. Foraker, Charles W.
+Fairbanks and other party chiefs were among them. Hanna was ready to
+declare for gold after he had been assured of the nomination of his
+candidate. McKinley was willing to stand for gold, although he
+preferred not to mention that word in the plank and hoped to make the
+contest on the tariff. Moreover so many silver delegates had already
+been elected to the Democratic convention, which was soon to be held,
+that a definite utterance from that party seemed a certainty. The
+Prohibitionists had already divided into halves over the dominant
+issue. It was almost imperative, therefore, for the Republican
+convention to be more explicit than it had hitherto ventured to be. As
+leader after leader arrived who was insistent upon a gold standard, it
+became increasingly evident to Hanna that he must proceed with caution.
+If McKinley committed himself to gold, the silver advocates would balk
+at his candidacy, and perhaps unite on somebody else; if he committed
+himself to silver, he would lose the eastern leaders. The astute Hanna
+therefore allowed sentiment in favor of the gold plank to gather force,
+although holding the discussion as far as possible under cover, and
+kept McKinley from making a definite statement. Then at the last
+minute, when the McKinley delegates were numerous enough to ensure the
+nomination of the Major and when it was too late for the silver forces
+to agree upon an opposition candidate, Hanna gave way to the pressure
+for gold and agreed to the plank which he had always favored.[6]
+
+Despite the canny management of Hanna a defection took place over the
+decision on the currency issue. As soon as the platform was read,
+Senator Henry M. Teller, of Colorado, moved to replace the gold plank
+by one advocating the free coinage of silver. The earnestness with
+which Teller urged the adoption of the substitute was an indication of
+the sincerity of the western wing of the party. He had been a strict
+Republican since the formation of the party in the mid-fifties, yet he
+now found himself forced to accept a policy which he believed to be
+pernicious or break the political bonds which had held him for forty
+years. The majority of the convention, however, was determined to adopt
+the gold plank and overwhelmingly defeated the Teller amendment,
+whereupon the Senator and thirty-three other silver supporters solemnly
+withdrew from the hall.
+
+The way was now clear for the nomination of a candidate. Thomas B.
+Reed, Senator Quay and other favorite sons received but scant support,
+and McKinley was nominated by an overwhelming majority on the first
+ballot. Garrett A. Hobart, a lawyer and business man whose reputation
+was confined to New Jersey, his home state, was nominated for the
+vice-presidency. The platform and the candidate were generally hailed
+with favor in the East. To be sure, critical newspapers were inclined
+to look askance upon McKinley's past. The New York _Evening Post_, for
+example, favored a gold standard but decried the candidate's "absence
+of settled convictions about leading questions of the day, and his want
+of clear knowledge on any subject." Yet on the whole, the platform and
+the candidate were popular, and, in view of the serious factional
+disputes among the Democrats, the Republicans seemed likely to make
+good their boast that victory would be so easy that they could nominate
+and elect a "rag baby" if they chose. The redoubtable Hanna was
+appointed chairman of the National Republican Committee, from which
+office he was to direct the campaign. McKinley still believed that the
+contest would be of the old-fashioned sort and that it would turn on
+the tariff, despite the platform utterance of the party. And so it
+might have proved had it not been for an important change of purpose
+and leadership in the opposition.
+
+The friends of free silver coinage went to the Democratic convention at
+Chicago on July 7 with the same determination to get a definite
+statement on the currency question that had characterized the eastern
+leaders at the Republican convention. Without the loss of a moment they
+wrested the control of the organization from the former leaders by
+defeating Senator Hill of New York, a gold Democrat, for the temporary
+chairmanship and electing Senator Daniel of Virginia, a recognized
+proponent of free silver. Hill's support came mainly from the
+Northeast; Daniel's, from the West and South. Senator White of
+California, a representative of the silver wing, was then chosen
+permanent chairman and the convention was ready for the contest over
+the platform. While it awaited that document, however, it listened to
+several favorite leaders, of whom Senator Tillman and Governor Altgeld
+of Illinois were the best known. From the sentiments expressed by these
+men it was clear that the radical Democrats believed that they were
+speaking for the masses of the people and that they were bent upon
+making far-reaching changes both in the organization and the creed of
+the party.
+
+A disquieting feature was a degree of turbulence beyond that which
+usually characterizes our nominating conventions. The official
+proceedings record the following, for example, while Senator Tillman
+was addressing the delegates:
+
+    I hope that when this vast assembly shall have dispersed to its home
+    the many thousands of my fellow-citizens who are here will carry
+    hence a different opinion of the pitchfork man from South Carolina
+    to that which they now hold. I come to you from the South--from the
+    home of secession--from that State where the leaders of--(the
+    balance of the sentence of the speaker was drowned by hisses). Mr.
+    Tillman (resuming): There are only three things in the world that
+    can hiss--a goose, a serpent, and a man....
+
+    In the last three or four or five years the Western people have come
+    to realize that the condition of the South and the condition of the
+    West are identical. Hence we find to-day that the Democratic party
+    of the West is here almost in solid phalanx appealing to the South,
+    and the South has responded--to come to their help.... Some of my
+    friends from the South and elsewhere have said that this is not a
+    sectional issue. I say it is a sectional issue. (Long prolonged
+    hissing.)
+
+At length, the platform was presented. It was a summary of the
+complaints against the East which had been forming in the West and
+South ever since the days of the Greenbackers and the "Ohio idea." It
+recognized first that the money question was paramount to all others;
+laid hard times at the door of the gold standard, which it denounced as
+a British policy; and demanded the free coinage of both metals at the
+existing legal ratio, under which sixteen parts of silver by weight
+were declared equivalent to one part of gold in minting coins. Nor
+would the party wait for the consent of any other nation. It opposed
+the issuance of interest-bearing bonds in time of peace, condemned the
+bond transactions of the Cleveland administration and denounced the
+national bank-note system. The McKinley tariff was declared a prolific
+breeder of trusts which enriched the few at the expense of the many.
+The plank concerning the income tax, which had so recently been
+declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, excited much
+condemnation among Republicans and conservative Democrats, who
+denounced it as an attack on the Court. It noted that the Court had
+uniformly sustained income taxes for nearly a hundred years and
+declared it to be the duty of Congress
+
+    to use all the constitutional power which remains after that
+    decision, or which may come from its reversal by the court as
+    it may hereafter be constituted, so that the burdens of taxation
+    may be equally and impartially laid, to the end that wealth may
+    bear its due proportion of the expenses of the government.
+
+The reaction of the party on the labor disputes of recent years and
+especially the Pullman strike was clearly in evidence. Arbitration of
+such controversies was called for; "interference" by federal
+authorities in local affairs was condemned; government by injunction
+was objected to; and the passage of such laws was demanded as would
+protect all the interests of the laboring classes.
+
+A minority of the platform committee now presented the opposing point
+of view. It objected to many of the planks; complained that some were
+ill-considered, others revolutionary; and offered two amendments,
+one advocating the gold standard, the other expressing commendation
+of Cleveland's administration. The contest was then on. Tillman
+excoriated Cleveland and declared that the East held the West and
+South in economic bondage; Hill denounced the currency, income tax and
+Supreme Court planks as furiously as any Republican could have wished.
+The currency plank, he thought, was unwise, that on the income tax
+unnecessary, that on the Court assailed the supreme tribunal, and the
+entire program was "revolutionary."
+
+As yet, nobody had quite expressed the feelings of the convention.
+Tillman was too crude; Hill had no remedy for long-standing ills. At
+this juncture William J. Bryan stepped upon the platform. He was a
+young man--only thirty-six years of age--and known but slightly as a
+representative from Nebraska who possessed many of the arts and
+abilities of an orator. Bryan began with a modest and tactful
+declaration that his opposition to the gold wing of the party was
+based solely on principles and not at all on personalities. The
+convention had met, he insisted, not to debate but to register a
+judgment already rendered by the people. Old leaders had been cast
+aside because they had refused to express the desires of those whom
+they aspired to lead. Briefly he outlined the reply of the radicals
+to the objections made by Hill and the gold wing to the proposed
+platform. The conservatives, Bryan declared, had complained that
+free silver coinage would disturb business:
+
+    We say to you that you have made the definition of a business man
+    too limited in its application. The man who is employed for wages is
+    as much a business man as his employer; the attorney in a country
+    town is as much a business man as the corporation counsel in a great
+    metropolis; the merchant at the cross-roads store is as much a
+    business man as the merchant of New York; the farmer who goes forth
+    in the morning and toils all day--who begins in the spring and toils
+    all summer--and who by the application of brain and muscle to the
+    natural resources of the country creates wealth, is as much a
+    business man as the man who goes upon the board of trade and bets
+    upon the price of grain; the miners who go down a thousand feet into
+    the earth, or climb two thousand feet upon the cliffs, and bring
+    forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured into
+    the channels of trade are as much business men as the few financial
+    magnates who, in a back room, corner the money of the world. We come
+    to speak for this broader class of business men.
+
+The time was at hand, Bryan insisted, when the currency issue must be
+squarely met:
+
+    We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned; we have
+    entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded; we have
+    begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came. We beg no
+    longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them.
+
+The radical wing of the Democracy had now found its orator. Every word
+was driven straight to the hearts of the sympathetic hearers. The income
+tax law had been constitutional, Bryan complained, until one of the
+judges of the Supreme Court had changed his mind; the tariff was less
+important than the currency because "protection has slain its thousands,
+the gold standard has slain its tens of thousands." Fundamentally, he
+insisted, the contest was between the idle holders of idle capital and
+the struggling masses who produce the capital:
+
+    If they come to meet us on that issue we can present the history of
+    our nation. More than that; we can tell them that they will search
+    the pages of history in vain to find a single instance where the
+    common people of any land have ever declared themselves in favor of
+    the gold standard. They can find where the holders of fixed
+    investments have declared for a gold standard, but not where the
+    masses have....
+
+    You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the
+    gold standard; we reply that the great cities rest upon our broad and
+    fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your
+    cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and
+    the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country....
+
+    Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world,
+    supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and
+    the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold
+    standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow
+    of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a
+    cross of gold.
+
+The frenzy of approval which this brief speech aroused was proof that
+the West and South had found a herald. Whether wisely or not, the
+radicals acclaimed their leader and the party was embarked upon a
+program that made the campaign of 1896 a memorable one. Without further
+ado, the amendments of the conservatives were voted down--the vote
+being sectional, as before. Proposals that changes in the monetary
+standard should not apply to existing contracts and that if free
+coinage should not effect a parity between gold and silver at a ratio
+of 16 to 1 within a year, it should be suspended, were both voted down
+without so much as a division. The platform was then adopted by an
+overwhelming majority and radical democracy had the bit in its teeth.
+In the East the platform was viewed with amazement. The New York
+_World_, a Democratic newspaper, expressed the opinion that the only
+doubt about the election would be the size of McKinley's victory. The
+Republican _Tribune_ thought that the party was afflicted with
+"lunacy"; that it had become the "avowed champion of the right of
+pillage, riot and trainwrecking"; that the platform was an anarchist
+manifesto and a "call to every criminal seeking a chance for outrage."
+
+Before Bryan's speech it had been impossible to foretell who the party
+candidate for the presidency would be, although the veteran free silver
+leader, Richard P. Bland, had been looked upon as a logical choice in
+case his well-known principles should become those of the convention.
+After the speech, however, it was clear that Bryan embodied the
+feelings of many of his colleagues and on the fifth ballot he was
+chosen as the candidate. The vice-presidential choice was Arthur
+Sewall, of Maine, a shipbuilder and banker who believed in the free
+coinage of silver.
+
+The gold Democrats were now in a quandary. Many of them had refrained
+from voting at all in the convention after the silver element had
+gained control. Strict partisans, however, adopted the position of
+Senator Hill who was asked after the convention whether he was a
+Democrat still. "Yes," he is said to have retorted, "I am a Democrat
+still--very still." Some frankly turned toward the Republican party,
+while others organized the National Democratic party and adopted a
+traditional Democratic platform, with a gold plank. After considering
+the possibility of nominating President Cleveland for a third term, the
+party chose John M. Palmer for the presidency and Simon B. Buckner for
+the vice-presidency. Soon after the Democratic convention, the People's
+party and the Silver party met in St. Louis. Both nominated Bryan for
+the presidency, and thereafter the Democrats and the Populists made
+common cause.
+
+At the opening of the campaign, then, it was evident that class and
+sectional hatreds would enter largely into the contest. The Populists
+and the radical Democrats felt that they were fighting the battle of
+the masses against "plutocracy"--the subtle and corrupting control of
+public affairs by the possessors of great fortunes; they thought that
+they saw arrayed against them the forces of wealth and the
+corporations, seeking to enslave them. The conservative Democrats and
+the gold Republicans saw in their opponents an organized attempt to
+carry out a program of dishonesty and socialism. The one side believed
+that the creditor class desired to scale debts upward; the other, that
+the debtor class wished to scale them down. The radicals believed that
+the Supreme Court was in the control of the wealthy; the conservatives,
+that their opponents sought to assail the highest tribunal in the land.
+The peculiar circumstances preceding the year 1896, however, focussed
+attention on the monetary standard rather than upon the other demands
+of the Populist-Democratic fusion.
+
+Each candidate adopted a plan of campaign that was suited to his
+individual situation. Bryan was relatively unknown and he therefore
+decided to appeal directly to the people, where his powers as a speaker
+would have great effect. The usual "notification" meeting was held in
+Madison Square Garden, in New York City, so as to carry the cause into
+the heart of "the enemy's country." During the few months of the
+campaign the Democratic candidate travelled 18,000 miles, made 600
+speeches and addressed nearly five million people. The effect was
+immediate. The forces of social unrest, hitherto silent in great
+measure, were becoming vocal and nobody could measure their extent.
+McKinley had prophesied that thirty days after the Republican
+convention nothing would be heard about the currency. When the thirty
+days had passed, on the contrary, scarcely anything was heard except
+that very question. Whatever his personal wishes, McKinley must meet
+the problem face to face, and in alarm, Hanna and the Republican
+campaign leaders put forth unparalleled efforts to save the party from
+defeat.
+
+The share of McKinley in these efforts was a novel one. Instead of
+going upon the stump, he remained at his home in Canton, Ohio. A
+constant stream of visiting delegations of supporters from all points
+of the compass came to hear him speak from his front porch. Some of the
+delegations came spontaneously; the visits of others were prearranged;
+but in all cases the speeches delivered were looked over beforehand
+with great care. The candidate memorized or read his own remarks and
+carefully revised those which the spokesman of the visitors planned to
+offer. In this way, any such untoward incident as the Burchard affair
+was avoided and the accounts of the front-porch speeches which went out
+through the press contained nothing which would injure the chances for
+success. The effectiveness of the plan was attested on all sides.
+
+In addition, extraordinary attempts were put forth to instruct the
+people on various aspects of the currency question. A small army was
+organized to distribute literature and address rallies; 120,000,000
+documents were distributed from the Chicago and New York headquarters;
+newspapers were supplied with especially prepared matter; posters and
+buttons were scattered by the carload. At the dinner-table, on the
+street corner, in the railroad train, in store, office and shop, the
+people gave themselves over to a heated discussion of the merits of
+gold and silver as currency and to the feasibility of free coinage at a
+ratio of 16 to 1. The amount of money which these efforts required was
+unusually large. Business men and banking institutions, especially in
+New York, contributed liberally. The Standard Oil Company gave
+$250,000; large life insurance companies helped freely, although the
+fact was well concealed at the time. Business men were fearful that
+Bryan's election would mean a great shrinkage in the value of their
+properties. Many feared that the Democrats would assail the Supreme
+Court and that their leader would surround himself with advisors of a
+reckless and revolutionary character. Funds therefore poured into the
+Republican war-chest to an amount estimated at three and a half million
+dollars.
+
+Before the close of the campaign a feeling akin to terror swept over
+the East; contracts were made contingent upon the election of McKinley;
+employees were paid on the Saturday night before election day and
+notified that they need not return to work in the event of Democratic
+success. Although caution and good manners characterized the utterances
+of the two candidates, their supporters were hardly so restrained. The
+following, for example, is typical of the editorial utterances of the
+New York _Tribune_:
+
+    Let us begin with the Ten Commandments. "Thou shalt not take the
+    name of the Lord thy God in vain." The Bryan campaign from beginning
+    to end has been marked with such a flood of blasphemy, of taking
+    God's name in vain, as this country, at least, has never known
+    before. "Thou shalt not steal." The very foundation of the Bryan
+    platform is wholesale theft. "Thou shalt not bear false witness."
+    In what day have Bryan and his followers failed to utter lies,
+    libels and forgeries? "Thou shalt not covet." Why, almost every
+    appeal made by Bryan, or for him, has been addressed directly to
+    the covetousness, the envy, and all the unhallowed passions of
+    human nature. A vote for Bryan is a vote for the abrogation of
+    those four Commandments.
+
+At the close of the campaign _The Nation_ sagely observed, "Probably no
+man in civil life has succeeded in inspiring so much terror, without
+taking life, as Bryan."
+
+The result of the election was decisive. McKinley and a Republican
+House of Representatives were elected, and the choice of a Republican
+Senate assured. The successful candidate received seven million
+votes--a half million more than his competitor. All the more densely
+populated states, together with the large cities--where the greatest
+accumulations of capital had taken place--were carried by the
+Republicans. Not a state north of the Potomac-Ohio line and east of
+the Mississippi was Democratic, and even Kentucky, by a narrow margin,
+and West Virginia crowded their way into the Republican column. On
+the other hand Bryan's hold on the South and West was almost equally
+strong. Never before had any presidential candidate received so great a
+vote and not for twenty years did a Democratic candidate surpass it.
+Moreover, although the Democratic vote on the Atlantic seaboard was
+less than that received by Cleveland in 1892, Bryan's support in the
+Middle West showed considerable gains over the earlier year, while
+Kansas, Nebraska and all the mining states except California were
+carried by the silver cause. On the whole the election seemed to
+indicate that the voters of the country, after unusual study of the
+issues of the campaign, clearly distrusted the free-silver program, but
+that class and sectional discontent had reached large proportions.
+
+[Illustration:
+The Presidential Election of 1896--the shaded states
+gave Bryan pluralities]
+
+The political results of the election of 1896 were important. It
+definitely fixed the attitude of the Republican party on the currency
+question; it gave the party control of the executive chair and of
+Congress at an important time; and it ensured the domination of the
+propertied classes and the _laissez faire_ philosophy in the party
+organization. On the other hand, the Democratic party had incurred the
+suspicion and hostility of the East, with hardly a compensating
+increase of strength in the West; its principles had become radical for
+that day and had abruptly changed from those of previous years; its
+membership included more of the discontented classes than before; and
+its leadership had been snatched from the hands of an experienced and
+conservative leader and placed in the care of an untried radical. It
+remained to be seen whether the victors would attempt to study and meet
+the complaints of the farmer and the wage earner; whether the new
+Republican leaders would be able to preserve the _laissez faire_
+attitude toward the railroads and the corporations; and whether the
+forces of dissent represented in Populism and radical Democracy had
+received a death blow or only a rebuff.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+Peck contains one of the most illuminating accounts of the rising in
+the West, together with the campaign of 1896. H. Croly, _Marcus A.
+Hanna_ (1912), is one of the few critical biographies of leaders who
+have lived since the Civil War. W.J. Bryan, _The First Battle_ (1897),
+is indispensable; C.S. Olcott, _William McKinley_ (2 vols., 1916), is
+uncritical and eulogistic, but makes important material available; C.A.
+Beard, _Contemporary American History_ (1914), contains a good chapter;
+W.H. Harvey, _Coin's Financial School_ (1894), is mentioned in the
+text; Carl Becker's clever essay in _Turner Essays in American History_
+(1910), throws light on Kansas psychology; S.J. Buck, _Agrarian
+Crusade_ (1920), is excellent. Consult also D.R. Dewey, _National
+Problems_ (1907); J.A. Woodburn, _Political Parties and Party Problems_
+(1914); _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, X, 269; and F.E. Haynes,
+_Third Party Movements_ (1916). The files of _The Nation_, and the New
+York _Tribune_ and _Sun_ well portray eastern opinion. The references
+to the rise of the populist movement under Chap. XII are also of
+service.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] I have drawn at this point upon Peck, _Twenty Years of the
+Republic_, 453-456.
+
+[2] Peck, 451-453.
+
+[3] For brief accounts of Tillman, see Leupp, _National Miniatures_,
+117; N.Y. _Times_, July 4, 1918; N.Y. _Evening Post_, July 3, 1918.
+
+[4] Cf. Whitlock, _Forty Years of It_, 64 ff.; Altgeld, _Live
+Questions_ and _The Cost of Something for Nothing_.
+
+[5] In connection with the following pages, consult Croly, _Marcus A.
+Hanna_, one of the few satisfactory biographies of this period.
+
+[6] As finally adopted, the gold plank asserted: "We are unalterably
+opposed to every measure calculated to debase our currency or impair
+the credit of our country. We are, therefore, opposed to the free
+coinage of silver, except by international agreement with the leading
+commercial nations of the world, which we pledge ourselves to promote,
+and until such agreement can be obtained the existing gold standard
+must be preserved. All our silver and paper currency must be maintained
+at parity with gold, and we favor all measures designed to maintain
+inviolably the obligations of the United States and all our money,
+whether coin or paper, at the present standard, the standard of the
+most enlightened nations of the earth." Several leaders claimed to
+have been the real author of the gold plank. It seems more nearly true
+that many men came to the convention prepared to insist on a definite
+statement and that each thought himself the originator of the party
+policy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+REPUBLICAN DOMINATION AND WAR WITH SPAIN
+
+The ceremonies attendant upon the inauguration of William McKinley on
+March 4, 1897, were typical of the care-taking generalship of Mark
+Hanna. The details of policing the crowds had been foreseen and
+attended to; the usual military review was effectively carried out to
+the last particular; "the Republican party was coming back to power as
+the party of organization, of discipline, of unquestioning obedience to
+leadership."[1]
+
+The political capacity, the characteristics and the philosophy of the
+new President were sufficiently representative of the forces which were
+to control American affairs for the next few years to make them matters
+of some interest. McKinley was a traditional politician in the better
+sense of the word. As an executive he was patient, calm, modest, wary.
+Ordinarily he committed himself to a project only after long
+consideration, and with careful propriety he avoided entangling
+political bargains. His engaging personality, his consummate tact and
+his thorough knowledge of the temper and traditions of Congress enabled
+him to lead that body, where Cleveland failed to drive it. As a speaker
+he seldom rose above an ordinary plane, but he was simple and sincere.
+His messages to Congress breathed an atmosphere of serenity and of
+deferential reliance upon the wise and judicious action of the
+legislative branch. Their smug and genial tone formed a sharp contrast
+with his predecessor's anxious demands for multifarious reforms; while
+Cleveland inveighed against narrow partisanship and selfish aims,
+McKinley benignantly observed: "The public questions which now most
+engross us are lifted far above either partisanship, prejudice, or
+former sectional differences."
+
+The political philosophy of McKinley typified that of his party. The
+possibilities which he saw in protective tariffs, which occupied the
+foremost position among his principles, were well set forth in his
+message to Congress on March 15, 1897. Additional duties should be
+levied on foreign importation, he asserted,
+
+    to preserve the home market, so far as possible, to our own
+    producers; to revive and increase manufactures; to relieve and
+    encourage agriculture; to increase our domestic and foreign
+    commerce; to aid and develop mining and building; and to render
+    to labor in every field of useful occupation the liberal wages
+    and adequate rewards to which skill and industry are justly
+    entitled.
+
+Like most American presidents, McKinley was a peace-lover, pleasantly
+disposed toward the arbitration of international difficulties and
+prepared to welcome any attempt to further that method of preserving
+the peace of the world. His conception of the presidential office
+differed somewhat sharply at several points from that of his
+predecessor. Like Cleveland he looked upon himself as peculiarly the
+representative of the people, but he was far less likely either to lead
+public opinion or to attempt to hasten the people to adopt a position
+which he had himself taken. This fact lay at the bottom of the
+complaints of his critics that he always had his "ear to the ground" in
+order that he might be prepared to go with the majority. On the other
+hand, although he was aware of constitutional limitation upon the
+functions of the executive, he was not so continually hampered by the
+strict constructionist view of the powers of the federal government as
+Cleveland had been. McKinley's attitude toward Congress was far more
+sagacious than Cleveland's. He distributed the usual patronage with
+skill; he approached Congressmen individually with the utmost tact; he
+appointed them to serve on commissions and boards of arbitration, and
+later, when matters upon which the commissions had been engaged came
+before Congress in the form of treaties or legislation, these men found
+themselves in a position to lead in the adoption of the principles
+which the President desired. All this indicated an ability to "touch
+elbows" with Congress that has rarely been exceeded. When coupled with
+the organizing power of Hanna, the harmonizing sagacity of the
+President soon brought about a notable degree of party solidarity. As a
+political organization, the Republican party reached a climax.
+
+McKinley was hardly an idealist, and distinctly not a reformer.
+Although sensitive to pressure from the reform element, he was not
+ahead of ordinary public opinion on matters of economic and political
+betterment. Leaders in federal railroad regulation found the President
+cold toward projects to strengthen the Interstate Commerce law; the
+Sherman Anti-trust Act was scarcely enforced at all during McKinley's
+administration, and the parts of his messages which relate to the
+regulation of industry are vague and lacking in purpose. One searches
+these documents in vain for any indication that the Republican leader
+had either vigorous sympathy with the economic and social unrest which
+had made the year 1896 so momentous or even any thorough understanding
+of it. Even if he had possessed both sympathy and understanding,
+however, it is doubtful whether he could have made real progress in the
+direction of economic legislation and the enforcement of the acts
+regulating railroads and industry, in view of his long-continued and
+close affiliation with business leaders of the Mark Hanna type and his
+deep obligation to them at the time of his financial embarrassments in
+1893.
+
+McKinley's cabinet was composed of men whose advanced age and
+conservative characteristics indicated that his advisers would commend
+themselves to the business world and would instinctively avoid all
+those radical proposals that were coming to be known as "Bryanism." The
+dean of the cabinet in age and experience as well as in reputation and
+ability was John Sherman, who was now almost seventy-four years of age
+and had been occupying a position of dignity and honor in the Senate.
+Two reasons have been given for his appointment to the post of
+Secretary of State. In the first place, important diplomatic affairs
+were on hand, in the settlement of which his long experience as a
+member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations would be of obvious
+advantage. The second reason was the ambition of Hanna to enter the
+Senate. Since Sherman and Hanna were both from Ohio, it was possible to
+call the former to the cabinet and rely upon the Governor of the state
+to appoint the latter to the Senate. The propriety of this course of
+action depended somewhat on the question of Sherman's physical
+condition. Rumor declared that he was suffering from mental decay, due
+to his age, but McKinley believed the rumor to be baseless, summoned
+him to the cabinet, and Hanna was subsequently appointed to the Senate.
+When Sherman took up the duties of his office it appeared that the
+rumor had been all too true, and a serious lapse of memory on his part
+in a diplomatic matter forced his immediate replacement by William R.
+Day. Somewhat more than a year later Day retired and John Hay assumed
+the position. Many critics have asserted that McKinley was aware of the
+precise condition of Sherman and that he made the choice despite this
+knowledge, but it now seems likely that he was guilty only of bad
+judgment and carelessness in failing to inform himself about Sherman's
+infirmities. Another error of judgment was made in the choice of
+Russell A. Alger as Secretary of War. Alger failed to convince popular
+opinion that he was an effective officer and he resigned in 1899. As in
+the case of Sherman, McKinley then somewhat retrieved his mistake by
+appointing a successor of undoubted ability, in the person of Elihu
+Root.[2] It thus came about that the political and economic theories
+which had been characteristic of the leaders of both parties during the
+seventies and eighties, but more particularly of the Republican party,
+were again in the ascendancy. The President and his cabinet were
+uniformly men who had grown up during the heyday of _laissez faire_,
+and Hanna, who would inevitably be regarded as the mouthpiece of the
+administration in the Senate, was the embodiment of that philosophy.
+
+McKinley's experience with the distribution of the offices emphasized
+the progress that had been made since civil service reform had been
+inaugurated. One of the steps which President Cleveland had taken
+during his last administration, it will be remembered, was to increase
+the number of positions under control of the Civil Service Commission.
+The immediate result, of course, was to increase the demand for places
+in the unclassified service. John Hay picturesquely described the
+situation in the State Department a few years later:
+
+    All other branches of the Civil Service are so rigidly provided
+    for that the foreign service is like the topmost rock which you
+    sometimes see in old pictures of the Deluge. The pressure for a
+    place in it is almost indescribable.
+
+Both in his inaugural address and in his message to Congress on
+December 6, 1897, McKinley expressed his approval of the prevailing
+system, but suggested the possibility of exempting some positions then
+in the classified service. President Cleveland had, indeed, admitted
+to the Civil Service Commission that a few modifications might be
+necessary. The Senate promptly ordered an investigation and discovered
+10,000 places which it believed could be withdrawn, but because of
+other events further action was delayed. In 1899 the President returned
+to the subject and promulgated an order authorizing the withdrawal of
+certain positions from competitive examination and the transfer of
+others from the Commission to the Secretary of War--a total of somewhat
+less than 5,000 changes.[3] It appeared, in view of the circumstances
+under which the change had occurred, that a retrograde step had been
+taken, and McKinley received the condemnation of the reformers.
+
+The first legislation undertaken by the administration was that
+relating to the tariff. The election of 1896, to be sure, had been
+fought out on the silver issue, but it was not deemed feasible to
+proceed at once to legislation on the subject, because of the strong
+silver contingent within the party. Several other considerations
+combined to draw attention away from the currency question and toward
+the tariff. The Wilson-Gorman Act of 1894 had been passed under
+circumstances that had caused the Democratic President himself to
+express his shame and disappointment; the period of industrial
+depression following the panic of 1893 had been attributed so widely to
+Democratic tariff legislation that a Republican tariff act could be
+hailed as a harbinger of prosperity; and the annual deficit which had
+continued since 1893 indicated a genuine need of greater revenue, if
+the current scale of expenditures was to be continued. The President
+and the party leaders in Congress were men who were prominently
+identified with the protective system, and it was not likely that the
+business interests which profited from protection, which believed in
+its beneficent operation, and which had contributed generously to the
+Republican war-chest would remain inactive in the presence of an
+opportunity to revise the tariff.
+
+Immediately after his succession to office, therefore, McKinley called
+a special session of Congress to legislate upon the chosen subject. His
+message urged an increase in revenue to be brought about by high import
+duties which, he suggested, should be so levied as to be advantageous
+to commerce, manufacturing, agriculture, mining, building and labor.
+The projected bill was already in hand. Republican success in the
+election had insured the return of Thomas B. Reed to the speaker's
+chair and Nelson Dingley to the Committee on Ways and Means. The latter
+was as devoted to the high-tariff cause as the Speaker and the
+President, and had laboriously constructed a bill which was distinctly
+protective. The legislative history of the Tariff Act of 1897--more
+commonly known as the Dingley act--was in several respects much like
+that of similar measures of earlier years. Its passage through the
+House was expedited by the masterful personality and vigorous tactics
+of the Speaker--a process which consumed less than a fortnight. In the
+Senate, bargain and delay ruled procedure; a few of the silver
+Republicans held the balance of power and demanded a _quid pro quo_ for
+their support; and the Secretary of the Wool Manufacturers' Association
+preserved a suggestively close connection with the Finance Committee
+which had charge of the bill. After amending the House draft in 872
+particulars, the Senate entrusted its interests to the usual conference
+committee, and there, as had happened before, the rates were in many
+cases raised above those desired by either the Senate or the House. The
+bill became law in July, 1897.
+
+The Dingley act added little to the settlement of the tariff problem.
+The ordinary consumer was as little able as before to present his
+demands effectively and at the time and place at which the rates were
+really determined. The requirements of the silver Republicans were met
+by the imposition of high duties on wool. For one reason or another,
+duties were restored or raised upon hides, silks and linens, although
+those on cotton goods were slightly lowered. The duty on sugar was
+retained at a point favorable to the trust. In brief, then, the Act of
+1897 was aggressively protectionist. An abortive section of the act
+empowered the President to conclude treaties providing for reductions,
+as great as twenty per cent., in return for commercial concessions from
+other countries. Such reciprocity arrangements, however, must be made
+within two years of the passage of the law and might not remain in
+force more than five years, and each treaty must be ratified by the
+Senate. The President was favorable to reciprocal adjustments and
+several were arranged but were uniformly rejected in the Senate.
+
+Business was prosperous after the enactment of the Dingley tariff and
+little agitation for a change was observable for a decade. Prosperity,
+being world wide, was doubtless not due in its entirety to the American
+tariff, yet the coincidence of protection and good times gave the
+Dingley act a pleasant reputation. For many years enthusiastic stump
+speakers placed the beneficence of Providence and the tariff of 1897 on
+an equality as causes of American well-being.
+
+The President's first message to Congress had extended congratulations
+upon the fact that peace and good will with all the nations of the
+earth continued unbroken. Nevertheless it was necessary for him to
+devote much attention to the relations between Spain and its most
+valuable American possession--the island of Cuba.
+
+American interest in Cuba was by no means of recent growth. The
+situation of the island--dominating the narrowest point of the waterway
+between the Atlantic seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico--insured the
+importance of Cuba as a strategic position. The traditional attitude of
+Spain toward her colony had been one of exploitation, a policy which
+was sure to be looked upon with suspicion by a nation which had itself
+revolted from oppression. Riots and rebellions in the island, having
+their origin in Spain's colonial policy, had long engaged American
+sympathy and attention. American statesmen--Jefferson, John Quincy
+Adams, Clay and Webster--had pondered upon the wisest and most
+advantageous disposition of Cuba. In 1859 the Senate Committee on
+Foreign Relations had even concluded that "The ultimate acquisition of
+Cuba may be considered a fixed purpose of the United States." From 1868
+to 1878 the "Ten Years' War" between Cuba and Spain had raised American
+feeling to a high pitch. The struggle was characterized by a barbarity
+that rivalled mediaeval warfare; islanders who escaped to the United
+States sent ships to Cuba laden with arms and men; American trade
+rights were interfered with and American citizens seized by the
+Spaniards and shot; the _Virginius_ was captured--a ship carrying the
+American flag--and many of her crew were executed. Indignation meetings
+were held, the navy was put in order and war was in sight. Cautious
+diplomatic negotiations delayed hostilities, however, and subsequently
+exhaustion caused the restoration of peace between Spain and her
+distracted colony.
+
+With the recurrence of insurrection in 1895, interest in the United
+States was renewed, and this time circumstances combined to bring about
+a climax in American relations with Spain. On both sides the contest
+between Spain and her colony was carried on with unutterable cruelty.
+The island leader, Maximo Gomez, conducted guerrilla warfare,
+devastating the country, destroying plantation buildings and forcing
+laborers to cease work, in order to exhaust the enemy or to bring about
+American intervention. Spanish procedure was even more barbaric. A
+"reconcentration" order, promulgated by Valeriano Weyler,
+Governor-general of the island and General-in-chief of the army,
+compelled the rural population to herd together in the garrisoned
+towns. Their buildings were then burned and their cattle driven away or
+killed; hygienic precautions were disregarded and the people themselves
+were insufficiently clothed and fed. The extermination of the
+inhabitants proceeded so rapidly as to promise complete devastation in
+a short time.
+
+President Cleveland had been deeply affected by the Cuban situation.
+His last annual message to Congress had noted the $30,000,000 to
+$50,000,000 of American capital invested in the island, the volume of
+trade amounting yearly to $100,000,000, the use of American soil by
+Cubans and Cuban sympathizers for raising funds and purchasing
+equipment, and the stream of claims for damages done to American
+property in Cuba. In spite of his well-known disinclination to share in
+the internal affairs of other peoples, he had voiced a suggestive
+warning that American patience could not be maintained indefinitely.
+
+The succession of McKinley seemed likely to result in a change in the
+attitude of America toward the Cuban problem. He was more responsive to
+public opinion than his predecessor had been, public opinion was more
+and more coming to favor intervention, and his party had committed
+itself in its platform to Cuban independence through American action.
+Moreover, two events early in 1898 greatly irritated the United States.
+
+On February 9 a New York newspaper published a letter written by Señor
+Enríque Dupuy de Lôme, Spanish minister to the United States, to a
+personal friend in Havana. It referred to President McKinley as a
+"would-be politician who tries to leave a door open behind himself
+while keeping on good terms with the jingoes of his party." It further
+revealed the intention of the Minister to carry on a propaganda among
+senators in the interest of a commercial treaty. On all sides it was
+seen that the usefulness of Señor de Lôme was at an end and his
+government immediately recalled him. On February 15 the whole world was
+shocked by the destruction of the United States battleship _Maine_ in
+Havana harbor, with the loss of 260 officers and men. News of the
+disaster was accompanied by the appeal of Captain Sigsby, commander of
+the vessel, that popular judgment of the causes of the disaster be
+suspended until a court of inquiry could investigate and report.
+Nevertheless on March 9, Congress placed $50,000,000 at the President's
+disposal for the purposes of national defence and the navy prepared for
+a conflict that seemed inevitable. Both the Spanish and American
+authorities conducted examinations. The American court reported that
+the ship had been destroyed by the explosion of a submarine mine, which
+had caused the partial explosion of two or more of her magazines. No
+evidence could be found which would fix the responsibility on any
+individual. The Spanish court came to the conclusion that the
+catastrophe was due solely to an explosion of the ship's magazines.
+American opinion naturally supported the findings of the American
+court, and feeling ran high; newspapers demanded war; "Remember the
+_Maine_" summarized much of popular discussion.[4]
+
+Under such circumstances, diplomatic negotiations looking toward peace
+were difficult, and resulted only in disagreements and delay.
+Accordingly on April 11 the President laid before Congress a succinct
+account of Cuban affairs and earnestly called for forcible
+intervention. The grounds for this action he found in the sufferings of
+the people of Cuba, the injuries to Americans and to American property
+and trade, and the menace to American peace which was entailed by
+continuous conflict at our very threshold.[5] The transfer of the Cuban
+question from the hands of the President to those of Congress was
+equivalent to a decision in favor of war. On April 19 the Senate and
+House resolved that the people of Cuba were and ought to be
+independent, demanded that Spain withdraw from the island and directed
+the President to use the force of the nation to achieve the results
+desired. The approval of the Executive on the following day completed
+the severance of peaceful relations with Spain. At daylight on April 22
+Admiral Sampson and his fleet were crossing the narrows between Florida
+and Cuba, on the way to establish a blockade of the greater part of the
+island. Within three days more, Commodore George Dewey, who was in
+command of a fleet at Hong-Kong, had been instructed to proceed at once
+to the Philippine Islands and capture or destroy the Spanish fleet
+there. On April 25 Congress formally declared war upon the kingdom of
+Spain.
+
+It was not by mere chance, of course, that Admiral Sampson and
+Commodore Dewey were prepared to act with such celerity. Authorities in
+the Navy Department had long felt that a collision with Spain was
+inevitable and had been preparing for such an eventuality. With as
+little publicity as possible the Department completed and commissioned
+ships that were already under construction; it hastened the repair of
+vessels which were in any way defective; it ordered target practice and
+fleet manoeuvres; and it prepared plans for the conduct of a naval war.
+Commanders of squadrons were instructed to keep in service men whose
+terms of enlistment were about to expire; supplies of ammunition were
+procured and shipped to points where they would be needed; the
+_Oregon_, which had been stationed on the Pacific coast, was ordered to
+return to Key West by way of the Straits of Magellan and so began a
+voyage whose closing days were watched with interest by a whole nation.
+A Northern Patrol Squadron was organized to guard New England; a Flying
+Squadron was assembled at Hampton Roads for service on the Atlantic
+coast or abroad; and a formidable array gathered at Key West under
+Rear-Admiral Sampson for duty in the West Indies. Foreign shipyards
+were scoured for vessels in process of building and several were
+purchased, completed and renamed for American service. Greater
+additions were made through the purchase of merchantmen and their
+transformation into auxiliary cruisers, gunboats and colliers. In these
+ways the attempt was made, with some success, to improvise a navy on
+the eve of war.
+
+The people of the country had scarcely become accustomed to the thought
+that war with Spain had actually come to pass when word was received in
+Washington of the exploit of Commodore Dewey in the Philippine Islands.
+Attention for the moment was focussed on the Far East, and the press
+dilated upon the first test of the new American Navy.
+
+The story of the test proved to have points of interest and importance.
+When Commodore Dewey received the orders already mentioned, on April
+25, he finished immediately the preparations for conflict which had
+been initiated and turned his flagship, the _Olympia_, in the direction
+of Manila. His available force consisted of four protected cruisers,
+two gunboats, a revenue cutter, a collier and a supply ship. The city
+of Manila is on Manila Bay, a body of water twenty miles or more wide,
+and is reached only through a narrow entrance. Dewey judged that the
+channel was too deep to be mined successfully except by trained experts
+and that both contact and electrical mines would deteriorate so rapidly
+in tropical waters as to be effective only for a short time. He
+therefore decided to steam through the channel at night, disregarding
+the mines, and to attack the Spanish fleet which lay within. The plans
+worked out even better than he had hoped. With all lights masked and
+the crews at the guns, the squadron moved silently through the passage
+with no other opposition than three shots from a single battery. Once
+within the Bay Dewey steamed slowly toward the city of Manila and then
+back to a fortified point, Cavite, where he found his quarry arranged
+in an irregular crescent and awaiting the conflict. Oblivious of the
+hasty and inaccurate fire from the batteries on shore, he deliberately
+moved to a position within two and a half miles of the Spanish ships
+and said to the Captain of the _Olympia_, "You may fire when you are
+ready, Gridley."
+
+[Illustration:
+The Philippines]
+
+Three times westward and twice eastward the American squadron ran
+slowly back and forth, using the port and starboard batteries in turn,
+and in a short time the shore batteries and the Spanish fleet were
+masses of ruins. Of the American forces, only eight were injured, and
+they only slightly, while 167 of the Spanish were killed and 214
+wounded. News of the victory was as unexpected as it was welcome in the
+United States. President McKinley appointed Dewey an acting
+Rear-Admiral and on all sides discussion began of the situation and
+possibilities of the Philippines.
+
+In the meantime, the position of the American squadron was far from
+secure. To be sure, all resistance from the batteries in and around
+Manila was quickly suppressed by a threat to destroy the city;
+nevertheless Admiral Dewey was in command of too slight a force to
+enable him to occupy both the town and its environs. He accordingly
+notified Washington that more troops were necessary if it were intended
+to seize and retain Manila, and expeditionary forces were despatched,
+the first of which arrived on June 30. Indeed it was high time that
+assistance be forthcoming, for new possibilities of conflict had
+appeared in the presence of a powerful force of German warships.
+
+As soon as the defeat of the Spanish squadron had been effected,
+Admiral Dewey established a blockade of Manila Bay and, according to
+custom, the war vessels of interested nations went thither to observe
+the effectiveness of the blockade and to care for the well-being of
+their nationals. Among the early arrivals were the British, the French
+and the Japanese, all of whom observed the formalities of the situation
+and reported to the American Admiral before venturing into the harbor.
+The Germans, however, omitted the proprieties until sharply reminded by
+a shot across the bow of the _Cormoran_. By mid-June five German
+men-of-war under command of Vice Admiral von Diedrichs were in the
+Bay--a force nearly if not quite the match of the American squadron.
+When the Germans continued their disregard of the regulations
+controlling the blockade, indicating a potential if not an actual
+hostility, it became necessary for Admiral Dewey to have done with the
+Teutonic peril at once. He sent a verbal message to von Diedrichs which
+effectually ended all controversy. Admiral Dewey has not disclosed the
+exact phraseology of the message, nor did he send a record of it to the
+Navy Department. A newspaper correspondent who was acting as one of the
+Admiral's aides asserted that the protest was against von Diedrich's
+disregard of the usual courtesies of naval intercourse and that it
+closed with the words, "if he wants a fight he can have it right now."
+The disclosure by Captain Edward Chichester, in command of the English
+force, that he had orders to comply with Admiral Dewey's restrictions
+and that his sympathies were with the Americans, together with the
+arrival of the expeditionary force, assured American supremacy and a
+peaceful blockade. On August 13 a joint movement of the naval forces
+and the infantry under General Wesley Merritt resulted in the speedy
+surrender of the city of Manila. The Americans were now in control of
+the capital of the Philippine Islands and would, perforce, face the
+question of the ultimate disposition of the archipelago in case of the
+eventual defeat of Spain. In the meanwhile, popular attention turned
+toward stirring events which were taking place in the Caribbean Sea.
+
+On April 28--a week after Admiral Sampson started for Cuba--the Spanish
+Admiral Cervera left the Cape Verde Islands. His force was a
+considerable one; his goal was unknown, although naturally believed to
+be some point in the Spanish West Indies. On the assumption that this
+hypothesis was a correct one, Sampson patrolled the northern coast of
+Cuba, extending his movement as far as Porto Rico, and scouts were
+placed out beyond Guadeloupe and Martinique. The entire nation
+anxiously awaited the outcome of the impending encounter.
+
+[Illustration:
+The Spanish-American War in the West Indies]
+
+On May 19 Cervera slipped into Santiago, a town on the eastern end of
+Cuba which had rail connection with Havana, the capital of the island.
+Commodore W.S. Schley who was in command of a squadron on the southern
+coast soon received information of the enemy's whereabouts and
+established a blockade of the city, while Sampson hastened to the scene
+and assumed command of operations. The American force now included four
+first-class battleships, one second-class battleship and two cruisers.
+They were arranged in semi-circular formation facing the harbor, and at
+night powerful search-lights were kept directed upon the channel which
+Admiral Cervera must take in case of an attempt to escape. The main
+part of Santiago Bay is between four and five miles long and is reached
+through a narrow entrance channel. Elevated positions at the mouth of
+the channel rendered the vigorous defence of the harbor a matter of
+some ease. Early in the progress of the blockade the Americans
+attempted to sink a collier across the entrance, but fortunately, as it
+turned out, this daring project failed, and Admiral Sampson settled
+down to await developments.
+
+It was apparent that the capture of Santiago, and the destruction of
+the fleet could be brought about only through a joint movement of the
+army and navy. Hitherto the war had been entirely on the sea.
+Nevertheless over 200,000 volunteers had been called for, in addition
+to somewhat over 50,000 regular troops and the "Rough Riders"--the last
+a regiment of volunteer cavalry which had been raised by Colonel
+Leonard Wood and Theodore Roosevelt and which was largely composed of
+cowboys, ranchmen, Indians and athletes from eastern colleges. The
+regulars, together with a few volunteers and the Rough Riders, were
+sent to Tampa, Florida, while most of the volunteers were trained at
+Chicamauga Park, in Georgia. It had been expected that the important
+military operations would take place around Havana and for that reason
+the officer commanding the army, General Nelson A. Miles, with most of
+the regular troops, were retained for the larger service. The command
+of the expedition to Santiago fell to General William E. Shafter.
+Sixteen thousand eight hundred and eighty-seven officers and men set
+sail from Tampa on June 14 and began to disembark eight days later at
+Daiquiri, sixteen miles to the east of Santiago.
+
+Advancing from this point General Lawton, commanding a division of
+infantry, moved parallel to the shore and seized Siboney. General
+Wheeler, a former Confederate who was now in command of the cavalry,
+met and defeated a Spanish force at Las Guasimas. Further advance met
+difficulties that were more serious. On the left of the American line
+was San Juan Hill, an eminence which commanded the country toward the
+east; on the right was El Caney, a fortified village held by a small
+force of Spaniards. The country between the two points was a jungle,
+the roads hardly better than trails, where troops frequently had to
+go in single file. The fight at El Caney was severe, the enemy being
+well-entrenched, well-armed and protected by wire entanglements and
+block houses, and General Lawton suffered a loss of more than 400
+killed and wounded before driving the Spaniards out of their position.
+San Juan Hill was still more stubbornly defended, and an American
+advance was impeded by the heat, the tropical growth and the uneven
+character of the country. Under these circumstances officers became
+separated from their men and victory was gained through the
+determination and resourcefulness of the individual. The Spaniards then
+fell back upon Santiago.
+
+[Illustration:
+Campaign about Santiago]
+
+The continued success of the Americans compelled the Spanish
+authorities to make an immediate decision in regard to the fleet. To
+remain in the harbor seemed to mean being encircled and starved; to go
+out through the narrow channel seemed to lead to sure destruction. Yet
+the latter venture appealed to the commander-in-chief of Cuba,
+Captain-General Blanco, as the more honorable one and on July 2 orders
+were sent to Admiral Cervera to make the attempt. Early next morning,
+while Admiral Sampson was away at a conference with General Shafter,
+lookouts on the American battleships descried the _Infanta Maria
+Teresa_ feeling her way out of the harbor, followed by the remainder
+of the Spanish fleet, three armored cruisers and two torpedo-boat
+destroyers. The Americans instantly closed in, directing their fire
+first against the _Teresa_ and later against the rest of the fleet as
+they tried to follow their leader out to safety. Once out of the harbor
+the entire Spanish fleet dashed headlong toward the west, parallel to
+the coast, while the Americans kept pace, pouring a gruelling fire from
+every available gun. The Spaniards returned the fire and thus "the
+action resolved itself into a series of magnificent duels between
+powerful ironclads." One by one the enemy's vessels were sunk or forced
+to run ashore--the _Cristobal Colon_ last, at two o'clock in the
+afternoon. The Spanish losses, besides the fleet, were 323 killed and
+151 wounded; the Americans lost one killed and one wounded. The city of
+Santiago, deprived of its fleet, found itself in a desperate plight and
+surrendered on July 16. Shortly afterwards General Miles led an
+expedition into Porto Rico, but operations were soon brought to a close
+because of the suspension of hostilities, and from a military point of
+view the importance of the campaign was negligible.
+
+The succession of overwhelming defeats drove home to Spain the futility
+of further conflict. The despatch of American troops to the Philippines
+and to Porto Rico, moreover, indicated that Spain would soon suffer
+other losses. Hence the Spanish government, acting through Jules
+Cambon, the French ambassador to the United States, sought terms for
+the settlement of the war. The President's reply of July 30 made the
+following stipulations: Spain to relinquish and evacuate Cuba and to
+cede Porto Rico and one of the Ladrone Islands; the United States to
+occupy the city and bay of Manila, pending the conclusion of peace and
+the determination of the final disposition of the Philippines. Spain
+wished to restrict negotiations to the Cuban question, but was forced
+to accept the conditions laid down by the victor. A preliminary
+agreement or protocol was therefore signed, which provided for a
+conference at Paris concerning peace terms.
+
+The uniform success of the American arms could not obscure the popular
+belief that the Department of War had been guilty of many shortcomings.
+It will doubtless be always a subject for dispute as to whether the
+major portion of the blame is to be laid at the door of the traditional
+American disinclination to be prepared for warfare, or upon Secretary
+Alger and his immediate advisors. That the conduct of the military
+affairs was inexpert, however, is admitted on all sides. The facilities
+for taking care of the troops at Tampa were inadequate. When transports
+reached Tampa to take the troops to Santiago, officers wildly scrambled
+to get their men on board. The Rough Riders, for example, made their
+way into a transport intended for two other regiments, one of regulars
+and the other of volunteers, with the result that the volunteers and
+half of the regulars were left on shore. The clothing supplied for the
+Cuban campaign was better suited to a cold climate than to summer in
+the tropics. The health of the troops during the Santiago campaign was
+such that the general officers expressed the opinion that the army must
+immediately be removed from Cuba or suffer severe and unnecessary
+losses from malarial fever. When the men were removed, however, they
+were taken to Montauk Point on Long Island, where the climate was too
+cool and bracing. Unsanitary conditions in the training camps within
+the borders of the United States were the cause of fatalities estimated
+at several times the number killed in battle. A controversy over the
+quality of the beef supplied to the troops led to an executive
+commission of investigation. Both unnecessary and unfortunate was the
+Sampson-Schley controversy, which originated in a difference of opinion
+about the proportion of credit which each of these officers should have
+for the success of Santiago and which was continued in charges that the
+latter had made serious mistakes in the conduct of his share of the
+operations. Subsequently a Court of Inquiry investigated the
+accusations and made a decision which did not completely satisfy either
+side.
+
+Despite these minor mistakes, however, the war increased the strength
+of the administration. The most lasting effects of the conflict on
+constitutional and political history demand detailed discussion at a
+later point, but the immediate results can be briefly stated.[6] The
+successful prosecution of a popular war, combined with widespread
+prosperity and the demoralization of the opposition party greatly
+heightened the prestige of the Republicans. McKinley appeared to have
+been in truth, the "advance agent of prosperity"; and his party
+obtained a dominating control of public policy.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+H. Croly, _Marcus A. Hanna_ (1912), and C.S. Olcott, _William McKinley_
+(2 vols., 1916), discuss the politics of the period, subject to the
+limitations already mentioned. W.D. Foulke, _Fighting the Spoilsman_
+(1919), describes the relation of the administration to the civil
+service; for the Dingley tariff, Stanwood, Tarbell and Taussig.
+
+The literature on the Spanish war is extensive. Most detailed and
+reliable is F.E. Chadwick, _Relations of the United States and Spain_;
+I, _Diplomacy_, II, III, _The Spanish War_ (1909, 1911). J.H. Latané,
+_America as a World Power_ (1907), has several good chapters; H.E.
+Flack, _Spanish-American Diplomatic Relations Preceding the War of
+1898_ (1906), and E.J. Benton, _International Law and Diplomacy of the
+Spanish-American War_ (1908), take up the diplomatic side. On naval
+preparations, J.D. Long, _New American Navy_ (2 vols., 1903), is by
+McKinley's Secretary of the Navy; see also E.S. Maclay, _History of
+the United States Navy_ (rev. ed., 3 vols., 1901-1902). Good
+autobiographical accounts are: C.E. Clark, _My Fifty Years in the Navy_
+(1917); George Dewey, _Autobiography_ (1913); Theodore Roosevelt,
+_Autobiography_; and W.S. Schley, _Forty-five Years under the Flag_
+(1914). See also A.T. Mahan, _Lessons of the War with Spain_ (1899).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Cf. Peck, 518.
+
+[2] Other members of the cabinet were: Lyman J. Gage, Ill., Secretary
+of the Treasury; Joseph McKenna, Calif., Attorney-General; J.A. Gary,
+Md., Postmaster-General; J.D. Long, Mass., Secretary of the Navy, C.N.
+Bliss, Secretary of the Interior; James Wilson, Ia., Secretary of
+Agriculture.
+
+[3] The National Civil Service Reform League estimated the changes at
+10,000.
+
+[4] In 1911 the wreck of the _Maine_ was raised and examined. The
+evidence found was such as to substantiate the findings of the American
+court of inquiry. _Scientific American_, January 27, 1912.
+
+[5] It has commonly been felt among certain classes in the United
+States since 1898 that the business interests whose property and trade
+were mentioned by President McKinley had an undue share in bringing
+about the declaration of war. While it can not be doubted that the
+President was swayed more by business interests than most of our
+executives since the Civil War have been, yet it is also true that the
+sufferings of the Cubans aroused genuine sympathy in the United States.
+The President himself was anxious to delay war as long as possible.
+
+[6] Below, Chap. XVIII.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+IMPERIALISM
+
+"The guns of Admiral Dewey did something more than destroy a Spanish
+fleet in the harbor of Manila. Their echo came back to us in a
+question new in the history of our government." The new problem was
+Imperialism--was it wise policy and was it constitutional to annex and
+govern territories outside the limits of continental North America? In
+colonial problems the United States had had no experience; and if the
+Philippines, Cuba or Porto Rico were annexed, it would be necessary
+to administer the affairs of peoples whose languages, racial
+characteristics and forms of government were utterly strange. Such
+objections arose in the minds of many Americans as the conference
+assembled at Paris on October 1 to settle the terms of peace.[1]
+
+The chief controversies between the Spanish and the American negotiators
+related to Cuba and the Philippines. The Spanish commissioners early
+proposed to transfer Cuba to the United States, the latter to turn it
+over to the Cuban people in due time. With the sovereignty of Cuba was
+to go the debt of the island. On the refusal of the Americans to accede
+to this, the Spanish commissioners urged the transfer of Cuba to the
+United States without any promise as to its future. Instructions from
+Washington both on possession and on debt, however, were explicit and
+in the end Spain had to relinquish all claim to Cuba and assume
+responsibility for its indebtedness. The proper disposition of the
+Philippines presented far greater difficulty. Not only was there a
+difference of opinion between the two groups of commissioners, but the
+American government was in doubt about the wisest course to pursue, and
+grave diversity of opinion existed among the people and in the peace
+commission itself. Moreover the capture of the city of Manila had taken
+place after the protocol had been signed and after hostilities had been
+ordered suspended, but before news of these facts had reached Admiral
+Dewey. The original instructions of President McKinley to the peace
+commissioners were to the effect that the outcome of the war had placed
+new duties and responsibilities on the United States, that the
+commercial opportunity which possession of the Philippines would present
+could not be overlooked and that the island of Luzon at least must be
+ceded. So little was known about the people and the possibilities of the
+islands that the American commission was compelled to go far afield to
+obtain information from writers and investigators in regard to questions
+of defence, the political capacity of the inhabitants, the danger that
+another nation might step in if the United States should evacuate,
+commercial prospects, and so on. President McKinley soon came to the
+opinion that the proper course was to take the entire archipelago. To
+give them back to Spain seemed "dishonorable"; to turn them over to our
+commercial rivals, France or Germany, seemed "bad business"; to leave
+them to themselves would be to leave them to "anarchy and misrule";
+hence there was nothing to do but to take all of them and attempt to
+spread American civilization among the Filipino people. The American
+commissioners therefore demanded the Philippines, but realizing the
+defect in their case, since the conquest of Manila had taken place after
+the conclusion of the protocol, agreed to pay Spain $20,000,000. The
+Spanish commissioners thereupon yielded to necessity and reluctantly
+agreed.
+
+As finally signed, the treaty of December 10, 1898, contained the
+following points: Spain agreed to relinquish Cuba, and the United
+States was to protect life and property during its occupancy of the
+island; Spain also ceded Porto Rico and the other Spanish West Indies,
+Guam in the Ladrones, and the Philippines on payment of $20,000,000;
+the United States agreed to return to Spain, at its own cost, all
+Spanish prisoners taken at the time of the capture of Manila; the
+civil and political rights of the inhabitants of the ceded territories
+were to be determined by Congress; and freedom of religion was
+guaranteed.
+
+The reference of the treaty to the Senate for ratification elicited
+many divergences of opinion, the ablest opposition being presented by
+members of the President's own party. In particular, the position
+taken by Senator Hoar, a rigid Republican and a close friend of
+President McKinley, made a strong impression. That there can be no
+just government without the consent of the governed, he asserted, was
+the central doctrine of the Declaration of Independence. Moreover, the
+acquisition of foreign lands, he believed, would lead us into
+competition with European powers for territory, and thus tempt us away
+from the international policy which had been laid down by the
+"fathers" and followed by the nation ever since. Most of the Democrats
+held similar views, but some of them heeded the advice of Bryan, who
+urged that the treaty be ratified in order to end the war, and that
+the ultimate disposition of the new possessions be decided in the next
+presidential campaign. The point of view which seems to have prevailed
+with most Republicans was that the United States, being a sovereign
+nation, possessed power to acquire territory and to determine its
+future status, and that as a matter of expediency it was better to
+take the Philippines than to risk the dangers which lay in leaving
+them alone. Shortly before the final vote was taken, an insurrection
+broke out in the Philippines against American control, which may have
+influenced some senators to accept the President's settlement. Even
+with this aid, however, ratification was brought about by the narrow
+margin of one vote more than the required two-thirds majority.[2]
+
+Within the field of politics, the Republicans increased the advantage
+which they had gained in 1896. The congressional and state elections
+of 1893 continued their control of the House and strengthened it in
+the Senate; the world-wide prosperity which has already been mentioned
+and in which the United States shared, was in striking contrast with
+the business depression of the recent Democratic administration;
+discoveries of gold deposits in the Klondike and the improvement of
+methods of extracting the metal from the ore greatly increased the
+currency supply and assisted in raising the level of prices, thereby
+giving greater prosperity to the western farmer and lessening his
+complaints. The gold standard act of March 14, 1900, pleased the
+financial interests, for it fixed the standard of value, set the
+amount of the gold reserve at $150,000,000, and specified adequate
+means by which the Secretary of the Treasury could maintain other
+forms of money on a parity with the precious metal. Within the
+Republican organization, the President's soothing personality and
+Hanna's meticulous attention to the details of the party machinery
+continued undiminished the momentum which had been gathered.
+Defections on the imperialism issue, while affecting important party
+leaders, were numerically unimportant. Among the financial and
+industrial classes, therefore, confidence in President McKinley and
+his advisors was thoroughgoing. There was a strong bond of interest,
+moreover, between territorial expansion and industrial expansion,
+between Imperialism and the expansion of foreign markets. The primacy
+of business was assured.
+
+The renomination of McKinley at the Republican Convention in
+Philadelphia, on June 19, 1900, was unanimous. The vice-presidency,
+contrary to tradition, occupied the center of interest. Several men of
+prominence were mentioned in this connection but the name which evoked
+most enthusiasm was that of Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt's career
+during the war with Spain had been a prominent factor in making him
+Governor of New York. As Governor he had shown energy and independence,
+especially in connection with measures for taxing street railway and
+other franchises, and had come into conflict with Senator Thomas C.
+Platt, the boss of the state. Senator Platt, therefore, desired to
+divert the vigorous Governor into the vice-presidency, an office which
+usually casts a "species of political oblivion" over its occupant.
+McKinley was opposed to the plan and so were Hanna and Roosevelt
+himself. The latter desired to put into effect further plans which he
+had made as Governor, and the attempt to shelve him aroused his
+fighting spirit. In the convention, however, sentiment in behalf of
+Roosevelt, especially from the West, was so strong as to over-rule
+both the administration and the wishes of the Governor. McKinley sent
+emphatic word that he was neither for nor against any man, but would
+accept the decision of the delegates. Hanna then withdrew his
+objections and Roosevelt was nominated without opposition.
+
+The Republican platform emphasized the prosperity which had resulted
+from the accession of the party to power; it pointed out the danger
+which would ensue if the opposition were allowed to conduct public
+affairs; and it dwelt upon the growth of the export trade, and the
+beneficence of the Dingley tariff. An antitrust plank deprecated
+combinations designed to create monopolies, and promised legislation
+to prevent such abuses. Imperialism was briefly dismissed: "No other
+course was possible than to destroy Spain's sovereignty throughout the
+West Indies and in the Philippine Islands. That course created our
+responsibility before the world ... to provide for the maintenance of
+law and order, and for the establishment of good government and for
+the performance of international obligations."
+
+The dissension which had existed within the Democratic party since the
+second administration of Cleveland was still the important fact about
+the organization. Having been out of power, the party could take only
+the negative position of hostile criticism; there had been no
+reorganization and clarification of purposes, and no new leader had
+appeared who combined the personal prestige of Bryan with those
+qualities of conservatism and solidity which the East demanded, so
+that from the beginning there was no doubt that Bryan would again be
+the candidate and that he would take the lead in framing the platform.
+The convention met in Kansas City, on July 4. The platform placed most
+emphasis upon three issues. The first, which was declared the
+"paramount" one, was imperialism. The reasons given for opposing
+territorial expansion were mainly those brought forward by Senator
+Hoar at the time when the peace treaty was under discussion.
+
+    We declare again that all governments instituted among men derive
+    their just powers from the consent of the governed; that any
+    government not based upon the consent of the governed is a tyranny;
+    and that to impose upon any people a government of force is to
+    substitute the methods of imperialism for those of a republic.
+
+The second issue, the evils of big business, received renewed
+attention, although an old complaint, because of the many industrial
+consolidations of the years immediately preceding. The "trusts" were
+condemned for appropriating the fruits of industry for the benefit of
+the few, and the Republican party was charged with fostering them in
+return for campaign subscriptions and political support. The Dingley
+act was denounced as a "trust-breeding" measure. The remedies proposed
+were severely definite in comparison with the vague plank which had
+been offered by the Republicans: they included publicity as to the
+affairs of corporations doing an interstate business; the prohibition
+of stock-watering and attempts at monopoly; and the use of all the
+constitutional powers of Congress over interstate commerce and the
+mails for the enactment of comprehensive and effective legislation.
+That the silver issue was mentioned was due to the insistence of Bryan,
+who believed that the stand which had been taken by the party in 1896
+was a right one. Notwithstanding the objections of many influential
+leaders, therefore, a free silver plank was inserted, although in brief
+terms and in an inconspicuous place.
+
+As a political contest, the campaign of 1900 lacked life in comparison
+with that of 1896. Interest in anti-imperialism was difficult to
+arouse, and waned visibly as the weeks wore on. Prosperity and the
+increased money supply sapped the strength of earlier discontent with
+the currency situation, so that the choice presented to the voters
+simmered down to imperialism and Bryan. A bit of vigor was infused into
+the campaign through the energetic speaking tours of Roosevelt and the
+Democratic leader. Hanna, as Chairman of the Republican National
+Committee, organized everything with his usual skill, and raised, his
+biographer tells us, $2,500,000 from the important business men of the
+country--one-fifth of it from two companies. The result of the election
+was the choice of McKinley, whose plurality over Bryan exceeded 860,000
+in a total vote of less than 14,000,000; Bryan received less support
+than had been accorded him in 1896.
+
+While imperialism as a political issue was being discussed and decided,
+the history of American control in Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines
+was rapidly being written. Economic conditions in the first of these
+islands at the time of the American occupation were little short of
+appalling. The streets, houses and public institutions were filthy and
+in disrepair; anarchy ruled, for lack of any stable and recognized
+government; and the people were half-clothed, homeless and starving. At
+noon on January 1, 1899, the Spanish flag was hauled down in Havana,
+the American flag was hoisted in its place, and representatives of the
+former government relinquished all rights to the sovereignty and public
+property of the island. General John R. Brooke, and later General
+Leonard Wood controlled affairs as military governors.
+
+The first task was to feed the hungry, and care for the sick and dying.
+The customs service was revived under command of Colonel Tasker H.
+Bliss and began to supply needed revenue. The penal institutions were
+investigated--noisome holes in which were crowded wretched prisoners,
+many of whom had been incarcerated for no ascertainable reason.
+Education was reorganized, equipment provided, teachers found, and
+schools repaired or rebuilt. Most remarkable, was the work of
+sanitation. Heaps of rubbish were cleared away; houses washed and
+disinfected; sewers were opened and streets cleaned. Scientific
+investigation disclosed the fact that the mosquito disseminated the
+yellow fever and steps were taken to prevent the breeding of these
+pests. So successful were the efforts that in a few years the fever had
+become a thing of the past.
+
+It was seen that the economic rehabilitation of Cuba must come about
+mainly through the production of sugar, and since the United States was
+the chief purchaser of the product, the tariff schedule was of vital
+importance. In 1901 Congress was urged to reduce the tariff on imports
+from Cuba, but the opposition was formidable. The American Beet Sugar
+Association complained that their industry, which had been recently
+established, would be ruined by allowing reductions to Cuban growers;
+the cane-sugar planters of Louisiana were allied with them; and the
+friends of protection feared the effect of any break in the tariff
+wall. On the other hand, the American Sugar Refining Company, popularly
+called the "Sugar Trust," merely refined raw sugar and desired an
+increase in the supply. Lobbyists of all descriptions poured into
+Washington to influence committees and individuals, and General Leonard
+Wood, then the Governor of Cuba, even expended Cuban funds in the
+spread of literature favorable to a reciprocal reduction of duties. In
+the meantime, a reciprocity treaty was made and submitted to the
+Senate, where it hung fire for somewhat more than a year, and was
+finally ratified on December 16, 1903. It provided for the admission of
+Cuban products into the United States at a reduction of twenty per
+cent., and a reciprocal reduction on American goods entering Cuba of
+twenty-five to forty per cent.
+
+The establishment of a policy in regard to permanent relations between
+the United States and Cuba was brought about in 1901-1902. When
+Congress had demanded the withdrawal of Spain from the island in 1898,
+its action had been accompanied by the Teller Resolution, disclaiming
+any intention of keeping Cuba and asserting a determination to leave
+the control of the island with its people. After the close of the war
+President McKinley and his closest advisors in Congress had determined
+that the pledge should be kept, and public sentiment had been in
+agreement with them. As soon, therefore, as American control was an
+established fact, plans were formulated for relinquishing Cuba to the
+people of the island. A constitutional convention was held, and a form
+of government, modelled on that of the United States, was framed and
+adopted on February 21, 1901.
+
+While the Cuban convention was deliberating, it became apparent that
+the constitution would not include any statement of a policy in regard
+to future relations with the United States. The American Senate,
+therefore, under the leadership of Senator O.H. Platt, passed the
+so-called "Platt Amendment." Its several provisions were as follows:
+the Cuban government shall never enter into agreements with other
+powers which tend to impair the independence of the island; it shall
+not contract public debts of such size that the ordinary revenues would
+be inadequate to pay interest charges and provide for a sinking fund;
+it shall permit the intervention of the United States when needed to
+preserve Cuban independence and the maintenance of an adequate
+government; and it shall sell or lease necessary coaling stations to
+the United States. When satisfied that the purpose of the Amendment was
+not to enable the United States to meddle in affairs in Cuba, but
+merely to secure Cuban independence and set forth a definite
+understanding between the two nations, the convention incorporated it
+in the final constitution. On May 20, 1902, the control of Cuba was
+formally relinquished to the people of the island, with the good wishes
+of the people of the United States. Only once since that time has the
+United States intervened. During the summer of 1906, an insurrection
+against the Cuban government took place during which the president of
+the Republic requested American assistance. A small army was
+despatched, which remained until March, 1909, when quiet was restored
+and an orderly election was held.
+
+The task of the United States in Porto Rico was far simpler than in
+Cuba. The island was small; the people homogeneous, predominantly
+white, and well-disposed toward American occupation; and only slight
+damage had been done by the troops during the war because of the
+cessation of hostilities at the outset of the Porto Rican expedition.
+The development of a system of education, therefore, the improvement of
+roads and the betterment of health conditions through vaccination and
+the control of yellow fever presented a problem which was relatively
+simple.
+
+On October 18, 1898, United States officials assumed control of the
+island, and until May 1, 1900, the government was in the hands of the
+War Department. On the latter date a civil government was established
+under the "Foraker Act," an organic law or constitution passed by
+Congress on April 12, 1900. Under the provisions of the Act a governor
+was to be appointed by the President of the United States, to be the
+chief executive officer of the island. The people of Porto Rico were
+allowed a voice in the government through the power to elect the lower
+house of the legislature; but control by the United States was assured
+by giving the President authority to choose the members of the upper
+house, and by giving both the governor and Congress a veto on
+legislation passed by the island legislature. In the course of time the
+Porto Ricans desired larger self-government. This was granted by the
+act of March 2, 1917, which made the islanders citizens of the United
+States and gave them power to elect both houses of the legislature.[3]
+
+The first difficulty met by the United States in the Philippines was an
+inheritance from Spanish rule. In 1896 the Filipinos, led by Aguinaldo,
+had risen against the government in order to secure more liberal
+treatment and to eliminate the influence of the Catholic friars from
+politics. The "embers of dissatisfaction" were still aglow when the
+American war intervened. Relations between the revolutionists and the
+United States forces became strained when the former were not allowed
+to cooperate with the Americans against the Spanish, and in February,
+1899, open warfare followed. Not until July, 1902, was quiet restored,
+and during the process enough cruelties were practiced by American
+soldiers to make the anti-imperialists doubly fearful of military
+control.[4]
+
+McKinley and his Secretary of War--at this time Elihu Root--desired to
+supplant military government with civil rule as quickly as possible and
+to this end the President appointed the first Philippine Commission on
+January 20, 1899, with Jacob G. Schurman, of Cornell University, as
+Chairman. It was instructed to investigate the situation in the islands
+and to recommend any action that seemed wise. The unsettled condition
+of affairs seriously hampered the work of the Commission but it
+gathered a fund of information which it later published. A second
+Commission was sent out in 1900, with Judge William H. Taft at the
+head. The instructions given to the Commission by President McKinley
+embodied an enlightened colonial policy, the core of which was that the
+government being established was "designed not for our satisfaction, or
+for the expression of our theoretical views, but for the happiness,
+peace, and prosperity of the people of the Philippine Islands." The
+Commission wielded such large powers that gradually the area controlled
+by the civil government increased at the expense of the military
+authorities, and by 1902 only the wild Moros were under military
+control.
+
+By this time a definite form of government could be planned for, built
+upon the labors of the second Commission. The Philippine Act of July 1,
+1902, provided for a governor appointed by the President, with the
+advice of the Senate, executive departments, and a legislature, the
+lower house of which was elected by the people. From the beginning the
+Filipinos, like the Porto Ricans, have desired a greater range of
+self-government, and in 1916 long steps were taken in the direction
+desired by them. The Jones act of that year materially increased the
+powers of the Philippine government and gave the Filipinos power to
+elect the upper as well as the lower house of the legislature. The
+passage of the law met with enthusiastic approval in the islands.
+
+The purpose of American rule in the Philippines has been to fit the
+people for self-government, although opinions have differed as to how
+soon the final outcome could be brought about. An early and bothersome
+problem was found in the friars' lands, which consisted of about
+425,000 acres, for the most part in the vicinity of Manila. The
+possession of so great an area, together with the religious power and
+the considerable political authority which the friars exercised under
+Spanish rule, gave the Church a domination which might threaten trouble
+after the American occupation. The solution of the problem was found in
+the purchase of the lands for about $7,000,000 by the United States.
+Efforts have been made to introduce a complete system of
+education--physical and industrial, as well as academic--with such
+success that when the Jones bill was being discussed in Congress in
+1916 it was asserted that every member of the Philippine legislature at
+that time was a college graduate. In 1917 the Filipino student body
+numbered 647,256, with 11,822 teachers. Political education has also
+been a part of the American idea. Elementary self-government was
+gradually introduced, starting in the more civilized local
+municipalities and provinces and confining the suffrage to the educated
+people, the official classes and property owners. The preservation of
+order has been more and more entrusted to a Philippine constabulary;
+civil service officers and school teachers have been increasingly
+chosen from the Filipinos; and the courts have been partly manned with
+native judges. Work in sanitation has followed the lines marked out in
+Cuba and Porto Rico. First and last over 10,000,000 vaccinations were
+performed before 1914; small-pox has been controlled; attention has
+been paid to the building of highways and railroads, water supply, the
+disposal of sewage and allied problems. The precise time, if ever, when
+independence should be granted to the Philippines is the one great
+question remaining.
+
+The first attempt to revise the customs laws in the Philippines was
+made by the Commission during the governorship of William H. Taft.
+These schedules were revised in Washington in such a way as to
+discriminate against Philippine interests, but they had remained in
+force only a short time when Congress passed the act of March 8, 1902,
+allowing goods grown or produced in the Philippines to enter the United
+States under a twenty-five per cent. reduction. In 1909, the tariff
+makers were induced to relent to the extent of allowing the free
+importation of goods grown, produced or manufactured in the
+Philippines, except that only a specified annual amount of Philippine
+sugar and tobacco might be brought in. In 1913 the wall was entirely
+removed on all trade between the United States and the Philippines in
+articles made or grown in either of the two countries.
+
+While Congress and the President were concerning themselves with the
+practical problems of military control, sanitation and the like, the
+Supreme Court was laboriously considering the less tangible but equally
+perplexing question of the constitutionality of the several acts which
+the legislative and executive departments had committed. The power of
+Congress to acquire territory and the right of the executive to control
+new territory under the war power had long been conceded. Admittedly,
+however, government under the war power was temporary and transitional.
+In earlier times such acquisitions as those effected by the Louisiana
+purchase and the annexation of Texas had been consummated with the
+distinct understanding that these regions should immediately or
+eventually become territories or states in the Union. The status of
+Porto Rico and the Philippines was novel. "The civil rights and
+political status of the native inhabitants of the territories hereby
+ceded to the United States," ran the words of the treaty of peace
+closing the war with Spain, "shall be determined by the Congress." Did
+this mean that Congress might govern the new acquisitions independently
+of the Constitution? Could it abridge freedom of speech, and permit
+cruel and unusual punishments, or establish slavery? Could Congress
+permanently govern these lands without giving their citizens the rights
+of citizens of the United States, and with no intention of ever making
+them territories or states? On the other hand, if Congress must act
+within the limits prescribed by the Constitution, would the wild Moros
+of the Philippines be the beneficiaries of the amendment preserving the
+right of trial by jury? In the popular language of the day, did the
+Constitution follow the flag?
+
+It was not long before the Supreme Court was called upon in the
+"Insular Cases" to express itself upon these constitutional questions.
+The first case was De Lima _v._ Bidwell. It was a suit to recover
+duties paid on goods sent from Porto Rico to the United States during
+the interval between the cession of the island and the passage of the
+Foraker Act. The duties had been paid under the Dingley law, which
+levied customs of specified amounts upon all goods imported "from
+foreign countries." Was Porto Rico a "foreign" country? The majority of
+the nine members of the Court thought that it was not foreign, that
+there was scarcely a "shred of authority" for the view that a "district
+ceded to and in the possession of the United States remains for any
+purpose a foreign country." Since Porto Rico was not a foreign country,
+the duties were wrongfully collected and must be returned. The
+remaining four justices dissented. One of them delivered a dissenting
+opinion in which he held that Porto Rico occupied middle ground between
+that of a foreign country and domestic territory. As such its status
+could be determined by Congress only and therefore its products were
+subject to duties levied by the Dingley act.
+
+In Downes _v._ Bidwell the Court was compelled to determine the
+constitutionality of the part of the Foraker Act which provided for a
+tariff between Porto Rico and the United States equal to fifteen per
+cent. of that levied by the Dingley act. Again the Court divided five
+to four. Mr. Justice Brown delivered the majority opinion. It was to
+the effect that the Constitution applied only to States; that Congress
+possessed unlimited power over the political relations of the
+territories; that Porto Rico was a "territory appurtenant to and
+belonging to the United States"; and that the part of the Constitution
+which says that duties shall be uniform throughout the United States
+did not apply to Porto Rico unless Congress so willed. Hence the
+customs clause of the Foraker Act was valid. Four of the majority,
+however, who agreed with Mr. Justice Brown in his conclusion that the
+tariff clause of the Foraker Act was constitutional did so for reasons
+which they asserted to be "different from, if not in conflict with,
+those expressed" by him.
+
+From the point of view of constitutional law, the decisions were
+unsatisfactory, because of the balanced division of opinion. Yet to
+have declared all the provisions of the Constitution in force in all
+the acquisitions would have been embarrassing. Logic and the
+Constitution went to the winds, while the executive and legislative
+departments administered the territories on the convenient and flexible
+theory that certain constitutional provisions must be heeded and that
+others need not.
+
+While the colonial policy of the United States was being developed, the
+possession of the Philippines added interest in the United States to an
+unusual international situation in China which immediately involved
+several European nations and eventually affected America. The
+Chinese-Japanese War, which came to a close in 1895, had uncovered to
+the world the weakness of China as a military power and had weakened
+the hold of the reigning monarch upon the people of the Empire.
+Thereupon the leading commercial nations of Europe began to seize
+portions of China in order to extend their trade relations in the Far
+East. Russia first attempted to obtain a seaport, but retired when an
+uproar of protest arose from the remainder of Europe. Not long
+afterwards, two German missionaries in the province of Shantung were
+murdered. The outrage formed a sufficient pretext for aggressive
+action, as a result of which China leased Kiaochau to Germany for
+ninety-nine years, including in the grant railway and mining privileges
+and an indemnity; Russia then renewed her attempt and succeeded in
+leasing Port Arthur and Talienwan for twenty-five years. Great Britain
+followed with the acquisition of rights in Weihaiwei similar to those
+of Russia in Port Arthur; Japan found its share in the province of
+Fukien, and France in Kwangchaouwan. In each case, moreover, the
+leasing power designated a large area around its holdings as a "sphere
+of influence," in which its economic and political mastery was
+complete. In this way, thirteen of the eighteen provinces of China,
+including the most desirable harbors, waterways and mines, were
+partially controlled by the powers.
+
+American foreign affairs had been, since October 1, 1898, in the
+skilful hands of John Hay, who was possessed of an intimate knowledge
+of conditions in Europe. Hay perceived the danger to American
+commercial interests in China, and accordingly in September, 1899, he
+addressed a circular note to the powers requesting each of them to give
+formal assurances that in its sphere of influence: (1) it would not
+interfere with any treaty port or vested interest; (2) it would agree
+that the Chinese tariff should apply equally to all goods shipped to
+ports in the spheres, and be collected by the Chinese officials; and
+(3) it would charge no higher harbor and railroad rates for citizens of
+other nations than for its own. The powers having agreed more or less
+directly, Hay informed them by a note of March 20, 1900, that all had
+acceded to his propositions and that the United States considered their
+assent as "final and definitive." There could be, of course, no
+effectual guaranty that the powers would fully observe this "Open-Door"
+policy, but the economic penetration of China, which would soon result
+in complete political possession, was at least retarded for the moment.
+
+Domestic affairs in China, meanwhile, had been seething under the
+surface. An ill-starred reform movement, initiated by the Emperor, had
+failed, the government was discredited, and the Empress Dowager seized
+the throne for herself. All China interpreted the event to presage a
+return to the old order of things--a general anti-foreign movement.
+Economic distresses, bad crops, a disastrous flood and hatred of
+foreign missionaries, combined with a deep resentment at the European
+partition of their country, caused the Chinese to break out in a score
+of scattered attacks on the hated aliens. The culmination was the Boxer
+Rebellion. The Boxers was a society which had long existed in China for
+various religious, patriotic and other purposes. It took up the cry
+"Drive out the foreigners and uphold the dynasty." Government officials
+by their disinclination to quell the Boxer uprising, showed that their
+sympathies were with the rioters.
+
+The climax of the outbreak came in and around Pekin, the capital of
+China. The railroad from the city to the coast was seized, telegraphic
+connection cut off, and the representatives of the foreign powers were
+compelled to fortify themselves within the city. On June 19, 1900, all
+foreigners were ordered to leave within twenty-four hours, and the
+German minister was shot when he attempted to visit the proper officer
+in order to protest. The Chinese army poured out to surround the
+quarter of the city where the legations were situated and cut them off
+from the rest of the world. All foreigners fled to the British
+legation, where they constructed bomb proof cellars, raised barricades
+and planted artillery.[5] The powers, including the United States,
+combined to send a punitive expedition to Pekin, while the legationers
+settled down to a state of siege, determined to hold out as long as
+possible. At last on August 14, when the surviving foreigners were
+reduced to eating horse flesh and when scores had been killed or
+wounded, the relief column reached the capital. It was high time. The
+foreign quarters and much of the business portion, the banks, and the
+theatres had been burned, and the entire city threatened with
+destruction.
+
+By the time that the uprisings in Pekin and elsewhere had been
+suppressed, it was evident that the powers would have a stern
+accounting with China. Hay had already openly announced the policy of
+the United States in his note of July 3, 1900; it was that the United
+States would seek a solution which should bring about permanent safety
+and peace to China, preserve the territorial entity of the country,
+protect the rights of friendly powers and insure an equal opportunity
+for all nations in the commerce of China. Hay continued through the
+negotiations to urge joint action on the part of the powers, and
+procured from them a statement disclaiming any purpose to acquire any
+part of China. At length in December, 1900, the demands upon China were
+formulated, to which that unhappy nation was compelled to accede. The
+most important were, punishment for the guilty rioters, safeguards for
+the future, indemnities for losses and the improvement of commercial
+relations. The financial indemnity finally placed upon China was
+$333,000,000, of which $24,000,000 was for the United States. The
+latter sum proved to be more than sufficient to satisfy all claims and
+China was relieved from the payment of about $11,000,000. As a mark of
+appreciation for this act, the Chinese government determined to use the
+fund in sending students to the United States for education.
+
+While the problems concerning China and the colonial possessions of the
+United States were reaching a settlement, on September 6, 1901,
+President McKinley attended the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo,
+where he was shot by a young fanatic. He died eight days later and
+Vice-President Roosevelt succeeded him.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The framing, contents and ratification of the treaty of 1898 are well
+described in Chadwick, Latané and Olcott. The treaty itself is
+conveniently found in William MacDonald, _Documentary Source Book of
+American History_ (new ed., 1916).
+
+On imperialism: L.A. Coolidge, _An Old-Fashioned Senator, O.H. Plat_
+(1910); G.F. Hoar, _Autobiography of Seventy Years_, contains a strong
+argument against imperialism; A.C. Coolidge, _United States as a World
+Power_ (1916).
+
+The best accounts of the election of 1900 are in Stanwood, Croly and
+Latané.
+
+The island possessions have given rise to a considerable body of
+special volumes of a high order. Especially useful are: (Cuba), Elihu
+Hoot, _Military and Colonial Policy of the United States_ (1916), by
+McKinley's Secretary of War; L.A. Coolidge, _O.H. Platt_ (1910); A.G.
+Robinson, _Cuba and the Intervention_ (1905); C.E. Magoon, _Republic
+ of Cuba_ (1908), by the provisional governor during the second
+intervention. (Porto Rico), W.F. Willoughby, _Territories and
+Dependencies of the United States_ (1905), by a former treasurer of
+Porto Rico; L.S. Rowe, _United States and Porto Rico_ (1904). The most
+complete work on the Philippines is D.C. Worcester, _Philippines: Past
+and Present_ (2 vols., 1914), by a member of the Commission; the
+valuable report of Commissioner Taft is in _Report of the Philippine
+Commission_, 1907, part 3, printed also as _Senate Document 200_, 60th
+Congress, 1st session, vol. 7, (Serial Number 5240).
+
+The legal and constitutional aspects of imperialism are best followed
+in the _Harvard Law Review_, vols. XII, XIII; W.W. Willoughby,
+_Constitutional Law of the United States_ (2 vols., 1910); C.F.
+Randolph, _The Law and Policy of Annexation_ (1901); the "insular
+cases" are in _United States Reports_, vol. 182, pp. 1, 244.
+
+The most complete account of affairs in China is P.H. Clements, _The
+Boxer Rebellion_ (1915); J.B. Moore, _Digest_, vol. V (1906), is
+useful, as always; J.W. Foster, _American Diplomacy in the Orient_
+(1903), is clear and concise; W.R. Thayer, _John Hay_ (2 vols., 1915),
+is disappointing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The American commissioners were W.R. Day, Secretary of State;
+Whitelaw Reid, editor of the New York _Tribune_; and Senators C.K.
+Davis, W.P. Frye and George Gray. Senator Hoar remonstrated with
+McKinley for placing senators on such commissions as this, on the
+ground that the independence of the Senate was thereby lessened when
+the question of ratifying the treaty came before that body. He declared
+that McKinley admitted that the practice was wrong. Cf. _Autobiography_,
+II, 46-51.
+
+[2] Of the President's party, T.B. Reed, the powerful Speaker of the
+House, retired from public life for personal reasons and because of his
+dissent from the imperialist policy of his party. McCall, _Reed_,
+237-8.
+
+[3] Under the provisions of the Foraker Act only fifteen per cent. of
+the usual duties were to be paid on goods passing between the island
+and the United States, and since July 25, 1901, complete free trade has
+existed.
+
+[4] The Philippine group is about 7,000 miles southwest of San
+Francisco; the chief island, Luzon, is almost exactly the size of Ohio,
+40,000 sq. miles; the largest city, Manila, contained over 250,000
+people at the time of the American occupation.
+
+[5] It was on the occasion of despatching troops to avenge the death of
+Von Ketteler, the German minister, that the Emperor gave instructions
+to "give no quarter and to (act) so like Huns that for a thousand years
+to come no Chinese would dare to look a German in the face."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+THE BEGINNING OF A NEW CENTURY
+
+Most of the tendencies which characterized the growth of population,
+the expansion of the West, the concentration of the people in cities,
+the development of manufacturing and agriculture, and the extension of
+the railway system, from 1870 to 1890, were equally significant during
+the two decades following the latter year. Nevertheless there were
+important differences of detail in the tendencies of the later period;
+and about the year 1900 in particular there occurred changes that were
+far-reaching.
+
+[Illustration:
+The chief foreign elements in the population of the United States, 1910]
+
+The rate of growth of population slowed up slightly after 1890, being
+twenty-one per cent. per decade, as contrasted with twenty-five per
+cent. from 1870 to 1890. The increases were distributed over a larger
+area during the later two decades, and aside from the industrial
+states, those which showed the greatest growth were Oklahoma, Texas and
+California. Immigration continued to be large, and concentrated in the
+north, especially in the cities. In New York city, for instance, forty
+per cent. of the inhabitants in 1910 were foreign born, and
+thirty-eight per cent. more were of foreign, or mixed foreign and
+native parentage. The chief European contributors to the population of
+America in 1910 in the order of their importance were Germany,
+Austria-Hungary, Russia, Ireland, Italy and England. Moreover the
+foreign elements had frequently become concentrated in especial states:
+the Germans in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois; the Russians in New
+York, North Dakota and Connecticut; the Austrians in Pennsylvania and
+New Jersey; and the Irish in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York.
+The immigration of Canadians, which had been of importance before 1900,
+appreciably slowed down after that year; and instead there was a
+distinct movement in the opposite direction, especially from Minnesota,
+North Dakota and Washington. The emigration was caused mainly by the
+desire to take up fertile lands which had been widely advertised by the
+Canadian government. The migration from the eastern states toward the
+West continued as in earlier years. It was noticeable, however, that
+whereas previous migration had been almost wholly on east and west
+lines, there was in later years a greater tendency to seek favorable
+openings wherever they were found. Oklahoma, for example, in 1910
+contained 71,000 natives of Illinois, 101,000 Kansans and 162,000
+Missourians. The trend of population toward the cities was so rapid
+between 1890 and 1910 as to suggest the likelihood that by 1920 half
+the people of the country would be living in communities of 2,500
+persons or more. Of the twenty-three towns that more than doubled in
+numbers during the two decades after 1890, seventeen were in the South
+and on the Pacific Coast, indicating that the tendency toward urban
+life was no longer confined to the North and East.
+
+Manufacturing increased its importance as the greatest economic
+activity in the Northeast, and was moving westward so rapidly that
+Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois found their interests becoming
+increasingly like those of the eastern states. Parts of the South,
+also, developed considerable industrial interests. The manufacture of
+cotton goods, for example, increased with such rapidity that three of
+the first five states in the value of their product in 1909 were
+southern states--North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Since 1889
+the production of lumber has taken a prominent place. Louisiana doubled
+its activity from 1889 to 1899 and had tripled this record by 1909.
+Almost the entire South from Virginia to Louisiana produced large
+amounts during the twenty years under consideration. The iron and steel
+industry in Alabama, and the production of turpentine, resin and
+fertilizers were other important southern interests. Throughout the
+country at large the number of wage earners engaged in manufacturing
+grew somewhat more rapidly than the population, being about twenty-five
+per cent. per decade from 1890 to 1910.
+
+The center of agriculture continued to be in the Middle West, in which
+was to be found nearly fifty-three per cent. of the improved farm lands
+and fifty-eight per cent. of the value of all farm property. It was in
+this part of the country that the greatest increases in the amount of
+improved land took place, and particularly in the prairie country west
+of the Mississippi. By 1890 the Plains had lost their earlier unique
+and picturesque characteristics as a cattle country, and had given way
+to the homesteader. Hence the greatest expansion in agriculture took
+place in the tier of states from North Dakota to Texas. It appeared,
+therefore, that manufacturing was driving agriculture farther and
+farther to the west: New England cultivated less farm land in 1910 than
+in 1850; the improved area in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania
+declined after 1880; Ohio tilled fewer acres in 1910 than in 1900, and
+the gradual replacement of agriculture by manufacturing was observable
+in Indiana and Illinois. Oklahoma and Texas, on the other hand,
+together opened to cultivation between 1890 and 1910 nearly 24,000,000
+acres, an expanse almost equivalent to the combined areas of New
+Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Maryland.
+
+By 1890 it was clear that the future of the Far West lay in
+agriculture, rather than in the mining of the precious metals. Between
+that date and 1910, the amount of improved farm land in the section
+increased sixty-five per cent. In the states of Washington, New Mexico,
+Colorado, Idaho and Montana, large areas were placed under cultivation.
+In Washington the amount of improved farm land increased about 350 per
+cent. The growing of fruits and nuts was brought to a high state of
+excellence in the coast states. The timber industry developed after
+1880 and particularly after 1900. About the close of the nineteenth
+century the great lumber companies began to seek sources of supply to
+take the place of those around the Great Lakes. They turned to the
+South and the Far West. The methods which were used for getting control
+of the land, and the recklessness with which the supplies of timber
+were cut off became of importance as causes of the conservation
+movement. The main handicap in the way of the development of trade
+between the Far West and the East was the great distances involved.
+Hence arose the interest of the Coast in transcontinental railway rates
+and the project for a canal across the isthmus of Panama.
+
+An economic fact of no little importance was a change in the downward
+tendency of the price level after 1896. It will be remembered that the
+constant fall in prices from 1873 to 1896 had brought distress to the
+farmers of the West and had been one of the causes of the Populist
+revolt. After 1896 the process was reversed. Between that year and 1913
+the quantity of gold in circulation considerably increased, as has been
+seen; bank deposits subject to check trebled in volume, and the use of
+checks became more common; altogether it was estimated by Professor
+Irving Fisher that the quantity of money in circulation increased
+two-fold. Prices were fifty per cent. higher in 1913 than in the
+earlier year, and accordingly the complaints of the farmer were less
+frequently heard. The wage earner in the factories, however, was
+differently affected. The price which he had to pay for the necessities
+of life increased faster than his wages, so that his standard of living
+was going down. Inasmuch as the number of wage earners in the factories
+was rapidly increasing, it seemed inevitable that the problem of rising
+prices after 1896 would constitute as great a problem as the problem of
+falling prices had done before that year.
+
+[Illustration:
+The Cost of Food, 1900-1912]
+
+In industrial enterprise the close of the nineteenth century and the
+opening of the twentieth were characterized by a mad rush toward
+consolidation. To a milder degree the process had, of course, been
+under way for many years, during which the Standard Oil Company and
+other trusts were the subject of much study and legislation. In the
+course of time some of these concerns made such great profits that
+their leaders sought attractive openings for the investment of their
+surplus. They began to appear on the boards of directors of railways,
+banks, electric lighting companies and other industrial organizations.
+Before 1900 two powerful groups had definitely formed. The Standard or
+Rockefeller group was obtaining large interests in such railroads as
+the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western,
+and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul. It was reaching out to the gas
+and electric companies in New York, had an alliance with the National
+City Bank and others, and was in touch with great life insurance
+companies such as the Equitable and the Mutual of New York. Such
+connections enabled them to determine the policies and direct the
+investments of these important concerns. The Morgans extended their
+influence over the Philadelphia and Reading, the New York, Lake Erie
+and Western, the Lehigh Valley and others. Morgan himself also entered
+the industrial field as organizer of the Federal Steel Company and the
+National Tube Company.
+
+The mania for organizing large corporations came to a climax about
+1900. The census taken in that year noted ninety-two that had been
+formed between January 1, 1899, and June 30, 1900. Early in 1904 the
+editor of Moody's _Manual of Corporation Securities_ noted the
+existence of 440 large industrial and transportation combinations whose
+capitalization as measured by the par value of their stocks and bonds
+was nearly $20,500,000,000. The securities--stocks and bonds--of the
+new companies were eagerly taken up by the investing public. Prosperity
+was wide-spread and the financial strength behind the organizations
+seemed unlimited. Speculation became common. A few individuals amassed
+wealth through the shrewd purchase and sale of stocks, and countless
+others sought unsuccessfully to imitate them. Where sales of 400,000
+shares on the stock exchange had formerly been looked upon as a good
+day's business, the record jumped to a million, then two, and even
+three.[1]
+
+A threatened competitive struggle among certain steel manufacturers in
+1901 led to the formation of the United States Steel Corporation, the
+most famous consolidation of the period. It was, strictly speaking, a
+"holding corporation" which did not manufacture at all, but merely held
+the securities and directed the policies of the group of companies of
+which it was composed. It integrated all the elements of the
+industry--ore deposits, coal mines, limestone, a thousand miles of
+railroads, ore vessels on the Great Lakes, furnaces, steel works,
+rolling mills and other related interests. The value of the tangible
+property which was thus brought under the control of a single group of
+men was estimated by the United States Commissioner of Corporations at
+about $700,000,000. The company issued securities, however, to somewhat
+over twice this amount. In other words, about $700,000,000 of the
+capitalization was "water," that is, securities issued in excess of the
+value of the tangible properties owned. The prices paid to those who
+controlled the constituent companies were such as to make them
+multi-millionaires over night, and the commission given to the
+financiers who organized the Corporation was unparalleled in size,
+amounting to $62,500,000.
+
+The appreciation of the value of the ore deposits controlled by the
+Steel Corporation later replaced some of the water in its securities,
+but in many cases no such process came about. Investors therefore
+discovered that the paper which they had purchased did not represent
+real property, but merely the hope of a company that its profits would
+be large enough to provide returns upon all its securities. One hundred
+of the leading industrial stocks shrank in value $1,750,000,000 within
+eighteen months. In the case of the Steel Corporation it was noticeable
+that its supremacy depended to a large extent on the possession of
+resources of ore on land much of which had originally belonged to the
+public, a fact which, the Commissioner of Corporations remarked, made
+the affairs of the company a matter of public interest.
+
+The growth and consolidation which characterized the history of
+industry were also taking place in the railway system, although
+somewhat more slowly. It has already been noted that the length of the
+railroads had reached 160,000 miles by 1890. For the next two decades
+the rate of construction diminished slightly, yet the total in 1914 was
+252,231 miles, and the par value of all railroad securities was
+estimated at $20,500,000,000. Nearly four and a half million persons, a
+railroad president estimated in 1915, were at that time interested in
+the industry as employees, as workmen in shops making railroad
+supplies, or through the ownership of stocks and bonds.
+
+The management of the roads is, of course, continually changing;
+alliances are made and broken; groups form and dissolve. About the time
+that the United States Steel Corporation was being organized, however,
+about ninety-five per cent. of the important lines were in the control
+of six groups of influential persons, which were dominated by fourteen
+individuals. Each group had obtained the upper hand in the roads of one
+or more sections. The Morgan-Hill group, for example, held the Chicago,
+Burlington and Quincy, the Northern Pacific, the Great Northern, the
+Southern, the Atlantic Coast Line, the Erie and others, amounting to
+47,206 miles. E.H. Harriman, chairman of the board of directors of the
+Union Pacific, succeeded in obtaining control of so many lines that by
+1901 the Interstate Commerce Commission asserted that the consummation
+of plans which he then had in mind would subject nearly one-half the
+territory of the United States to the power of a single will. Before
+his death in 1909 he had obtained practical control of a system of
+roads running from coast to coast and passing through the most
+important cities of the country and had planned to continue
+indefinitely the process of acquiring new lines.
+
+[Illustration:
+Morgan-Hill railroads as listed shortly after 1900]
+
+The concentration of the banking interests of the country went hand in
+hand with consolidation in industry and railway control. The
+unprecedented operations which have just been mentioned demanded
+unprecedented amounts of capital and credit, and the concentration of
+these necessities occurred in New York City. The Standard Oil group and
+the Morgan group dominated the banking interests to such an extent that
+it was doubtful whether any great business enterprise demanding large
+capital could be started without the aid of one or the other of them.
+Some years later a congressional investigation was started, to discover
+whether the control of a few men over the financial affairs of the
+nation amounted to a "money trust," and at that time it was found that
+the members of four allied financial institutions in New York City held
+341 directorships in banks, insurance companies, railroads, steamship
+companies and trading and public utility corporations, having aggregate
+resources of $22,245,000,000.
+
+The financial power thus placed in the hands of a small number of men
+was the cause of much legislation passed by the states and by Congress
+in connection with the railroads and trusts. Opinions varied widely in
+regard to the effects of concentration. On the one hand it was argued
+that the men of greatest ability and vision naturally came to the top;
+that industry received the necessary stabilizing influence; that
+production and demand were compelled to harmonize; that scientific
+research directed toward the discovery of new processes and products,
+and the better utilization of old ones could be successfully carried on
+only by concerns with large resources; and that efficiency and economy
+resulted from large-scale operation. On the other hand it was pointed
+out that a small number of persons who were responsible to nobody could
+dominate the fortunes of hundreds of thousands of wage earners,
+manipulate production, make or break a region or a rival, bring about
+financial crises and, in a controversy or for private gain, use a great
+industry or a railroad as a weapon and wreck it regardless of the
+welfare of the public at large.
+
+Among the intellectual forces underlying American history after 1890, a
+prominent place should be given to the expansion of the public library,
+the growth of public education and the development of the press. Many
+libraries, of course, had been established long before the Civil
+War--the Library of Congress, for example, having been founded in
+1800--but the great growth of the public library supported by taxation
+and open to all citizens alike occurred after 1865. Between that year
+and 1900 no fewer than thirty-seven states passed laws enabling the
+towns within their borders to levy taxes for the support of public
+libraries; private bequests amounted to fabulous sums, the outstanding
+example of which were the gifts of Andrew Carnegie, amounting to
+$62,500,000 between 1881 and 1915. By 1914 there were over 2,000
+libraries containing at least 5,000 volumes, and forty that contained
+more than 200,000 each.
+
+The significant features in the growth of education between 1865 and
+1890 had been the improvement of the public grammar school, the
+establishment of high schools and the foundation of the great state
+universities. After 1890 the public high schools were greatly improved,
+business and vocational courses were added, and the enrollment at the
+colleges and universities received large additions. Such universities
+as that in Wisconsin exerted an unusual influence on intellectual and
+political currents in individual states.
+
+A large proportion of the political, social and economic changes and
+reforms that have taken place in the United States since 1890 have done
+so because public opinion was educated, quietly influenced or noisily
+bestirred by the press. Governors and presidents appealed to their
+constituents through the newspaper and the periodical. Political
+campaigns have become increasingly matters of publicity; candidates for
+office have their press bureaus; corporations, abandoning their
+traditional policy of silence, explain their practices; and railroads
+defend their policies by means of advertisements in the newspapers.
+Newspaper correspondents go out through the country months before
+candidates for the presidency are nominated, and discover and publish
+sentiment favorable to the individual whom the particular organ desires
+to see placed in office. In 1918 the circulation of the daily
+newspapers amounted to approximately 28,000,000 copies for each issue.
+In the North, the Middle West, and on the Pacific Coast the number
+published was sufficient to provide every family with one copy. The
+South and the Rocky Mountain region were less well supplied. The great
+metropolitan newspapers circulate widely, not only in the immediate
+vicinity of the publisher's office, but over a wide area outside. At
+least one of them in 1918 approached half a million copies daily,
+another exceeded 800,000, and a third issued nearly three-fourths of a
+million on Sunday. William R. Hearst established a chain of newspapers
+which gave him an audience of over a million readers every day. Several
+of the weekly and monthly magazines circulated in hundreds of thousands
+of copies; and one weekly periodical which presented newspaper opinion
+of all shades of political partisanship had a circulation of 750,000
+copies for every issue.
+
+[Illustration:
+Daily Newspaper Circulation, 1918]
+
+The rise of the "muck-rake"[2] magazines was typical of the ten years
+at the opening of the twentieth century. These periodicals printed
+articles which portrayed a side of American life not commonly discussed
+in the newspapers. One of the earliest serials of this type was Miss
+Ida M. Tarbell's History of the Standard Oil Company, published in
+_McClure's Magazine_ in 1902-1903. Instead of the ordinary eulogy of
+the size and success of the Company, Miss Tarbell presented many of its
+unfair practices. At the same time and in the same publication Lincoln
+Steffens was exposing the seamy side of municipal affairs in "The Shame
+of the Cities." Between 1901 and 1906 one of the muck-rake periodicals
+increased its sales threefold, another four and another seven.
+
+Cooperation among newspapers in the gathering of information is no
+novelty in the United States, but the greatest strides have been taken
+since 1890. By 1915 the Associated Press had leased 50,000 miles of
+telegraph wires forming a net all over the country; it had agents in
+every important news center; it exchanged services with three European
+press associations; and it had its own representatives not only in
+London, Paris, and Berlin, but in Fez, Madeira, Colombo, Tsingtau and
+Sydney. News from Europe reached New York in less than an hour and was
+promptly sent to 900 newspapers, whence it was copied in thousands of
+daily and weekly publications. As in the case of other enterprises the
+publication of newspapers showed a tendency towards consolidation. The
+establishment of a new periodical became a million-dollar venture, and
+it remains to be seen whether the tendency toward centralization will
+result in the publication only of such news or such phases of the news
+as meet the approval of the relatively small number of persons that can
+launch a million-dollar organization.
+
+It will be remembered that _laissez faire_ was the prevailing theory in
+regard to the proper relation between government and industry during
+the twenty-five years after the close of the Civil War, except in so
+far as industrial organizations desired protective tariffs. In brief
+the upholders of this creed contended that legislation should concern
+itself as little as possible with the regulation of trade, that it
+should restrict itself to protecting commerce from interference and
+that business men should be permitted to work out their own problems
+with the least possible reference to such artificial forces as were
+supplied by legal enactments.[3] It would be inaccurate to say that the
+theory of _laissez faire_ had completely given way by the end of the
+half century after the Civil War. Nor would it be wholly correct to say
+that any other theory has yet demonstrated its permanent reliability,
+Nevertheless the distinctive philosophy upon which later legislation
+has been built is the theory of public interest. The theory needs
+definition in some detail, because it forms the philosophy which
+underlies most of the political developments and much of the
+legislation of the early twentieth century.
+
+As the men of the eighties and nineties contemplated the vast amounts
+of wealth created during those decades they saw it concentrated to a
+great extent in the hands of the few. The few believed that the public
+good was best cared for in this way, but an increasing majority of the
+people looked upon the tendency with greater and greater alarm. They
+complained that the railroads discriminated in favor of the powerful
+few; that corporations were achieving monopoly; and that the government
+itself often assisted the process by framing tariff schedules primarily
+for the interest of the manufacturers. When the reaction against this
+situation started, it was of course found that the seats of power were
+already occupied by the adherents of _laissez faire_,--the party
+committees, the legislatures, the executive offices and the courts.
+There ensued, therefore, a long struggle for power and for a new theory
+of government. The land-marks of the controversy were to be found in
+interstate commerce acts, anti-trust laws, income taxes, bureaus of
+labor and factory legislation.
+
+The proponent of _laissez faire_ would allow the few to accumulate
+large fortunes which they might share with the many through
+benefactions, gifts to education, libraries, and other public
+enterprises; the adherent of public interest would inquire why the many
+are poor, and attempt so to change economic conditions as to reduce the
+number of the poor to a minimum. Instead of framing laws so that wealth
+and power would get into the hands of a small number of individuals, in
+the expectation that prosperity would filter down to the many, the
+advocate of public interest would aim his legislation directly at what
+he considers the needs of the less powerful classes. He would interfere
+with the railroads, for example, to compel them to charge uniform
+rates, prevent corporations from electing public officers by means of
+large contributions to campaign funds, force industry even at some cost
+to protect employees through safety devices, and would hold the great
+forests on the public lands for the direct good of the whole people.
+The transfer of emphasis from _laissez faire_ to public interest was
+based upon a steady growth in the value placed upon the worth of the
+individual man, and upon a shift from legislating for the few to
+legislating directly for the multitude. The change was greater than can
+be indicated by citing any one law or group of laws. It was "a new
+intellectual perspective through which we view all moral issues
+affecting society."[4]
+
+Underlying many of the difficulties in the way of replacing _laissez
+faire_ with a new theory, was the attitude of the courts toward certain
+parts of the Fourteenth Amendment. It will be remembered that a portion
+of section one of the Amendment forbids the states to "deprive any
+person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." It
+will also be remembered that the majority of the Supreme Court in early
+decisions interpreting the Amendment had expressed the belief that its
+purpose was the protection of the negro. By 1890, however, the Court
+had come to hold that the word "person" as used in the first section
+included corporations, and thus had given the language of the Amendment
+a greatly widened application. Of 528 decisions given by the Court on
+the Amendment between 1890 and 1910, only nineteen concerned the negro
+race, while 289 affected corporations. In the decision of the case
+Lochner _v._ New York, a state law regulating hours of labor in
+bakeries was declared to conflict with the Amendment, because the right
+of the laborer to work as many hours as he pleased was part of the
+"liberty" which was protected by the Amendment. Laws regulating
+railroad rates through commissions were held to deprive corporations of
+property without due process. Until recently changed, the statutes did
+not allow appeal to the Supreme Court in cases where state courts
+declared state laws in conflict with the United States Constitution,
+and the Fourteenth Amendment therefore acted as a protective bulwark in
+state as well as nation. In brief, then, the legal position of the big
+industrial organizations was almost impregnable because of the
+fortuitous circumstance that the words of a part of the Constitution
+might be held to mean something which probably did not enter the minds
+of the Congress or the state legislatures which placed the words in the
+document.
+
+The people of the United States have usually avoided hostile criticism
+of the Constitution and the decisions of the Supreme Court, and they
+have reflected this feeling in their acquiescence in the unexpected
+turn given to the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. The members of
+the Court, however, have frequently expressed disquietude. Dissenting
+opinions opposing the view which the Court has taken, have been common.
+Mr. Justice Harlan declared that the scope of the Amendment was being
+enlarged far beyond its original purpose; Mr. Justice Holmes asserted
+that the word "liberty" was being "perverted" and that the Constitution
+was not intended to embody _laissez faire_ or any other economic
+theory.[5]
+
+The most prominent pioneers in replacing the old by the new theory were
+William J. Bryan, Robert M. La Follette and Theodore Roosevelt. Bryan's
+leadership in 1896 has already been mentioned. With courage and
+sincerity he attempted to solve the social and economic problems of his
+day, but his youth, his inexperience, his radicalism, and the fact that
+he did not choose issues that were immediately practicable made it
+impossible for him to command the confidence of the majority. Unable
+himself to scale the heights of reform, he nevertheless pointed them
+out to others. With a voice that has been likened to an organ with a
+hundred stops, with persistence, energy and good nature he spread far
+and wide a new conception of social obligation. He insisted that the
+social and economic discontent of the South and West were real, and
+that they could not be laughed out of court or frightened into silence.
+
+La Follette's constructive pioneer work was done for the most part in
+Wisconsin. During the ascendency of the _laissez faire_ theory, the
+state was largely controlled by the lumber, railroad and other
+interests, using the Republican party as their political agency; and a
+small but powerful group controlled the election of state and federal
+officials, the press and state legislation. Between 1885 and 1891 La
+Follette, who was himself a Republican, was a representative in the
+federal House. In the latter year he came into collision with Senator
+Sawyer, a wealthy lumber merchant who was the leader of the dominant
+party in the state. For years the state treasurers had been lending the
+state's money to favored banks without interest. Senator Sawyer had
+acted as bondsman for the treasurers and was sued by the
+attorney-general of the state for back interest. La Follette threw
+himself into this controversy on the side of the state; and being
+unable to obtain a hearing through the usual medium of the press, he
+and his supporters went directly to the people, speaking from town to
+town before interested audiences; and subsequently the state won.
+
+In the Sawyer controversy were visible all the elements of the later
+creed and methods of La Follette. He always remained with the
+Republican party, preferring to attempt change from within; and he
+always opposed the interests and found his strength in direct appeals
+to the people of his state. Out of those years came the "Wisconsin
+idea,"--a program which included the taxation of railroads and
+corporations, primaries in which the people could nominate their own
+candidates for office, the prohibiting of the acceptance of railroad
+passes by public officials, and the conservation of the forests and
+water power of the state. The conflict between _laissez faire_ and
+public interest in Wisconsin was long and bitter, but it led to a
+series of triumphs for La Follette, who was elected governor in 1900,
+1902 and 1904, and chosen to the federal Senate in 1905. In the
+meanwhile there was a widespread demand throughout the West for
+legislation along the lines marked out by Wisconsin.
+
+Party lines are so drawn in the United States that it is difficult for
+like-minded men of different parties to cooperate in furthering a
+program. The three pioneers were men whose capacities and personal
+qualities differed greatly, but in their economic and political
+philosophy they were nearer to one another than to the rank and file of
+their own parties. Bryan in 1902 refused to take part in the Democratic
+campaign in Wisconsin because he favored La Follette's program, and in
+1905 he even aided the latter in his fight for railroad regulation; in
+1912 Bryan found Roosevelt leading a revolt in the Republican party on
+a program to much of which he could give unqualified assent; and of La
+Follette, Roosevelt said in the same year: "Thanks to the movement for
+genuinely democratic popular government which Senator La Follette led
+to overwhelming victory in Wisconsin, that state has become literally a
+laboratory for wise experimental legislation aiming to secure the
+social and political betterment of the people as a whole."
+
+Roosevelt's own share in the history of the early twentieth century was
+of such magnitude as to require a more extended account.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The literature is voluminous and not easy to evaluate. On population
+changes and immigration, the best source is the _Abstract of the
+Thirteenth (1910) Census_ (1913), with the _Atlas_ accompanying it
+(1914); _Reports of the Immigration Commission, appointed under the
+Congressional Act of Feb. 20, 1907_ (42 vols., 1911), is exhaustive; F.
+A. Ogg, _National Progress_ (1918), has a good chapter; consult Joseph
+Schafer, _A History of the Pacific Northwest_ (rev. ed., 1918), for
+Washington and Oregon.
+
+The consolidation in industry, railroads and finance may be followed
+in: A.D. Noyes, _Forty Years of American Finance_ (1909); John Moody,
+_The Truth about the Trusts_ (1904); _Report of the Commissioner of
+Corporations on the Steel Industry_ (3 parts, 1911), on the United
+States Steel Corporation; Anna P. Youngman, _Economic Causes of Great
+Fortunes_ (1909); C.R. Van Hise, _Concentration and Control a Solution
+of the Trust Problem in the United States_ (rev. ed., 1914); E.R.
+Johnson and T.W. Van Metre, _Principles of Railroad Transportation_
+(1916); John Moody, _The Railroad Builders_ (1919); John Moody, _The
+Masters of Capital_ (1919); and _Report of the Committee Appointed
+Pursuant to House Resolutions 429 and 504 to Investigate the
+Concentration of Control of Money and Credit_, (Pujo Committee) 1913.
+
+There is no satisfactory study of the social and political effects of
+the great increase in the circulation of newspapers and periodicals.
+Suggestive articles are: _World's Work_ (Oct., 1916), "Stalking for
+Nine Million Votes"; _Arena_ (July, 1909), "The Making of Public
+Opinion"; _Atlantic Monthly_ (Mar., 1910), "Suppression of Important
+News." Less superficial articles are those of Walter Lippmann in the
+_Atlantic Monthly_ (Nov., Dec., 1919). The statistics are available in
+N.W. Ayer, _American Newspaper Annual and Directory_.
+
+The emergence of the theory of public interest is best seen in the
+_Autobiography_ of R.M. La Follette (4th ed., 1920); consult also
+Theodore Roosevelt, _Autobiography_, and C.G. Washburn, _Theodore
+Roosevelt; the Logic of his Career_ (1916). A profound article is W.J.
+Tucker, "The Progress of the Social Conscience," in _Atlantic Monthly_
+(Sept., 1915).
+
+On the Fourteenth Amendment, consult the volumes already mentioned
+under Chap. IV.
+
+There are no thorough estimates of Bryan and La Follette. On the
+former: _Atlantic Monthly_ (Sept., 1912), and _Nineteenth Century_
+(July, 1915); H. Croly, _Promise of American Life_ (1914), is critical.
+W.J. Bryan, _First Battle_ (1897), is essential. On La Follette, his
+own narrative as given in the _Autobiography_ is best, but should be
+read with care as it was written in the heat of partisan controversy.
+See also F.C. Howe, _Wisconsin an Experiment in Democracy_ (1912),
+friendly to La Follette.
+
+Frank Norris, _The Octopus, and The Pit_; Winston Churchill, _Coniston_
+and _Mr. Crewe's Career_; and Upton Sinclair, _The Jungle_, are
+illustrative fiction.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The shrinkage of the value of these securities caused the "rich
+men's panic" of 1903. Consult Noyes, _Forty Years_, 308-311.
+
+[2] The word originated in 1906 with President Roosevelt, who likened
+certain sensational journalists to the man with the Muck-Rake in
+Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress. Annual Register_, 1906, 442.
+
+[3] Cf. pp. 94-96 above.
+
+[4] I have drawn largely at this point upon Dr. W.J. Tucker's article
+"The Progress of the Social Conscience" in the _Atlantic Monthly_,
+Sept., 1915, 289-303. The clearest idea of the transition from _laissez
+faire_ to public interest is gained by reading the biography of M.A.
+Hanna by Croly, and La Follette's and Roosevelt's autobiographies.
+
+[5] Usually cases involving the Fourteenth Amendment have also involved
+other parts of the Constitution. The main reliance, however, in such
+cases has been the Amendment mentioned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+THEODORE ROOSEVELT
+
+Seldom, in times of peace, is the personality of a single individual
+so important as that of Theodore Roosevelt during the early years of
+the twentieth century. At the time of his accession to the presidency,
+he lacked a month of being forty-three years old, but the range of his
+experience in politics had been far beyond his age. In his early
+twenties, soon after leaving Harvard, he had entered the Assembly of
+the state of New York. President Harrison had made him Civil Service
+Commissioner in 1889, and he had been successively President of the
+Board of Police Commissioners of New York City, Assistant Secretary of
+the Navy, an important figure in the war with Spain, and Governor of
+New York. He had been known as a young man of promise--energetic,
+independent and progressive--and in addition to his political
+activities he had found time to write books on historical subjects,
+see something of life on a western ranch and develop a somewhat
+defective physique into an engine of physical power.
+
+Brimming with energy, nimble of mind, impetuous, sure of himself, quick
+to strike, a fearless foe, frank, resourceful, audacious, honest,
+versatile--Roosevelt possessed the qualities which would challenge the
+admiration of the typical American. One who frequently saw him at work
+described thus the way in which he prepared a message to be sent to the
+Senate:
+
+    He storms up and down the room, dictating in a loud and oratorical
+    tone, often stopping, recasting a sentence, striking out and
+    filling in, hospitable to every suggestion, not in the least
+    disturbed by interruption, holding on stoutly to his purpose,
+    and producing finally, out of these most unpromising conditions,
+    a clear and logical statement, which he could not improve with
+    solitude and leisure at his command.
+
+The breadth of his interests, the democratic character of his
+friendships--for he was equally at home with blue-stocking, politician,
+cowboy and artisan--his complete loyalty to his friends and his
+disregard of conventionalities gave him a grip upon popular favor that
+had not been duplicated since the days of Andrew Jackson, unless by
+Lincoln. The effectiveness of so compelling a personality was in no way
+diminished by Roosevelt's possession of what a journalist would call
+"news sense." He was made for publicity; he had an instinct for the
+dramatic. His speeches were removed from mediocrity by his evident
+sincerity, his abounding interest in every occasion at which he was
+called upon to talk and the phrases that were half victories which he
+coined almost at will. "Mollycoddle," "muckraking," "the square deal,"
+"the big stick" became familiar idioms in the vernacular of politics
+and the street. The political leadership of Roosevelt rested mainly
+upon his personal prestige and upon his attributes as a reformer. With
+unerring prescience he chose those political issues which would make
+a wide appeal and which could be pressed quickly to a successful
+conclusion. His complete integrity saved him from mere opportunism; his
+ruggedly practical commonsense saved him from that combination of high
+purpose and slight accomplishment which has characterized many other
+reformers.
+
+No estimate of the deficiencies in Roosevelt's personality and
+leadership would be agreed upon at the present time. In some cases--as
+in the realm of international relations--only the future can decide
+whether he was a prophet or a chauvinist; in all cases, opinions have
+differed widely, for Roosevelt could scarcely explore a river, describe
+a natural phenomenon or urge a political innovation without thereby
+arousing a controversy in which his friends and his opponents would
+participate with equal intensity. His identification of himself with
+his purposes was as complete as that of Andrew Jackson; opposition to
+his proposals was reckoned as opposition to him as an individual. Like
+many leaders of the fighting type, he was frequently weak when judging
+the motives of those who disagreed with him. One of his admirers
+declared that his greatest political defect was an impatience of any
+interval between an expressed desire for an act and the accomplishment
+of the deed itself--an inability to stand through years of defeat for
+the future success of an ideal. A keener and equally sympathetic critic
+dubbed him the "sportsman" in politics--honest, hard-hitting, but
+playing the issue which had an immediate political effect.
+
+At the outset of his administration Roosevelt was apparently an
+adherent of the prevailing Republican creed--protective tariff, gold
+standard, imperialism, _laissez faire_ and the rest. His first official
+utterance after becoming President was an indication that he would
+continue unbroken the policies of his predecessor, and to this end he
+insisted that the cabinet should remain intact.[1] His foreign policy
+was aggressive; his interest in the military and naval establishments
+real and constant. Roosevelt was more venturesome than McKinley, and
+more ready to experiment with new ideas. He took up the duties of his
+position with an unaffected zest and enthusiasm; he looked upon the
+presidential office as an exhilarating adventure in national and even
+international affairs. As time went on, therefore, it became more and
+more evident that he was prepared to play a big role on a great stage.
+Moreover, few doubts concerning the constitutional powers of the
+executive position seem ever to have assailed him. Whatever may have
+been his theory at the outset of his presidency, he came eventually to
+believe that the executive power was limited only by the specific
+restrictions and prohibitions appearing in the Constitution, or imposed
+by Congress in laws which it had constitutional authority to pass. The
+scope which this theory presented for the exercise of his energetic
+originality is evident when contrasted with the theory of his
+predecessors, who had, in times of peace, held to the belief that the
+executive possessed only the powers specifically designated by the
+Constitution.
+
+Not until some future time, when the events of the early twentieth
+century are better understood, will it be possible to judge accurately
+the value of President Roosevelt's regime in its relation to the
+control of railroads and corporations. There can be no doubt, however,
+that one of the most serious problems that faced the American people
+during that time was the position which the government ought to occupy
+toward the business interests of the nation. Not only were the
+railroads and the great corporations the center of the economic life
+of the people, but their social and political effects were momentous.
+
+Neither the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 nor the Sherman Anti-trust
+law of 1890, it will be remembered, had accomplished what had been
+expected of them. The Interstate Commerce law had met with grave
+obstacles in the courts; the Sherman act had been seldom invoked by the
+federal executive, and in the most prominent case, United States _v._
+E.C. Knight Co., the government had failed to obtain the decision it
+desired. Government regulation seemed like a broken reed.[2] A few
+cases, however, had indicated the possibility that strength might be
+discovered in the law. In United States _v._ the Trans-Missouri Freight
+Association, the Supreme Court had declared that the Anti-trust act
+applied to railroads and that it forbade agreements among them to
+maintain rates; two years later, in 1899, the Court pronounced illegal
+a combination of pipe manufacturers in the Middle West, on the ground
+that its result was to restrain interstate commerce.
+
+Roosevelt, like Bryan and La Follette, had been groping his way to an
+understanding of the importance of the new problem. During his term as
+Governor of New York he had clashed with the older political leaders
+when he supported an act looking to the heavier taxation of railway
+franchises. The first recommendations in his message to Congress on
+December 3, 1901, concerned the subject of the relation of government
+and industry. The accumulation of wealth in recent years in the United
+States, he asserted, had been due to natural causes, and much of the
+antagonism aroused thereby was without warrant. Nevertheless grave
+evils had attended the process: overcapitalization was one; untruthful
+representations concerning the value of the properties in which
+business asked the public to invest was another. Such evils should be
+attacked; with extreme care, to be sure, but also with resolution.
+Combination and concentration, he thought, should be supervised and,
+within reasonable limits, controlled. The remedies which the President
+suggested were simple: in the interest of the public the government
+should have the right to inspect the workings of organizations engaged
+in interstate commerce; because of the lack of uniformity in corporation
+legislation within the states, the federal government should so extend
+its power as to include supervision of corporations; a Department of
+Commerce and Industries should be established, whose head should be a
+cabinet officer; the Interstate Commerce law should be amended; railway
+rates should be just, and should be the same to all shippers alike, and
+the government should be the agent to provide a remedy to this end.
+
+The enthusiastic reception accorded the message by the press indicated
+that one or another of its numerous recommendations met with approval.
+The effect on Congress, however, of the portion dealing with interstate
+commerce was represented by a cartoon in the New York _World_. Uncle Sam
+was there portrayed stowing away for later attention a bundle of
+manuscript labelled "President's Message 1901. 30,000 words," while he
+smilingly remarked "When I git time!" But Roosevelt was not content to
+let the matter drop, and in the following summer he took the unusual
+step of carrying his message directly to the people. In the New England
+states first, and later in the West, he declared his creed on the
+federal regulation of industry. The effectiveness of the campaign was
+increased by the moderation of the President, by his increasing
+popularity and by the many telling phrases, with which he enforced his
+main thesis. The Sherman act looked less like a broken reed when the
+chief executive of the nation declared: "As far as the anti-trust laws
+go they will be enforced ... and when (a) suit is undertaken it will not
+be compromised except upon the basis that the Government wins." Here and
+there objection was raised that the program was not sufficiently
+definite; now and then a critic hazarded a conjecture that Roosevelt had
+not consulted the leaders of his party; but in the main he succeeded in
+obtaining a sympathetic hearing. At this juncture the coal strike of
+1902 gave him one of those fortunate opportunities which were commonly
+referred to as a part of "Roosevelt's luck." With no uncertain hand he
+seized the opportunity which chance presented.
+
+Before 1899, there had been no organization of the anthracite miners
+with sufficient strength to force any changes in the conditions under
+which the men performed their work. During that year the United Mine
+Workers of America began to send organizers into the Pennsylvania
+region. In 1900 the men struck, but an agreement was reached with the
+operators and work was resumed. The settlement, however, was not
+satisfactory to either side, and in 1902 the workers asked for a
+conference. The presidents of the coal companies and the coal-carrying
+railroads replied that they were always ready to meet their own
+employees but would have no dealings with a general labor organization.
+Smaller causes of unrest were the demand for more pay, shorter hours,
+and payment for coal by weight instead of by the car, but the
+fundamental issue was the recognition of the union--the workmen
+insisting on collective bargaining, the operators refusing it. The men
+were helpless except as a union; the roads were sure of keeping the
+upper hand if they dealt with the men individually or in small groups.
+When attempts at conference failed, the miners struck and from May 12
+until October 23 nearly 147,000 of them remained idle. The total loss
+to miners and operators was nearly $100,000,000.
+
+Since the Pennsylvania fields were almost the sole source of supply
+for anthracite coal, discomfort was soon felt in the North and West,
+and as the cooler weather came on, suffering became acute and public
+feeling bordered on panic. A winter without hard coal could hardly be
+contemplated without grave misgivings. Popular opinion, meanwhile,
+went increasingly to the side of the miners. The refusal of the
+operators to confer, and the propriety of the conduct of the workmen
+made a wide impression that was favorable to the union. Moreover,
+George F. Baer, President of the Philadelphia and Reading Company,
+spoke of himself and his associates in a letter to a correspondent as
+those "Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the
+control of the property interests of the country." The remark was
+widely quoted and generally looked upon as evidence of a selfish and
+uncompromising individualism.[3] The strike having now become a matter
+of national importance, President Roosevelt requested the operators
+and representatives of the miners to meet him in Washington, October
+3. At this conference the spokesman of the railroads refused mediation,
+while the leader of the United Mine Workers, John Mitchell, proposed
+arbitration and pledged the workers to accept it.
+
+After the refusal of the operators to accept the President's
+conciliatory offer, he decided to apply pressure. He obtained the
+consent of Grover Cleveland to act as chairman of a commission of
+investigation and determined to seize the mines by military force, if
+necessary, operate them as a receiver and await the report of his
+commission. In some way, which can not now be indicated with certainty,
+the operators were influenced to accept mediation, and the President
+appointed a commission with Judge George Gray as chairman.[4] The
+miners immediately returned to work, coal began again to flow to the
+North, and public rejoicing was extreme. The President's Commission at
+once repaired to Pennsylvania, heard 558 witnesses, visited the mines,
+and inspected machinery and the homes of the miners. It concluded that
+neither side was completely in the right, and therefore made an award
+that satisfied some of the complaints of both parties. In the history
+of the relation between the federal government and the business
+interests of the nation, the anthracite strike of 1902 is of marked
+significance. The operators had given evidence of a failure to
+understand that their business so concerned the nation that the
+interest of the public in it must be heeded. The successful outcome
+enhanced the prestige of the government and of the President, and an
+example of the need of greater control over corporations received wide
+publicity at the precise moment when the general subject was uppermost
+in the popular mind.
+
+The first legislative evidence of the result of the agitation for the
+more effective regulation of industry was an act approved on February
+11, 1903, by which any suit brought in a Circuit Court by the United
+States government under the Sherman Anti-trust act or the Interstate
+Commerce law, could be given precedence over other cases at the desire
+of the Attorney-General. Three days later a law was passed which
+established a Department of Commerce and Labor, whose chief was to be a
+cabinet officer. Included in the Department was a Bureau of Corporations
+headed by a Commissioner, who was authorized to investigate the
+organization and conduct of the business of corporations. Within another
+five days the Elkins Act had been passed--a law designed to eliminate
+rebating. Despite the Interstate Commerce act, the practice of rebating
+had continued. Agreement was general that railroad men who, in other
+respects, were perfectly scrupulous, commonly violated the law in order
+to get business in competition with their rivals. Among the railroad men
+who had violated the law but who deprecated the necessity of so doing,
+was Paul Morton, president of the Santa Fé system. Morton volunteered to
+assist Roosevelt in stamping out the evil, and the Elkins law was
+designed to aid in this process. It forbade any variation from published
+rates, made both a corporation and its agents punishable for offenses
+against the law, prohibited the receiving of rebates as well as giving
+them, and made the penalty for failure to observe the provisions of the
+Act a fine of one thousand to twenty thousand dollars. Furthermore,
+during February, 1903, Congress appropriated $500,000 to be expended
+under the direction of the Attorney-General for the better enforcement
+of the anti-trust and interstate commerce laws.
+
+In 1903, likewise, was initiated an important judicial proceeding in the
+direction of the enforcement of the Sherman law. The Great Northern
+Railway Company and the Northern Pacific Railway Company operated
+parallel competing lines of road extending from the region of Lake
+Superior to the Pacific Coast. An attempted consolidation of the two had
+been declared illegal under the statutes of the state of Minnesota. On
+November 13, 1901, under the leadership of two of the foremost railway
+magnates of the nation, J.J. Hill and J.P. Morgan, there had been
+organized the Northern Securities Company, to purchase and control at
+least a majority of the shares of the capital stock of the two lines of
+railway. In this way the two roads would be operated as one, their
+earnings pooled, competition between the two eliminated and a virtual
+consolidation effected. On the advice of the Attorney-General, Philander
+C. Knox, President Roosevelt directed that proceedings be instituted
+against the holding company--an act that seemed almost useless in view
+of the decision of the Supreme Court in the Knight Case. But the
+decision in the Northern Securities Case, handed down in 1904, was a
+surprise. By a vote of five to four the Court declared the company a
+combination in restraint of trade, and therefore illegal under the
+Sherman act, and enjoined any attempt on its part to control the affairs
+of either of the two railways.
+
+Nineteen hundred and four, the year of the presidential election, found
+Roosevelt in a strong position. His success in handling the coal strike
+and his energetic preparations for the crusade against trust evils had
+struck a responsive chord in the popular mind. Late in 1903 he had
+announced to Congress that frauds had been discovered in the post
+office and land office, and urged the appropriation of funds for the
+prosecution of the offenders. The result was a house-cleaning which
+involved the conviction of many officials, including two United States
+senators. Roosevelt's popularity became greater than ever.
+
+It was to be expected, however, that some opposition would appear to the
+nomination of Roosevelt for a continuation of his term of office, and it
+was around the forceful Mark Hanna that the opposition began gradually
+to center. Hanna had attained remarkable influence as a senator, was
+highly trusted by the business interests and was popular among southern
+Republicans. But his death in February, 1904, effectively ended any
+opposition to Roosevelt, since it was then too late to focus attention
+upon any other competitor. The Republican nominating convention,
+therefore, which met in Chicago on June 21, lacked any semblance of a
+contest, and the President was renominated without opposition. The
+platform was of the traditional sort. The history of the party was
+approved; its achievements in giving prosperity to the country and
+peaceful government to the island possessions were recounted; the
+protective tariff, the gold standard, an isthmian canal, the improvement
+of the army and navy, the continuation of civil service reform and a
+vigorous foreign policy,--on all these the party utterance was that of
+other days. Surprisingly little was said upon the subject of the
+regulation of corporations. The few steps already taken were approved,
+but as to the future, the platform was almost colorless:
+
+    Combinations of capital and of labor are the results of the
+    economic movement of the age, but neither must be permitted to
+    infringe upon the rights and interests of the people. Such
+    combinations, when lawfully formed for lawful purposes, are
+    alike entitled to the protection of the laws, but both are
+    subject to the laws, and neither can be permitted to break them.
+
+The Democratic convention met in St. Louis on July 6, and the
+excitement which marked its proceedings compensated for the lack of
+interest at the Republican meeting. As drawn up by a sub-committee of
+the Committee on Resolutions, the platform was, in many of its planks,
+a distinct return to the programs of the days before 1896. It urged a
+reduction of the tariff, generous pensions and civil service reform,
+together with the enforcement of the anti-trust laws and the popular
+election of senators. In the main, it was devoted to a condemnation
+of the existing Republican administration, which it denounced as
+"spasmodic, erratic, sensational, spectacular and arbitrary." It also
+contained a paragraph declaring that the question of the money standard
+had ceased to be an issue, on the ground that recent discoveries of
+gold had enormously increased the supply of currency in the country.
+Bryan did not approve. With characteristic energy he threw himself into
+an all-night fight in the Committee in behalf of a silver plank. His
+defeat indicated that the convention was in the hands of his opponents
+and the platform as adopted contained no reference to the currency.
+
+The delegates had, in fact, come to the meeting with the distinct
+purpose of returning to the "safe and sane" democracy of Grover
+Cleveland. To that end, the platform was to drop the silver issue and
+Bryan was to be replaced by a more conservative leader. The radical
+forces centered their strength upon William R. Hearst, but they were in
+a distinct minority, and in the end, the Cleveland wing succeeded in
+nominating Judge Alton B. Parker of New York. As soon as he was
+notified of his nomination, Judge Parker telegraphed to the convention
+that he regarded the gold standard as irrevocably established and that
+he must decline to be the party candidate if his attitude on the
+currency was unsatisfactory to the delegates. Thereupon the convention
+replied that the platform was silent on the question of a monetary
+standard because it was not regarded as a campaign issue. Parker was
+satisfied with the reply, and the last word was written upon a question
+that had disturbed politics for many years.
+
+The succeeding campaign was unusually listless. Parker did not inspire
+enthusiasm, although a man of undoubted integrity and ability, and the
+personality of Roosevelt was the controlling force. Only at the close
+of the canvass did a passing interest appear in some charges made by
+Parker. He called attention to the fact that Secretary Cortelyou of the
+Department of Commerce and Labor had been charged with the duty of
+examining the acts of corporations and had then resigned to become
+chairman of the National Republican Committee. Parker insinuated that
+Cortelyou was using information about corporate misdoing, which he had
+discovered, in order to force large contributions from the business
+interests. He also declared that the Republican campaign was being
+financed by the corporations. Roosevelt did not answer the charges
+until three days before the election, and then he asserted that the
+statements made by Parker were "unqualifiedly and atrociously false."
+Later investigations have shown that in general Parker was correct in
+his complaint as to the activities of the corporations, although he
+would have found difficulty in proving his charges in detail. The same
+investigations, however, indicated that some of the Democratic campaign
+fund had come from similar sources.
+
+[Illustration:
+Election of 1904 by Counties]
+
+The election resulted in the choice of President Roosevelt, whose
+popular vote was 7,600,000 to Parker's 5,000,000. In the more populous
+sections of the country, which were normally Republican, the party vote
+scarcely exceeded that of 1900, but in the Far West, the increases were
+notable. Beyond the Mississippi River, except in the southern states,
+hardly a county gave a majority for Parker, showing that the region
+which had gone to Bryan in 1896 was substantially solid for Roosevelt.
+Indeed, the policies to which Roosevelt was committed bore a greater
+resemblance to the principles of Bryan than to the _laissez faire_
+philosophy to which many important Republican leaders adhered. Despite
+their dissent, however, his victory in the election was so overwhelming
+that he could carry out his program with the irresistible pressure of
+public opinion behind him.
+
+During the campaign year, the Commissioner of Corporations was busy
+investigating the activities of the so-called "beef-trust," and a suit
+against the combination was pressed to a successful conclusion in
+January, 1905. In its decision in the case (Swift & Company _v._ United
+States), the Supreme Court dwelt at some length on the charges made
+against the Company. A dominant proportion--six-tenths--of the dealers
+in fresh meat in the United States were alleged to have agreed not to
+bid against one another in the live-stock markets; to restrict the
+output of meat in order to raise prices; to keep a black-list; and to
+get illegal rates from the railroads to the exclusion of competitors.
+To the objection of the members of the trust that the charges against
+them were general and did not set forth any specific facts, the Court
+retorted that the scheme alleged was so vast as to present a new
+problem in pleading. The decision was against the combination, which
+was ordered to dissolve. The publicity given to the case and to the
+methods of the meat packers assisted in the passage of legislation
+requiring government inspection of meats.
+
+An unexpected phase of the Sherman act appeared in 1908, in the case
+Loewe _v._ Lawlor. The American Federation of Labor, acting through its
+official organ, had declared a boycott against D.E. Loewe, a hat
+manufacturer of Danbury, Connecticut. The Court decided that a
+combination of labor organizations designed to boycott a dealer's goods
+was a combination in restraint of trade and that the manufacturer might
+maintain an action against the Hatters' Union for damages.[5]
+
+In the meantime, another prominent trust had played into the hands of
+the administration. The American Sugar Refining Company imported large
+amounts of raw sugar, on which it paid tariff duties. In November,
+1907, it was discovered that the Company had tampered with the scales
+on which the incoming sugar was weighed, in such a manner as to defraud
+the government. In the resulting legal actions, over $4,000,000 were
+recovered from the Company, criminal prosecutions were carried on
+against the officials and employees, and several of them were
+convicted. The close relation between the railroads and the great
+corporations was indicated when the Standard Oil Company of Indiana was
+brought into court on the charge of receiving rebates on petroleum
+shipped over the Chicago and Alton Railroad. The decision by Judge K.M.
+Landis was that the Company was guilty on 1,462 separate counts and
+must pay a fine of $29,240,000. On appeal to a higher court the case
+was dismissed, partly on a question concerning the meaning of the law.
+
+The efforts of Roosevelt in the direction of control of the railroads
+resembled his activities in relation to industrial combinations. A
+variety of circumstances had combined to arouse a popular demand for
+the reinforcement of existing legislation: the discovery of grave
+abuses in connection with the transportation of petroleum; the
+continuance of favoritism and rebating, together with increasing public
+knowledge of their existence; the rise in freight rates; and the
+consolidation of the railroads into a few large systems, with the
+accompanying concentration of power in the hands of a small number of
+persons. In his public speeches and in his messages to Congress in 1904
+and 1905, President Roosevelt made himself the spokesman of the popular
+will. In particular--and it was here that the conflict was destined to
+rage--the President called for the transfer to the Interstate Commerce
+Commission of the power to determine the rates which the roads should
+be allowed to charge. The project was not a new one, having already
+taken shape in previous years, but at no time was Congress prepared to
+pass definite legislation. The reaction of the railroads to the rising
+demand was energetic. A costly propaganda was entered upon designed to
+prove to the public that the roads should be let alone. A powerful
+lobby worked insistently upon Congress, first to prevent action and
+later, when action was seen to be inevitable, to weaken the legislation
+wherever possible. The railroad's campaign of popular education,
+however, helped to convince the popular mind that new laws were needed,
+and came coincidently with the disclosures of corporate mismanagement
+and wrong-doing. The outcome was the Hepburn Act of June 29, 1906.
+
+Its major provisions were five in number. It enlarged the scope of the
+Interstate Commerce Act so as to include control of express and
+sleeping car companies, pipe lines, switches, spur tracks and
+terminals. Free passes, which had hitherto been productive of much
+favoritism and the source of political corruption, were strictly
+forbidden, except to a few specified classes. The "commodity clause"
+forbade railroads to carry goods, other than timber, in which they had
+an interest, except such as they were going to use themselves. This
+provision was designed mainly to check the activities of those
+companies which owned both coal mines and railroads, and which used
+their advantageous position to crush independent operators. Its force,
+however, was largely nullified by subsequent decisions of the courts.
+The Hepburn law also enabled the Commission to prescribe the methods of
+book-keeping which the roads must follow, to call for monthly or
+special reports and to employ examiners who should have access to the
+books of the carriers. The roads were even denied the right to keep any
+records except those approved by the Commission. These drastic features
+of the law were due in part to the practices of certain roads which hid
+away corrupt expenditures in their accounts in such a manner that
+detection was almost impossible. Most important, however, among the
+provisions of the Act was that in relation to rate-making, which not
+only empowered the Commission to hear complaints that rates were unjust
+or unreasonable, but even enabled it to determine what would be a just
+and reasonable charge in the case, and to order the carrier complained
+of to adhere to the new rate. The rate-making section of the Hepburn
+Act immediately resulted in a large increase in the number of
+complaints entered by shippers against the carriers. Previously, few
+cases had been taken to the Commission--only 878 in eighteen
+years--because relief was seldom obtained and then only at great cost
+in time and money. Under the new law more than 1500 cases were entered
+within two and a half years, and several thousand others were
+informally settled out of court.
+
+The example of the federal government in adopting restrictive railway
+legislation was followed by the states, on a nation-wide scale. Hours
+of labor were regulated, liability for accidents defined, railroad
+commissions given larger powers, and freight and passenger rates
+determined. The result was a tangle of local regulations, many of which
+were designed to embarrass the roads and others of which were passed
+with slight knowledge of the practical questions involved.
+
+Aside from his connection with the anti-trust campaign and the movement
+for railroad regulation, Roosevelt's most significant activities during
+his second administration related to conservation. As early as 1880 the
+Superintendent of the Census had called attention to the exhaustion of
+the best public lands. The truth of his assertion had been exemplified
+in the rush of settlers to Oklahoma when the former Indian Territory
+was opened to settlement on April 22, 1889. At noon on that day the
+blast of a cavalry bugle was the signal that any settler might enter
+and stake out his claim. On foot, on fleet horses, in primitive wagons,
+an excited, jostling mob rushed toward those lands that seemed most
+desirable. Trains were crowded to the roofs; tools, furniture, and
+portable houses were carried in from Texas, Nebraska and Kansas. By
+nightfall a stretch of waving prairie became Gruthrie, with a
+population of 10,000 persons; by the evening of the first day Oklahoma
+possessed a population of 50,000; twenty years later it had over a
+million and a half, contained flourishing cities, many public
+enterprises, and a beautiful state university.
+
+The fact that desirable land was becoming so rare called attention to
+the waste and dishonesty in connection with our public land system. In
+his annual report for 1884 the Secretary of the Interior had complained
+that large amounts of land had been acquired under fictitious names or
+by persons employed for the purpose. Their holdings were then passed
+over to speculators who retained huge areas for a rising market.
+Railroads had kept lands granted to them, without fulfilling the
+conditions of the grants. Titled Englishmen and English land companies
+had gained control of tracts of unbelievable size, one of them being
+estimated at 3,000,000 acres. The history of the disposal of the public
+land had almost been duplicated in the history of the forest-bearing
+public domain, except that measures had earlier been taken to conserve
+the remnant of the once magnificent supply of standing timber. An act
+of 1891 had enabled the president to set apart as public reservations
+any lands bearing forests. All the presidents, from Harrison down, had
+availed themselves of their power, and had established great numbers of
+reservations, most of them in states west of the Mississippi.[6]
+
+A few far-sighted individuals had long urged caution in the disposal of
+the public resources. Some beginnings in fact had already been made in
+the Division of Forestry in the Department of Agriculture, where
+Clifford Pinchot was actively interested in forest preservation. In
+1901 and later his functions had been expanded, and the forestry
+service had taken up protection against fire, the sale of timber, and
+reforestation. In 1907 President Roosevelt appointed a commission to
+study the inland waterways, which after careful investigation
+recommended a convention for the discussion of conservation problems.
+Thereupon the President invited the governors of the states to
+Washington for a conference, at which conservation questions were
+thoroughly discussed. The resulting recommendations composed a
+complete, although general plan of reform: the natural resources of the
+country to be used for the prosperity of the American people;
+reclamation of arid lands; conservation of forests, minerals and
+water-power; the protection of the sources of the rivers; and
+cooperation between Congress and the states in developing a
+conservation program. A National Conservation Commission was later
+appointed which coordinated the work of organizing the movement, and
+made an exhaustive inventory of the nation's natural resources.
+
+The conservation movement also called attention to the possibilities of
+the arid region between the western parts of Kansas, Nebraska and the
+Dakotas, and the eastern border of California. Within this vast area
+were large tracts of land that would be fertile if sufficiently
+supplied with water. The most important legislation in a series of acts
+designed to meet this need was the Reclamation Act of 1902. Under its
+provisions the federal government set aside the proceeds of the sale of
+public land in sixteen states and territories as a fund for irrigation
+work. With the resources thus obtained, water powers were developed,
+reservoirs built and large tracts supplied with water. Private
+companies and western states also carried out numerous projects. The
+Department of Agriculture after its establishment in 1889 also
+conducted many undertakings which, in effect, were conservation
+enterprises. It helped educate the American farmer in scientific
+methods, sought new crops in every corner of the globe, discovered and
+circulated means of combating diseases and insects, studied soils,
+distributed seeds and gathered statistics. In the arid and semi-arid
+regions the discovery of dry farming was of great value. This consists
+of planting the seed deep and keeping a mulch of dust on the surface by
+frequent cultivation, in order to retard the evaporation of the
+moisture in the ground underneath.[7]
+
+Nothing can be more apparent than the complete change of position which
+was brought about during the eight years after the death of President
+McKinley. At the end of that period, both the industrial corporations
+and the railways were on the defensive, and the public had secured the
+whip hand. Industry, especially the railroads, was tamed and
+hobbled--some thought, crippled. Many factors contributed to the
+revolution. President Roosevelt was its most active agent, to be
+sure,--its "gigantic advertiser" and popularizer. But it could hardly
+have taken place--at least at the time and in the way it did--without
+the great upheaval of 1896, without the publicity which the "muck-rake"
+magazines and daily newspapers were able to offer, without the
+industrial consolidations of 1898 and later, and without the refusal of
+industry and the railways to obey earlier and less drastic laws, and
+their skilled and insistent attempts to find loop-holes in legislation.
+
+From the standpoint of politics, the effect of the Roosevelt
+administrations was notable. As has been seen, the Republican party had
+become largely the party of the business and commercial classes,
+conservative and unyielding to the new demands of the late nineteenth
+century. Its leadership had been sharply challenged by the forces of
+unrest in 1896. On an issue other than a monetary one, the success of
+Bryan would have been possible. The failure of the attempt to get
+control of the federal government in the interest of the Populist
+program was only a temporary defeat, for the revival of unrest,
+although checked by the war with Spain, was sure soon to reappear. In
+President Roosevelt, the forces of discontent, especially in the Middle
+and Far West, saw their hoped-for champion, and their support of him
+was instant and complete. The dominant leadership and much of the rank
+and file of the Republican party had become liberal. The situation was
+anomalous, however, for no great political party can experience a
+thorough-going change of philosophy in a few years. Only the future,
+therefore, could tell whether the newer and more liberal element would
+continue to control the party, or whether a reaction against its
+leadership would take place.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+It is too early to expect a biography of Roosevelt which is informed
+and critical, as well as sympathetic. The keenest judgment is to be
+found in _Atlantic Monthly_ (CIX, 577), "Mr. Roosevelt." The following
+are also available: L.F. Abbott, _Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt_
+(1919); F.E. Leupp, _The Man Roosevelt_ (1904); W.R. Thayer, _Theodore
+Roosevelt_ (1919); C.G. Washburn, _Theodore Roosevelt; the Logic of His
+Career_ (1916). Roosevelt can be partly understood through a critical
+reading of his writings, especially his _Addresses and Presidential
+Messages_ (1904), and his _Autobiography_ (1913).
+
+On the coal strike consult the _Autobiography_, and _Senate Reports_,
+58th Congress, special session, Document No. 6 (Serial Number 4556),
+the report of the President's Commission. The election of 1904 is
+discussed in Latané, Croly and Stanwood: see also C.M. Pepper, _The
+Life and Times of Henry Gassaway Davis_ (1920). The new railroad acts
+are well discussed in W.Z. Ripley, _Railroads: Rates and Regulations_
+(1912), and by F.H. Dixon in _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, XXI, 22.
+
+The literature of conservation is very large. An excellent single
+chapter is in Katherine Coman, _Industrial History of the United
+States_ (rev. ed., 1910); C.R. Van Hise, _The Conservation of Natural
+Resources in the United States_ (1913), is a standard work; R.P. Teele,
+_Irrigation in the United States_ (1915), is detailed; for documents
+concerning the conference of governors, _House of Representatives
+Document_ No. 1425, 60th Congress, 2nd session (Serial Number 5538).
+
+The anti-trust campaign is best followed in Theodore Roosevelt,
+_Addresses and Presidential Messages_, and in the _Autobiography_. The
+Northern Securities decision is in _United States Reports_, vol. 193,
+p. 197.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] In view of the later activities of President Roosevelt, there is
+point in the remark of a satirist that Roosevelt did carry out the
+policies of McKinley--and bury them. _Atlantic Monthly_, CIX, 164.
+
+[2] Above, p. 257.
+
+[3] It was later denied that Baer made the statement, but a
+photographic copy of the letter was printed in Lloyd, _Henry D. Lloyd_,
+II, 190. See also Mitchell, _Organized Labor_, 384; Peck, _Twenty
+Years_, 693-6.
+
+[4] Rumor says that Roosevelt sent Elihu Root to the eminent financial
+magnate, J.P. Morgan, with information of his intent to appoint the
+Cleveland Commission, and that Morgan applied the pressure to the coal
+operators.
+
+[5] In 1917, fourteen years after Loewe's first suit, he recovered
+damages from the Union.
+
+[6] In 1918, 151 national forests aggregated 176,000,000 acres.
+Secretary of the Interior, _Annual Report_, 1918, 61.
+
+[7] The territory of Alaska contains immense stores of natural resources
+which are being conserved with more wisdom than characterized the
+disposal of our continental supplies. The area of the territory,
+586,400 square miles, constitutes a, kingdom. It has uncounted wealth in
+fish, furs, timber, coal and precious metals. At present the federal
+government is building a railroad which will tap some of the resources
+of the region. _Enc. Brit._, "Alaska."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+POLITICS, 1908-1912
+
+By 1908, the year of the presidential election, an influential portion
+of the Republican members of Congress, particularly in the Senate, were
+bitterly opposed to President Roosevelt. His attitude on the trusts and
+the railroads was offensive to many, and on several occasions he had
+gained the upper hand over Congress by means which were coming to be
+known as "big-stick" methods. The so-called "constructive recess" of
+1903 was an example.
+
+Under the provisions of the Constitution, the president appoints many
+officials with the advice and consent of the Senate, when it is in
+session, and fills vacancies that happen during a recess by granting
+commissions which expire at the end of the next session. On December 2,
+1903, at noon, one session of Congress came to an end and another began.
+Precisely at 12 o'clock, according to the official statement, the
+President issued new commissions to W.D. Crum, a negro, to be collector
+of the port of Charleston, and also to 168 army officers, of whom the
+President's close friend Brigadier-General Leonard Wood was one. General
+Wood was to be promoted to a major-generalship and the remaining
+promotions were dependent upon his advance. The President's theory was
+that a "constructive recess" intervened between the two sessions, during
+which he could make recess appointments. Although the Senate was hostile
+to both Crum and Wood, it reluctantly succumbed to Roosevelt's wishes
+rather than withhold promotion from the 167 officers to whom it had no
+objection.
+
+In 1908, Senator Tillman, an outspoken Democratic critic of the
+President, declared that senators vigorously denounced Roosevelt's
+radical ideas in private but that in public they opposed merely by
+inaction. Party loyalty was sufficient to keep these Republicans, in
+most cases, from open and continued rebellion. Hardly less hostile to
+the President were many of the business men of the country, who objected
+to his economic policies, but the only alternative to Roosevelt was
+Bryan, who, as one of the earliest proponents of radical legislation,
+was even more offensive. On the other hand, a large majority of the rank
+and file of the party, especially in the North and West, upheld the
+President with unfeigned enthusiasm and made his position in the party
+so strong that he could practically name his successor. Several
+candidates had more or less local support for the nomination--Senator
+Knox, of Pennsylvania, Governor Hughes, of New York, Speaker Cannon, of
+Illinois, Vice-President Fairbanks, of Indiana, Senator La Follette, of
+Wisconsin and Senator Foraker, of Ohio. The President's prestige and
+energy, however, were frankly behind the candidacy of his Secretary of
+War, William H. Taft.
+
+The Republican convention of 1908 met in Chicago on June 16. Early in
+the proceedings the mention of Roosevelt's name brought an outburst of
+enthusiasm which indicated the possibility that he might be nominated
+for a third term, despite his expressed refusal to allow such a move to
+be made. In the platform the achievements of the retiring administration
+were recounted in glowing terms; tariff reform was promised; and a
+postal savings bank, the strengthening of the Interstate Commerce law
+and the Sherman Anti-trust act, the more accurate definition of the
+rules of procedure in the issuance of injunctions, good roads,
+conservation, pensions and the encouragement of shipping, received the
+stamp of party approval. Planks pledging the party to legislation
+requiring the publicity of campaign expenditures, the valuation of the
+physical property of railroads and the popular election of senators were
+uniformly rejected. The closing paragraph declared that the "trend of
+Democracy is toward Socialism, while the Republican party stands for
+wise and regulated individualism." The contest over the nomination was
+extremely brief, as Taft received 702 out of 979 votes on the first
+ballot. James S. Sherman of New York was nominated for the
+vice-presidency.
+
+The Democrats, meanwhile, were in a quandary. A considerable fraction of
+the party desired the nomination of somebody other than Bryan, whose
+defeats in 1896 and 1900 had cast doubts upon the wisdom of a third
+trial. Nevertheless the failure of Parker in 1904 had been so
+overwhelming that the nomination of a conservative seemed undesirable
+and, moreover, no candidate appeared whose achievements or promise could
+overcome the prestige of Bryan. The national convention was held in
+Denver, July 7-10, and Bryan dominated all its activities. The platform
+welcomed the Republican promise to reform the tariff, but doubted its
+sincerity; promised changes in the Interstate Commerce law, a more
+elastic currency, improvements in the law of injunctions, generous
+pensions, good roads and the conservation of the national resources. In
+the main, however, the platform was an emphatic condemnation of the
+Republican party as the party of "privileges and private monopoly." It
+declared that the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives
+exercised such absolute domination as to stop the enactment of measures
+desired by the majority. It demanded the termination of the "partnership
+which has existed between corporations of the country and the Republican
+party," by which the business interests contributed great sums of money
+in elections in return for an unmolested opportunity to "encroach upon
+the rights of the people." It promised the enactment of laws preventing
+corporation contributions to campaign funds and providing for the
+publication before election of all contributions by individuals.
+Detailed and definite planks in relation to trusts indicated that the
+framers of the platform possessed at least the courage of their
+convictions. Three laws were promised: one preventing the duplication of
+directors among competing corporations; another establishing a license
+system which would place under federal authority those corporations
+engaged in interstate commerce which controlled as much as twenty-five
+per cent. of the product in which they dealt, and which should likewise
+protect the public from watered stock and prohibit any single
+corporation from controlling over fifty per cent. of the total amount of
+any commodity consumed in the United States; and, third, a law forcing
+corporations to sell to purchasers in all sections of the country on the
+same terms, after making due allowance for transportation costs.
+
+As soon as the platform was out of the way, the convention turned to the
+nomination of the candidate. Only George Gray, of Delaware, and John A.
+Johnson, of Minnesota, contested the leadership of Bryan, but their
+support was so slight that he was chosen on the first ballot. John W.
+Kern, of Indiana, was nominated for the vice-presidency.
+
+Of the smaller parties which shared in the election of 1908, the
+People's party and the Socialists should be mentioned. The Populists
+adopted a program of economic reforms many parts of which had been
+prominent in their platforms of 1892 and 1896. Both the Republicans and
+the Democrats, however, had adopted so many of these earlier demands
+that the Populists rapidly lost strength and disappeared after 1908. The
+Socialists likewise advocated economic reforms, together with government
+ownership of the railroads, and of such industries as were organized on
+a national scale. The candidate nominated was Eugene V. Debs, a labor
+leader who had gained prominence at the time of the Pullman strike.[1]
+
+The only novelty in the campaign was Bryan's stand in regard to campaign
+funds. By calling upon his supporters for large numbers of small
+individual contributions, he drew attention to the fact that the
+corporations were helping generously to meet Taft's election expenses.
+At their leader's direction the Democratic committee announced that it
+would receive no contributions whatever from corporations, that it would
+accept no offering over $10,000 and that it would publish a list of
+contributors before the close of the campaign.
+
+The result of the election was the triumph of Taft and his party. The
+Republican popular vote was 7,700,000; the Democratic, 6,500,000; the
+Socialist, 420,890. The election also gave the Republicans control of
+Congress, which was to be constituted as follows during 1909-1911:
+Senate, Democrats, 32, Republicans, 61; House of Representatives,
+Democrats, 172, Republicans, 219.
+
+Few men in our history have had a wider judicial and administrative
+experience before coming to the presidency than that of William H. Taft.
+He was born in 1857 in Ohio, graduated from Yale University with high
+rank in the class of 1878 and later entered upon the study of law. A
+judicial temperament early manifested itself and Taft became
+successively judge of the Superior Court in Cincinnati and of a United
+States Circuit Court. From the latter post he was called to serve upon
+the Philippine Commission, was later Governor of the Philippines and
+Secretary of War in Roosevelt's cabinet. During the period of his
+connection with the Philippines and his membership in the Cabinet he
+visited Cuba, Panama, Porto Rico, Japan and the Papal Court at Rome in
+connection with matters of federal importance.
+
+Personally Taft is kindly, unaffected, democratic, full of good humor,
+courageous. As a public officer he was slow and judicial, rather than
+quick and executive like his predecessor. Although in sympathy with the
+reforms instituted by Roosevelt, Taft was less the reformer and more
+conscious of considerations of constitutionality. Roosevelt thought of
+the domain of the executive as including all acts not _specifically
+forbidden_ by the Constitution or by the laws of the nation; Taft
+thought of it as including only those which were _specifically granted_
+by the Constitution and laws. The one was voluble, a dynamo of energy,
+quick to seize and act upon any innovation that gave promise of being
+both useful and successful; the other thought and acted more slowly and
+was less sensitive to the feasibility of change. One possessed well-nigh
+all the attributes necessary for intense popularity; the other inspired
+admiration among a smaller group. Roosevelt had a peculiarly keen
+perception of the currents of public opinion, enjoyed publicity and knew
+how to achieve it; Taft was less quick at discovering the popular thing
+and less adept at those tricks of the trade that heightened the
+popularity of his predecessor.
+
+Despite the patent differences of temperament and philosophy between
+Taft and Roosevelt, both expected that the new administration would be
+an extension of the old one. Roosevelt indicated this in his frank
+preference for Taft as his successor; Taft indicated it in his thorough
+acceptance of the policies of the preceding seven years and in his
+intention, expressed at the time of his inauguration, to maintain and
+further the reforms already initiated. His first act, however, the
+appointment of his official advisors, caused some surprise among the
+friends of his predecessor who expected that he would retain most if not
+all of the Roosevelt cabinet. When he did not do so, it seemed as if the
+attempt to further the Roosevelt policies would lack continuity.[2]
+
+The immediate problem that faced the new executive was the revision of
+the tariff. The task was one which has frequently resulted in political
+disaster, but the platform left no choice to the President:
+
+    The Republican party declares unequivocally for a revision of the
+    tariff by a special session of Congress immediately following the
+    inauguration of the next President.... In all tariff legislation the
+    true principle of protection is best maintained by the imposition
+    of such duties as will equal the difference between the cost of
+    production at home and abroad, together with a reasonable profit to
+    American industries.
+
+The precise meaning of this declaration will perhaps always remain a
+matter of dispute, although it is certain that the public in general
+understood it to mean a distinct lowering of the tariff wall, and Taft
+committed himself to downward revision in his inaugural address.
+Moreover, whether it was intended by the framers to commit the party
+to downward revision or not, the method of defining the amount of
+protection to be granted was both novel and unsatisfactory, as
+Professor Taussig has pointed out. How could the costs of production
+at home or abroad be determined? To what extent would the principle
+announced in the platform be carried? Almost any commodity can be
+produced almost anywhere if the producer is guaranteed the cost of
+production, together with a reasonable profit. The wise revision of
+the tariff is difficult enough under any circumstances; under so vague
+a theory as was proposed in 1908, the chances of success became
+remote.
+
+The drafting of the tariff bill proceeded in the usual manner. The
+Ways and Means Committee of the House, the chairman of which was
+Sereno Payne, held preliminary public "hearings," which were open to
+any who desired to offer testimony or make requests. Naturally,
+however, the great body of the consuming public was little
+represented; most of those who appeared were manufacturers, importers
+and other interested parties. The bill drawn up by the Committee and
+passed by the House revised existing duties, on the whole, in the
+downward direction. The Senate Finance Committee, however, under the
+leadership of Nelson W. Aldrich, an experienced and able proponent of
+a high protective tariff, made 847 amendments, many of them important
+and generally in the direction of higher rates. The Senate, like the
+House, contained several Republicans, usually called "insurgents," who
+were inclined to break away from certain of the party doctrines.
+Senators Bristow, Cummins, Dolliver and La Follette were among them.
+This contingent had hoped for a genuine downward revision, and when
+they saw that the bill was not in accord with their expectations, they
+prepared to demand a thorough debate. Each of the insurgents made an
+especial study of some particular portion of the proposed measure so
+as to be well prepared to urge reductions. Their efforts were
+unavailing, however, and the bill passed--the insurgents voting with
+the great majority of the Democrats in the negative. The bill then
+went to a conference committee. Up to this point, the President had
+taken little share in the formation of the bill. Yet as leader of the
+party he had pledged himself to a downward revision and the result
+seemed likely not to be in the promised direction. He therefore
+exerted pressure on the conference committee and succeeded apparently
+in getting some reductions, chiefly the abolition of the duty on
+hides. The bill was then passed by both houses and signed by the
+President on August 5, 1909.
+
+The question whether the Payne-Aldrich act redeemed the pledge
+embodied in the platform of 1908 will doubtless remain a debatable
+question. On the one hand, a prominent Republican member of the
+Committee on Ways and Means and of the Conference Committee, declared
+that the act represented the greatest reduction that had been made in
+the tariff at any single time since the first revenue law was signed
+by George Washington. Roosevelt also defended the act. Experts outside
+of Congress sharply differed. Professor Taussig analyzed the act in
+all its aspects and concluded that no essential change had been made
+in our tariff system. "It still left an extremely high scheme of
+rates, and still showed an extremely intolerant attitude on foreign
+trade." General public opinion was most affected by the fact that
+duties on cotton goods were raised, and those on woolen goods left at
+the high rates levied under the Dingley act. It also appeared that
+many silent influences had been at work--the duty on cheap cotton
+gloves, for example, being doubled through the efforts of an
+interested individual who procured the assistance of a New England
+senator.[3]
+
+Not long after the passage of the act President Taft defended it in a
+speech at Winona, Minnesota, as the best tariff bill that the
+Republican party had ever passed. In regard to the woolen schedule he
+frankly said:
+
+    Mr. Payne in the House, and Mr. Aldrich, in the Senate, although
+    both favored reduction in the schedule, found that in the Republican
+    party the interests of the wool growers of the Far West and the
+    interests of the woolen manufacturers in the East and in other
+    States, reflected through their representatives in Congress, were
+    sufficiently strong to defeat any attempt to change the woolen
+    tariff and that, had it been attempted, it would have beaten the
+    bill reported from either committee.... It is the one important
+    defect in the present Payne tariff.
+
+The response of the press and the insurgent Republicans to the passage
+of the bill and to the Winona speech were ominous for the future of the
+party. Although not unanimous, condemnation was common in the West,
+even in Republican papers. Particular objection was made to the high
+estimate which the President placed upon the act and to his defence of
+Senator Aldrich, who had come to be looked upon as the forefront of the
+"special interests"; and western state Republican platforms in 1910
+declared that the act had not been in accord with the plank of 1908.[4]
+
+Coincidently with the disagreement over the Payne-Aldrich act, there
+raged the unhappy Pinchot-Ballinger controversy. One of the last acts
+of President Roosevelt had been to withdraw from sale large tracts of
+public land which contained valuable water-power. The purpose and the
+effect of the order was to prevent these natural resources from falling
+into private hands and particularly into the hands of syndicates or
+corporations who would develop them mainly for individual interests.
+President Taft's Secretary of the Interior, Richard A. Ballinger, took
+the attitude that the withdrawals were without statutory justification
+and he therefore revoked the order for withdrawals immediately after
+coming into office. Upon further investigation, however, he re-withdrew
+a part of the land, although somewhat doubtful of his power to do so.
+
+During the summer of 1909, Gifford Pinchot, the Chief Forester,
+addressed an irrigation Congress in Spokane and asserted that the
+water-power sites were being absorbed by a trust. Much interest was
+aroused by the charge, which was looked upon as an attack on the
+Secretary of the Interior and his policy. Within a short time the idea
+became widespread, through the press, that Ballinger was associated
+with interests which were desirous of seizing the public resources and
+that this fact lay back of his partial reversal of the policy of his
+predecessor. This impression was deepened by the charges of L.R.
+Glavis, an employee of the Department of the Interior, concerning the
+claims of a certain Clarence Cunningham, representing a group of
+investors, to some exceedingly valuable coal lands in Alaska. Glavis
+asserted that the Cunningham claims were fraudulent, that many of the
+Cunningham group were personal friends of Ballinger and that the latter
+had acted as attorney for them before becoming Secretary of the
+Interior. President Taft, with the backing of an opinion from
+Attorney-General Wickersham, upheld Ballinger and dismissed Glavis. The
+press again took the matter up and the controversy was carried into
+Congress, where an investigation was ordered. About the same time
+Pinchot was removed for insubordination, and additional heat entered
+into the disagreement. The majority of the congressional committee of
+investigation later made a report exonerating Ballinger, but his
+position had become intolerable and he resigned in March, 1911. The
+result of the quarrel was to weaken the President, for the idea became
+common that his administration had been friendly with interests that
+wished to seize the public lands.
+
+Republican complaint in regard to the tariff and the Pinchot-Ballinger
+controversy were surface indications of a division in the party into
+conservative or "old-guard," and progressive or insurgent groups. The
+same line of demarcation appeared in a quarrel over the power of the
+Speaker of the House of Representatives, Joseph G. Cannon. Cannon had
+served in the lower branch of Congress almost continuously for
+twenty-seven years, and in 1910 was filling the position of speaker for
+the fourth consecutive time. Much of his official influence rested on
+two powers: he appointed the committees of the House and their
+chairmen, a power which enabled him to punish opponents, reward friends
+and determine the character of legislation; and he was the chairman and
+dominant power of the Committee on Rules which determined the procedure
+under existing practice and made special orders whenever particular
+circumstances seemed to require them. It was widely believed that
+Cannon, like Aldrich in the Senate, effectually controlled the passage
+of legislation, with slender regard to the wishes or needs of the
+people. "Cannonism" and "Aldrichism" were considered synonymous. For
+several years an influential part of the Republican and Independent, as
+well as the Democratic press had attacked Speaker Cannon as the enemy
+of progressive legislation. Many of them laid much of the blame for the
+character of the Payne-Aldrich act at his door. _The Outlook_ decried
+"government by oligarchy"; _The Nation_ declared that he belonged to
+another political age; Bryan queried what Cannon was selling and how
+much he got; Gompers, the head of the American Federation of Labor,
+pointed him out as the enemy of all reforms.
+
+The outcry against the Speaker in the House itself, reinforced by the
+gathering opposition outside, found effective voice in a coalition of
+the Democrats and the insurgent Republicans. In mid-March, 1910, an
+insurgent presented a resolution designed to replace the old Committee
+on Rules by a larger body which should be elected by the House, and on
+which the speaker would have no place. The friends of Cannon rallied to
+his defence; other business fell into the background; and debate became
+sharp and personal. One continuous session lasted twenty-six hours,
+parliamentary fencing mingling with horse-play while each side
+attempted to get a tactical advantage over the other.[5] Eventually
+about forty insurgent Republicans joined with the Democrats to pass the
+resolution. The result of the change was to compel the speaker to be a
+presiding officer rather than the determining factor in the passage of
+legislation. About the time that Cannon's domination in the House was
+being broken, the announcement that Senator Nelson W. Aldrich and his
+staunchly conservative associate, Eugene Hale, of Maine, were about to
+retire indicated a similar change in the Senate. These men had served
+for long periods in Congress and were looked upon as the ablest and
+most influential of the "reactionary" element in the upper house.
+
+Coincidently with the partial disintegration of the conservative wing
+of the Republican party in Congress, there was passed a large volume of
+legislation of the type desired by the insurgents. The public land laws
+were improved; acts requiring the use of safety appliances on railroads
+were strengthened; a Bureau of Mines was established to study the
+welfare of the miners; a postal savings bank system was erected; and an
+Economy and Efficiency Commission appointed to examine the several
+administrative departments so as to discover wasteful methods of doing
+business. Of especial importance was the Mann-Elkins Act of June 18,
+1910, which further extended the powers of the Interstate Commerce
+Commission. Experience had brought out serious defects in the
+rate-fixing procedure set up by the Hepburn Act. By that law, to be
+sure, a shipper could complain that the roads were charging him an
+unreasonable rate and the Commission might, in course of time, uphold
+him and order relief; but in the meantime the shipper, especially if he
+were a small one, might be crushed out of existence through the large
+rates, and the consuming public would have paid increased prices for
+commodities with no possibility of a remuneration to them, even if the
+Commission decided that the rates levied were unreasonably high. The
+Mann-Elkins law, therefore, provided that the Commission might suspend
+any proposed change in rates for a period not greater than ten months,
+and decide during that time whether it was reasonable and should go
+into effect or not. In this way the burden of proving the justice of a
+suggested change was placed upon the railroads.[6]
+
+An act of June 25, 1910, which was amended a year later, required the
+publication of the names of persons contributing to the federal
+campaign funds of the political parties, and the amounts contributed,
+as well as a detailed account of the expenditures of the committees and
+the purposes for which the expenses were incurred. President Taft also
+urged the passage of an income tax amendment to the federal
+Constitution and indicated that he was in favor of an amendment
+providing for the popular election of senators. Amendments for both
+these purposes passed Congress; but they were not ratified and put into
+effect until 1913.
+
+In June, 1910, Roosevelt returned from Africa whither he had gone for a
+hunting trip, after the inauguration of President Taft. Both elements
+in the Republican party were anxious for his sympathy and support.
+Roosevelt himself seems to have desired to remain outside the arena, at
+least for a time, but for many reasons permanent separation from
+politics was impossible. He became a candidate for the position of
+temporary chairman of the New York Republican State Convention against
+Vice-President James S. Sherman. The contest in the convention brought
+out opposition to him on the part of the old-guard, and his triumph
+left that wing of the party dissatisfied and disunited. During the
+summer and autumn of 1910 he made extensive political tours. At
+Ossawatomie, Kansas, he developed the platform of the "New
+Nationalism," which included more thorough control of corporations, and
+progressive legislation in regard to income taxes, conservation, the
+laboring classes, primary elections at which the people could nominate
+candidates for office, and the recall of elective officials before the
+close of their terms. He urged such vigorous use of the powers of the
+federal government that there should be no "neutral ground" between
+state and nation, to serve as a refuge for law-breakers. Critics
+pointed out that these proposals had been urged by the insurgents and
+the followers of Bryan, and there could be no doubt where the
+sympathies of Roosevelt lay in the factional dispute within the
+Republican party.
+
+While conditions within the organization were such as were indicated by
+the hostile criticism of the Payne-Aldrich act, by the Pinchot-Ballinger
+controversy, the overturn of Speaker Cannon and the disintegration of
+the Aldrich-Hale group, the congressional election of 1910 took place.
+Signs of impending change had already become evident. Insurgent
+Republicans were carrying the party primaries; and the Democrats, who
+were plainly confident, emphasized strongly the tariff act, Cannonism
+and the high cost of living as reasons for the removal of the
+Republicans. The result was a greater upheaval than even the Democrats
+had prophesied. In nine states the Republicans were ousted from
+legislatures that would elect United States senators; the new Senate
+would contain forty-one Democrats and fifty-one Republicans--too narrow
+a Republican majority in view of the strength of the insurgents. In the
+choice of members of the lower branch of Congress there was a still
+greater revolution; the new House would contain 228 Democrats, 161
+Republicans and one Socialist, while Cannon would be retired from the
+speakership. In eastern as well as western states, Democratic governors
+were elected in surprising numbers. Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
+New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Oregon were among them. Of particular
+importance, as later events showed, was the success in New Jersey of
+Woodrow Wilson, former president of Princeton University.
+
+Not long after the election of 1910 the President sent to Congress a
+special message urging the adoption of a reciprocal trade agreement
+with Canada. The arrangement provided for freedom of trade in many raw
+materials and food products, and for substantial reductions on some
+manufactured articles. He believed that the project would benefit both
+countries economically and improve the already friendly relations
+existing between them, and he set his heart upon its adoption.
+Opposition appeared at once: the farmers' organizations protested
+vigorously at the reduction of the tariff on agricultural products; the
+high protectionists were fearful of an entering wedge which might lead
+to further tariff reductions; and the paper and wood pulp interests
+also objected. Although the agreement eventually passed both houses of
+Congress by large majorities, the opposition was composed chiefly of
+Republicans. Objection to the arrangement in Canada turned out to be
+stronger than had been anticipated. The fear that commercial
+reciprocity might make the Dominion somewhat dependent on the United
+States seems to have caused a manifestation of national pride, and Sir
+Wilfred Laurier, who had led the forces in favor of the agreement, was
+driven out of power and reciprocity defeated. The result for the
+administration was failure and further division in the party.
+
+Democratic control of the House during the second half of Taft's term
+effectually prevented the passage of any considerable amount of
+legislation. A parcel-post law, however, was passed, a Children's
+Bureau was established for the study of the welfare of children, and a
+Department of Labor provided for, whose secretary was to be a member of
+the cabinet. Aided by the insurgents, the Democrats attempted a small
+amount of tariff legislation. Although a general revision of the entire
+tariff structure would be a long and laborious task, specific schedules
+could be revised which would indicate what might be expected in case of
+Democratic success in 1912. The sugar, steel, woolen, chemical and
+cotton schedules were taken up in accord with this plan and bills were
+passed which were uniformly vetoed by the President.
+
+In his attitude toward the regulation of big business, President Taft
+was in harmony with his predecessor and was in thorough sympathy,
+therefore, with suits brought under the Sherman law against the
+Standard Oil Company, and the American Tobacco Company. In May, 1911,
+the Supreme Court decided that both of these companies had been guilty
+of combining to restrain and to monopolize trade, and ordered a
+dissolution of the conspiring elements into separate, competing units.
+The Court also undertook to answer some of the knotty questions that
+had arisen in relation to section 1 of the act, which declares illegal
+"every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or
+conspiracy, in restraint of trade." Did the prohibition against every
+contract or combination mean precisely _every_ contract, whether
+important or not? Or did it refer merely to large and unreasonable
+restraints? The phraseology of the statute seems to prohibit restraints
+of all kinds, and the previous decisions of the Court had been in line
+with this view. When, then, the decisions in these two cases erected
+the "rule of reason" and declared that only those restraints were
+forbidden that were unreasonable, the attention of some opponents of
+the trusts was focussed on the _obiter dictum_, rather than upon the
+decisions themselves. In taking this position, they had the support of
+Mr. Justice Harlan who agreed to the decision but condemned the _obiter
+dictum_, asserted that the exact words of the law forbade _every_
+contract, and deprecated what he believed to be the amendment of
+statutes by the courts. The dissolution of the companies into competing
+units, however, had no apparent effect that was of benefit to the
+public. In fact, immediate increases in the value of Standard Oil
+stocks indicated that the decision was of slight consequence.
+
+In the meantime the widening of the breach in the Republican party was
+indicated by the formation of the National Progressive Republican
+League on January 21, 1911. Its most prominent leaders were Senators
+Bourne, Bristow and La Follette; and leading progressives in different
+states were invited to join--among them ex-President Roosevelt. It was
+the hope that if the latter joined the League, the step might help to
+place him in more open opposition to the Taft administration. The
+purpose of the organization was the passage of progressive economic and
+political legislation, especially acts providing for the election of
+senators by vote of the people, direct primaries for the nomination of
+elective officers, direct election of delegates to national
+conventions, the initiative, referendum and recall in the states, and a
+thorough-going corrupt practices act.
+
+Early in 1912 the factions in the Republican party began to consider
+the question of a leader for the coming presidential campaign, some of
+the progressive element looking to La Follette as the natural
+candidate, and others to Roosevelt when it was seen that he would not
+support Taft for a renomination. On February 21, Roosevelt addressed a
+constitutional convention in Columbus, Ohio, and expressed a political
+creed that closely resembled the program of the National Progressive
+Republican League. In the meantime the demand for Roosevelt as a
+candidate had been incessant on the part of numerous Republicans of
+insurgent sympathies, who realized how many more progressive principles
+he had accepted than Taft. Finally on February 24 he replied to an
+appeal from a group of his supporters, including seven state governors,
+that he would accept a nomination. Thereupon most of the progressives
+transferred their allegiance from La Follette to the ex-President.
+President Taft's fighting spirit had become aroused, in the meanwhile,
+and he had declared that only death would keep him out of the fight.
+
+The call had already been issued for the Republican Nominating
+Convention to be held in Chicago, in June, and the contest began for
+the control of the 1,078 delegates who would compose its membership.
+The supporters of Taft, being in possession of the party machinery,
+were able to dictate the choice of many of these delegates, especially
+from the South, by means that had been usual in politics for many
+years. The friends of Roosevelt, in order to overcome this handicap,
+began to demand presidential preference primaries, in which the people
+might make known their wishes, and in which his personal popularity
+would make him a strong contender. During the pre-convention campaign,
+twelve states held primaries and the others held the usual party
+conventions. At first Taft did not actively enter the contest, but the
+efforts of Roosevelt were so successful and his charges against the
+President so numerous that he felt compelled to take the stump. The
+country was then treated to the spectacle of a President and an
+ex-President touring the country and acrimoniously attacking each
+other. The progressives, Taft asserted, were "political emotionalists"
+and "neurotics"; Roosevelt, he complained, had promised not to accept
+another nomination, had broken his agreement, and had not given a fair
+account of the policies which the administration had been following.
+Roosevelt charged Taft with being a reactionary, a friend of the
+"bosses" and with using the patronage in order to secure a
+renomination. And he grated on the sensibilities of the nation by
+referring to his influence in getting Taft elected in 1908 and
+remarking, "it is a bad trait to bite the hand that feeds you." The
+result of the presidential preference primaries in the few states that
+held them was overwhelmingly in favor of Roosevelt; in the states where
+conventions chose the delegates, Taft obtained a majority; in the case
+of over 200 delegates, there were disputes as to whether Taft or
+Roosevelt men were fairly chosen. These contests, as usual, were
+decided by the National Republican Committee, with the right of appeal
+to the Convention itself. The Committee decided nearly all the contests
+in favor of Taft's friends, and since all the delegates thus chosen
+would sit in the Convention and vote on one another's cases, the
+decision seemed likely to be final.
+
+The scene of action then shifted to Chicago where the Convention
+assembled on June 18. Aroused by the action of the Committee in the
+contests, Roosevelt went thither to care for his interests.[7] The
+election of a temporary chairman resulted in the choice of Elihu Root,
+who was favorable to Taft. The Roosevelt delegates, declaring that the
+contests had been unfairly decided, enlivened the roll-call by shouts
+of "robbers," "thieves"; and when Root thanked the Convention for the
+confidence which it reposed in him, his words were greeted with groans.
+Upon the failure of an attempt to revise the decision of the National
+Committee in the cases of the contested delegates, Roosevelt announced
+that he was "through." One of his supporters read to the Convention a
+statement from him charging that the Committee, under the direction of
+Taft, had stolen eighty or ninety delegates, making the gathering no
+longer in any proper sense a Republican convention. Thereafter most of
+the Roosevelt delegates refused to share either in the nomination of
+the candidate or in the adoption of a platform. The choice of Taft as
+the candidate was then made without difficulty.
+
+The platform contained the usual planks concerning the party's past,
+the protective tariff and the civil service; and it reflected something
+of the rising interest in economic and political reforms in its
+advocacy of laws limiting the hours of labor for women and children,
+workmen's compensation acts, reforms in legal procedure, a simpler
+process than impeachment for the removal of judges, additions to the
+anti-trust law, the revision of the currency system, publicity of
+campaign contributions and a parcel-post.
+
+As the Republican convention was drawing its labors to a close, the
+dissatisfied adherents of Roosevelt met and invited him to become the
+candidate of a new organization. Upon his acceptance, a call was issued
+for a convention of the Progressive Party, to be held in Chicago on
+August 5. The discord among the Republicans was viewed with undisguised
+content by the Democratic leaders, for it seemed likely to open to them
+the doorway to power. Yet the same difference between liberals and
+conservatives that had been the outstanding feature of the Republican
+convention was evident among the Democrats, and nobody could be sure
+that a schism would not take place.
+
+There was no lack of aspirants for the presidential nomination. J.B.
+("Champ") Clark, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Governor
+Judson Harmon, of Ohio, O.W. Underwood, Chairman of the House Committee
+on Ways and Means, and Governor Woodrow Wilson, of New Jersey, all had
+earnest supporters. In contests in the state conventions and primaries,
+Speaker Clark was most successful, although not enough delegates were
+pledged to him to secure the nomination.
+
+The convention met in Baltimore on June 25, and for the most part
+centered about the activities of Bryan. On the third day he presented a
+resolution declaring the convention opposed to the nomination of any
+candidate who was under obligations to J.P. Morgan, T.F. Ryan, August
+Belmont, or any of the "privilege-hunting and favor-seeking class." An
+uproar ensued, but the resolution was overwhelmingly adopted. Balloting
+for the candidate then began. Speaker Clark had a majority, but was far
+from having the two-thirds majority which Democratic conventions
+require; Governor Wilson was more than a hundred votes behind him.
+While the fourteenth ballot was being taken, Bryan created a new
+sensation by announcing that he should transfer his vote from Clark to
+Wilson, on the ground that the New York delegates were in the hands of
+Charles F. Murphy, the leader of Tammany Hall, and that Murphy was for
+the Speaker. The relative positions of the two leading candidates
+remained unchanged, however, for five ballots more. Then the tide began
+to turn. At the thirtieth, Governor Wilson led for the first time, and
+on the forty-sixth Clark's support broke and Wilson was nominated.
+
+The platform resembled that of 1908. It called for immediate downward
+revision of the tariff, the strengthening of the anti-trust laws,
+presidential preference primaries, prohibition of corporation
+contributions to campaign funds, a single term for the president and
+the revision of the banking and currency laws.
+
+The organization of the Progressive party, in the meantime, was rapidly
+proceeding, and on August 5 the national convention was held. It was an
+unusual political gathering both in its personnel--for women delegates
+shared in its deliberations--and in the emotional fervor which
+dominated its sessions. At the Democratic convention the delegates had
+awakened the echoes with the familiar song "Hail! Hail! The gang's all
+here"; the Progressives expressed their convictions in "Onward,
+Christian Soldiers." Roosevelt's speech was called his "confession of
+faith"; his charge that both of the old parties were boss-ridden and
+privilege-controlled epitomized the prevailing sentiment among his
+hearers. Without a contest Roosevelt was nominated for the presidency
+and Hiram Johnson of California for the vice-presidency.
+
+The platform adopted was distinctly a reform document. It advocated
+such political innovations as direct primaries, the direct election of
+senators, the initiative, referendum and recall, a more expeditious
+method of amending the Constitution, women's suffrage, and the
+limitation of campaign expenditures. A detailed program of social and
+economic legislation included laws for the prevention of accidents, the
+prohibition of child labor, a "living wage," the eight-hour day, a
+Department of Labor, the conservation of the nation's resources, and
+the development of the agricultural interests. The third portion of the
+platform dealt with "the unholy alliance between corrupt business and
+corrupt politics." It declared the test of corporate efficiency to be
+the ability "to serve the public"; it demanded the "strong national
+regulation of interstate corporations," a federal industrial commission
+comparable to the Interstate Commerce Commission and the protection of
+the people from concerns offering worthless investments under highly
+colored and specious appearances.
+
+The results of the election indicated how complete the division
+in the Republican party had been. In the electoral college Wilson
+received 435 votes to Roosevelt's 88 and Taft's 8. Yet Wilson's
+popular vote--6,300,000--fell far short of the combined Roosevelt-Taft
+vote--7,500,000--and was less than that of Bryan in 1896, 1900, and
+1908.[8] The fact that the combined Roosevelt-Taft vote was less than
+that received by Taft in 1908 seems to indicate that many Republicans
+refused to vote. The control of Congress, in both houses, went to the
+Democrats, even such a popular leader as Speaker Cannon failing of
+reelection. In twenty-one of the thirty-five states where governors
+were chosen, the Democrats were triumphant. Whether, then, the schism
+in the Republican party was responsible for the success of the
+opposition, or whether the electorate was determined upon a change
+regardless of conditions in the party which had hitherto controlled
+popular favor, the fact was that the overturn was complete. And
+circumstances that could not have been foreseen and that affected the
+entire world were destined to make the political revolution profoundly
+significant.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+In the main, periodical literature written with more or less partisan
+bias must be relied upon.
+
+For the election of 1908, F.A. Ogg, _National Progress_ (1918), and the
+better newspapers and periodicals. W.H. Taft may be studied in his
+_Presidential Addresses and State Papers_ (1910), _Present Day
+Problems_ (1908), and _Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers_ (1916).
+
+On the Payne-Aldrich tariff: S.W. McCall in _Atlantic Monthly_, vol.
+CIV, p. 562; G.M. Fisk in _Political Science Quarterly_, XXV, p. 35;
+H.P. Willis in _Journal of Political Economy_, XVII, pp. 1, 589, XVIII,
+1; in addition to Tarbell and Taussig.
+
+The documents in the Pinchot-Ballinger controversy are in _Senate
+Documents_, 61st Congress, 2nd session, vol. 44 (Serial Number 5643),
+and 3rd session, vol. 34 (Serial Numbers 5892-5903).
+
+For other incidents: C.R. Atkinson, _Committee on Rules and the
+Overthrow of Speaker Cannon_ (1911); Canadian reciprocity in _Senate
+Documents_, 61st Congress, 3rd session, vol. 84 (Serial Number 5942);
+Appleton's _American Year Book_ (1911). The decisions in the Standard
+Oil and American Tobacco cases are in _United States Reports_, vol.
+221, pp. 1, 106; a good discussion will be found in W.H. Taft,
+_Anti-Trust Act and the Supreme Court_ (1914). For the rise of the
+insurgent movement and the election of 1912, F.E. Haynes, _Third Party
+Movements_ (1916); R.M. La Follette, _Autobiography_; B.P. De Witt,
+_Progressive Movement_ (1915); W.J. Bryan, _Tale of Two Conventions_
+(1912); besides Ogg, Beard and Stanwood.
+
+The _American Year Book_ (1910-), becomes serviceable in connection
+with major political events. Its articles are usually non-partisan and
+may be relied upon to bring continuing tendencies and practices up to
+date.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Above, p. 322.
+
+[2] The cabinet was composed of: P.C. Knox, Pa., Secretary of State; P.
+MacVeagh, III., Secretary of the Treasury; J.M. Dickinson, Tenn.,
+Secretary of War; G.W. Wiekersham, N.Y., Attorney-General; F.H.
+Hitchcock, Mass., Postmaster-General; G.L. Meyer, Mass., Secretary of
+the Navy; R.A. Ballinger, Wash., Secretary of the Interior; J. Wilson,
+Ia., Secretary of Agriculture; C. Nagel, Mo., Secretary of Commerce and
+Labor. Meyer and Wilson had been in Roosevelt's cabinet.
+
+[3] Other features of the act were the establishment of a Court for the
+settlement of tariff disputes, provisions for a tariff commission and a
+tax on corporation incomes.
+
+[4] Mr. Dooley, who was well known as a humorous character created by
+F.P. Dunne, made merry with the claim that the tariff had been reduced,
+by reading to his friend Mr. Hennessy the "necessities of life" which
+had been placed on the free-list and which included curling stones,
+teeth, sea-moss, newspapers, nuts, nux vomica, Pulu, canary bird seed,
+divy divy and other commodities.
+
+[5] A sample of the jocosity that partially relieved the tension is the
+following portion of the _Congressional Record_ for March 18:
+
+    The Speaker _pro tempore_: The House will be in order. Gentlemen
+    will understand the impropriety of singing on the floor, even though
+    the House is not at this moment transacting any business. The House
+    is not in recess.
+
+    Chorus. "There'll be a hot time in the old town to-night."
+
+    The Speaker _pro tempore_. That was last night, not to-night.
+    (Laughter.) The House will be in order.
+
+    Mr. Shackleford. Mr. Speaker, I make the point of order that the
+    tap-tapping of the Chair's gavel interferes with the music.
+    (Laughter.)
+
+Cf. Atkinson, _Committee on Rules_, 115.
+
+[6] A Commerce Court was also provided, so as to expedite the decision
+of appeals from orders of the Commission. Its career was brief, for
+Congress was not well-disposed toward the project, and the Court was
+abolished in 1913.
+
+[7] When Roosevelt arrived in Chicago, he remarked that he felt like a
+"bull moose," an expression which later gave his party its popular
+name.
+
+[8] Roosevelt, 4,000,000; Taft, 3,500,000.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL TENDENCIES SINCE 1896
+
+During the four decades between the opening of the Civil War and the
+close of the nineteenth century, the United States became in many
+respects an economic unit. The passage of the Interstate Commerce Act
+in 1887, for instance, was an early recognition of the fact that the
+transportation problem of the nation transcended state bounds; the
+Sherman Anti-trust law of 1890 arose from the realization that
+commercial and industrial unity were rapidly coming to pass; the
+American Federation of Labor brought workmen from all states and many
+trades into a single organization. The election of 1896 and the amazing
+consolidation of business enterprises at the close of the century were
+further proofs that the day had passed when any section of the United
+States could live an isolated economic life without relation to other
+parts of the country. Instead of remaining a federation of diverse
+economic sections, we became increasingly homogeneous. Much of the
+economic and political legislation enacted after 1896, and many of the
+practices and standards which were adopted by leaders in economic and
+political life were an outgrowth of the new conditions.
+
+It will be remembered that the eighties and early nineties had been
+years of labor unrest. Costly and bitter strikes on the part of the
+workmen, and resolute and powerful resistance on the part of the
+employers were the commonplaces of the history of labor. The
+culmination was the Pullman strike of 1894.[1] Its cost in money and
+suffering was appalling; it placed the federal military power in the
+hands of the employers; and although it was a failure as far as the
+strikers were concerned, yet an impartial investigation after the
+struggle was over established the justice of much of which the men had
+complained. If discriminating justice were to be measured out to both
+sides, instead of victory to the side of the strongest battalions, and
+if intolerable waste and discomfort were to be avoided, some remedies
+for industrial unrest must be discovered which would replace strikes
+and violence. Happily, signs were not wanting that such a change was
+slowly taking place.
+
+A combination of influences tended to place the labor problem on a new
+footing after 1896. One of the most important of these forces was the
+American Federation of Labor which greatly increased its size and
+activities, especially about the opening of the new century, growing
+from 950,000 members in 1901 to 4,302,148 in April, 1920. Its
+president, Samuel Gompers, is an able, resourceful leader, who has
+remained in control from 1882 to the present (1920), with the single
+exception of the year 1895, so that the organization has had the
+benefit of experienced leadership and continuity of purpose. Although a
+radical, socialistic element broke away in 1905 and formed the
+Industrial Workers of the World, yet the defection was not immediately
+serious and in general schisms have been avoided. Several other labor
+organizations, although unconnected with the Federation exerted a
+strong influence; in particular the brotherhoods of railway employees,
+by frequent threats to strike and thereby tie up the transportation
+system, aided in bringing the demands of labor to public notice.
+
+Moreover, after 1896 and especially after the coal strike of 1902 there
+was an increasing recognition on the part of the public that a labor
+problem existed and that it must be solved in some way other than by
+force of arms. Physicians and scientific experts called attention to
+the lack of proper care for the health of workmen in dangerous
+industries; the movement for the preservation of the forests and
+mineral supplies emphasized the need of efforts for the conservation of
+human lives; social reformers, economists, writers and educators upheld
+the needs and rights of the neglected classes; and the press and the
+muck-rake periodicals found it profitable to expose extreme abuses.
+Distress that had hitherto been unnoticed or disregarded became
+important, and remedies were demanded. Change was in the air, and not
+alone in America, for England and France were experiencing the same
+problems, and attempting to devise new expedients to solve them. After
+the beginning of the new century, also, the employing class came to a
+better realization of the existence of the labor problem and sought
+solutions in ways that must be mentioned later.[2] There was a more
+widespread acceptance of the principle of trade agreements, whereby the
+employer and the men determined the conditions of labor by means of
+direct negotiations.
+
+Although it had been the policy of the American Federation of Labor to
+keep out of politics, it was almost inevitable that the policy should
+receive some modifications. Organizations of employers were influential
+at Washington, and had long been so. Accordingly in 1908 the Democratic
+platform was endorsed on account of its labor planks, and again in 1910
+and 1912. By the latter year all parties were earnestly striving to
+capture the labor vote, and in particular the Democratic and
+Progressive platforms embodied most of what the wage earner had been
+demanding for the previous generation.
+
+The major demands in the labor program of earlier years--higher wages,
+shorter hours, settled conditions of employment, and the like--were not
+altered after 1896, but a few striking advances were made. The attempt
+to legislate concerning hours of employment, for example, had been
+continually obstructed by the clauses in the Fifth and Fourteenth
+Amendments forbidding any legislation depriving the individual of
+"life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." The courts
+had usually interpreted these phrases as prohibiting laws restricting
+hours of labor, on the ground that the liberty of the workman to
+contract freely regarding his own working hours was thereby infringed.
+A Massachusetts law of 1874, nevertheless, which limited a day's work
+for women and children to ten hours, had followed the long-continued
+assertion that regulatory legislation could be based on the "police
+power"--a somewhat indefinite authority which was gradually conceded by
+the courts to the states and the federal government, and under which it
+was possible to pass legislation concerning the conservation of the
+health and morals of the people without violating the Constitution. Not
+until 1908, however, was the constitutionality of such legislation
+finally settled by the Supreme Court, in upholding an Oregon ten-hour
+law. "As healthy mothers are essential to vigorous offspring," the
+decision asserted, "the physical well-being of women becomes an object
+of public interest and care in order to preserve the strength and vigor
+of the race." In other words, the Court was prepared to approve
+limitations on the freedom of contract in order to further the public
+interest. The Massachusetts law was imitated far and wide, so that at
+the present time an almost negligible number of states have failed to
+restrict the length of the working day for women.
+
+Recently, also, substantial progress has been made in restricting
+working hours for children. As long ago as 1866 Massachusetts had
+restricted the employment of children, but neither this law nor similar
+laws passed by other states had been fully enforced. Greater progress
+has been made since 1903, when Illinois, followed by the majority of
+the important industrial states, established the eight-hour standard
+for children under sixteen. Impressed with the need of federal
+legislation to coerce backward states, the reformers took their case to
+Congress where a federal act was passed in 1916. On account of
+constitutional limitations, the measure was framed so as to forbid
+shipment, on interstate railways, of the products of factories
+employing children under fourteen years of age. It was estimated that
+150,000 out of nearly 2,000,000 working children might be affected by
+the act. Its fate, however, was that of many another piece of economic
+legislation; by a vote of five to four, the Supreme Court declared the
+law unconstitutional on the ground that it was not an attempt to
+regulate commerce, but an attempt to regulate the conditions of
+manufacture. Early in 1919 the effort to regulate child labor was
+renewed through the imposition of a tax of ten per cent. on the net
+profits of factories employing children under fourteen years of age.
+The constitutionality of the law has not yet been tested (1920).
+
+It will be noted that all the foregoing legislative attempts to reduce
+the working day affected women and children only; in general, little
+attempt has been made to limit the working day for men. Nevertheless,
+large numbers of cities, more than half the states, and the federal
+government provide for an eight-hour day on public work; and western
+states have followed the lead of Utah in passing eight-hour laws for
+miners. Hours of labor for railway employees have also been the subject
+of study and legislation. Cases had not been unknown where employees
+were kept at their posts for thirty, fifty and even one hundred hours;
+frequently such workmen fell asleep and disastrous accidents occurred.
+In 1907 this situation was met by a congressional act limiting the
+hours of railway engineers to sixteen and providing that periods of
+work must be followed by specified rest periods. Train-despatchers,
+telegraphers, and others were similarly protected. A majority of the
+states imitated these federal statutes. In a few cases, state laws have
+been passed which were intended to limit working hours in other
+especial industries. The most famous of these was one in New York,
+which restricted the working day in bakeries to ten hours. In the
+decision Lochner _v._ New York, the Supreme Court declared the law
+unconstitutional.[3]
+
+The early twentieth century also saw progress on the subject of
+compensation for industrial accidents. As far back as 1884 Germany had
+enacted a law which put the blame for all accidents on the employers,
+except when the victim was wilfully negligent; in 1897 England had
+passed the British Workmen's Compensation Act which virtually made the
+employer the insurer of his workmen against all accidents. The theory
+underlying these laws was that accidents were like wear and tear and
+should be made a charge on the industry, like the depreciation of
+buildings and machinery. The United States, however, lagged behind all
+other industrial nations, despite the astonishing number of accidents
+which yearly occurred. In 1908, for example, it was estimated that two
+million men were injured, of whom 200,000 were permanently disabled,
+and 30,000 died--a larger number than the federal killed, wounded and
+missing in the Gettysburg campaign. Under previous practice in this
+country compensation for industrial accidents had been awarded in
+accord with common law principles, under which the employer was not
+responsible for an employee who was injured through the negligence of a
+fellow servant. Any workman who entered hazardous employment was
+assumed under the common law to know the dangers and be ready to run
+the risks, and no compensation could be recovered unless it could be
+shown that the master had been negligent and the employee had not also
+been negligent. It came widely to be thought that the common law did
+not justly apply to the complex industrial system of modern times. It
+did not seem equitable, for example, that the fellow servant doctrine
+should hold in case of a railway employee killed through the negligence
+of a train despatcher many miles away, whom he did not know and had
+never even seen.
+
+The first workmen's compensation act in the United States was passed in
+Maryland in 1902. Its scope was narrow and it came to nothing as it was
+declared unconstitutional. In course of time, however, legislation was
+framed in such language as to pass muster before the courts, and
+moreover judicial decisions changed, as time went on, in the direction
+desired by popular opinion. Beginning in 1911 there was an avalanche of
+liability and compensation laws and by 1920 forty-two states, together
+with Porto Rico, Alaska and Hawaii had passed acts that placed the
+burden more or less completely on the employer, and provided schemes of
+compensation. The federal government also took action. At the
+suggestion of President Roosevelt an act was passed in 1908 making
+interstate railroads responsible for injuries to employees and
+expressly doing away with former common law practices.[4] At the same
+time a similar liability was placed upon the United States for
+accidents occurring to certain classes of government employees and a
+plan of compensation was established. In 1916 another act brought all
+civil servants under the system.
+
+Several other types of social legislation have made considerable
+progress in Europe, but have found little or no foot-hold in this
+country, such as minimum wage laws, health insurance, old age and
+widows' pensions, and unemployment insurance. The minimum wage law,
+establishing a level below which wages must not go, has been adopted by
+Massachusetts and a few other states in a restricted form. The
+unemployment problem has hardly been touched, although the federal
+Department of Labor since its establishment in 1913 has gathered and
+made public information in regard to opportunities for work.
+
+Recent years have likewise seen a vast number of laws which together
+have made a new era in American industrial life, although separately no
+one of them was revolutionary. For example, matches containing white
+phosphorous were subjected to a prohibitive tax because of the harmful
+effect of the phosphorous on workmen in match factories; greater care
+was exercised in guarding dangerous machines, elevator wells and the
+like; fire protection, harmful or poisonous fumes and dust, ventilation
+and safety devices in mines, safety appliances on railway trains,
+together with numberless other accompaniments of modern industry were
+the subject of state legislation. Almost as important as legislative
+enactments were the changes in working conditions voluntarily made by
+the most progressive corporations. One who compares a factory built
+within twenty-five years of the close of the Civil War with a building
+erected since 1900 discovers revolutionary changes. Later buildings are
+constructed with much more care for ventilation, light and convenience;
+in some cases even the temperature of the work-rooms is a matter for
+painstaking attention; "welfare" work is now a commonplace, with rest
+rooms, lunch rooms, recreation fields and factory social activities.
+Factory or store committees that confer with higher officers in
+relation to hours and the needs and desires of the employees are by no
+means uncommon, and some of the large corporations even provide pension
+systems for their employees.
+
+On the other hand, laws and statute books did not always guarantee
+performance. Laws were continually avoided both by the employers and
+the employees; workmen transgressed rules laid down for their welfare;
+the passage and execution of many laws were hampered to the last degree
+by short-sighted employers; the courts invalidated much legislation on
+the ground of unconstitutionality; and progress was frequently confined
+to leading states or corporations and was by no means universal. It
+nevertheless is true that the tendencies in social and economic
+legislation since 1896 have been widely different from those prevalent
+before that year.
+
+In several cases the influence of the labor element in federal
+legislation has been decisive. The use of the injunction, it will be
+remembered, was one of the grievances most frequently mentioned at the
+time of the Pullman strike. In the campaign of 1908 both parties strove
+to attract the labor vote by proposals of reform, but not until 1914
+was the issuance of injunctions forbidden "unless necessary to prevent
+irreparable injury to prosperity ... for which injury there is no
+adequate remedy at law." At the same time the labor unions were
+exempted from the operation of the anti-trust laws.[5] The influence of
+the labor organizations was also a factor in the agitation for the
+restriction of immigration which continued from 1897 to 1917. In the
+former year a bill was passed which contained a literacy test--that is,
+a provision excluding persons who were unable to read or write English
+or some other language. President Cleveland exercised his veto, as did
+later presidents when similar measures were carried in 1913, 1915 and
+1917, but in the latter year Congress was able to muster sufficient
+strength to pass the act over the President's veto. One of the main
+purposes of the measure seems to have been the restriction of the labor
+supply, and hence it enlisted the support of the American Federation of
+Labor and other similar organizations.[6]
+
+The ameliorative measures already mentioned have by no means prevented
+the boycott and the strike. Indeed they have not, except in rare cases,
+directly affected the two great causes of industrial disputes--hours
+and wages for adult male laborers. Many formidable and violent strikes
+have occurred since 1896, such as those of the shirt-waist makers in
+New York in 1909, the textile operatives in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in
+1912, and the Colorado coal miners in 1913. On the whole, however, it
+seems that the labor unions have developed somewhat greater
+conservatism and that their influence has been against violence in
+strikes.
+
+Few aspects of the labor problem have been the cause of more earnest
+thought than the search for peaceful methods of settling industrial
+controversies. In 1898, by the Erdman Act, the federal government
+provided a means for arbitrating disputes on interstate railways. The
+Newlands Act of 1913 superseded this by the creation of a formal Board
+of Mediation and Conciliation, and many disputes were decided under the
+terms of these laws. The Department of Labor mediated in many
+industrial disputes, and in 1916 when the four railway brotherhoods
+threatened to strike for an eight-hour day, Congress itself intervened
+with a piece of special legislation, the Adamson law, which was framed
+to settle the questions under dispute.[7] In some cases, profit-sharing
+plans have been put into force; in others, disputes have been referred
+to impartial boards of outsiders; and in yet others, machinery has been
+established for continuous conference between representatives of the
+employees and employers. Neither federal and state boards and
+commissions, however, nor the efforts of individual employers have been
+sufficient fully to insure industrial peace.
+
+The increased activity of the state and federal governments in the
+fields of economic legislation, as indicated in the passage of labor
+laws, was also illustrated in two important measures passed in 1906.
+The adulteration of foods had been brought to a state of dangerous
+perfection, and drugs had been commonly advertised and sold all over
+the country which had none of the powers ascribed to them by their
+makers. Since the eighties, many states had forbidden the sale of
+impure or tainted food, but the laws were varied and difficult to
+enforce, and it appeared that reliance must be placed on the federal
+government. As early as 1890 a federal law had provided for the
+inspection of meats which were to be exported, but otherwise little
+progress had been made. In 1906 Upton Sinclair published _The Jungle_,
+a novel which purported to describe the ghastly conditions under which
+the meat packers of Chicago conducted their business. Sinclair's book,
+together with a campaign of education conducted by the muckrake
+periodicals against harmful patent medicines aroused public interest to
+such a degree, that two important laws were passed. One provided for
+federal inspection of meats intended for interstate commerce, so as to
+make sure that they were obtained from healthy animals and slaughtered
+under sanitary conditions. The other act concerned foods and drugs, and
+prohibited the sale of these commodities if they contained any
+injurious drugs, chemicals or preservatives, while a later amendment
+forbade false statements on labels attached to medical compounds. As a
+result of the provisions of the law in regard to patent medicines, many
+concerns which had been selling drugs that were falsely advertised as
+having curative effects were compelled to retire from business.
+
+Innovations in the field of politics and government since 1896 have
+been as marked as in the field of social and economic legislation.
+Possibly the most outstanding development has been the rapid expansion
+of the range and variety of the activities of the federal government.
+The unification of the economic life of the nation, as has been shown,
+compelled a program of federal economic legislation, and helped
+inculcate a feeling of greater political solidarity. When fires and
+floods and other disasters occurred which were too great for a single
+city or state to take care of, when state laws became confusing because
+of their variety, when railroads crossed a dozen states and
+corporations that were chartered in New Jersey did business in Maine,
+Florida and California, only at the federal capital could the requisite
+authority be found, which would give the needed relief. As the theory
+of _laissez faire_ gradually broke down, moreover, giving way to the
+belief that the government ought to be the servant of the mass of the
+people, it was inevitable that the people should themselves turn more
+to legislation as a remedy for their grievances. To Washington,
+therefore, hurried the proponents of every reform.
+
+This tendency was not only counter to the probable intention of the
+framers of the Constitution, but it trenched upon the powers
+specifically granted to the states. The tenth amendment stated in so
+many words that "The powers not delegated to the United States ... are
+reserved to the States." It was necessary for the federal government to
+act, however, or else to leave problems that had become national in
+character to the chaos that results from legislation in nearly fifty
+states. State laws concerning railroads, for example, as well as
+marriage and divorce, child labor and trusts are even now in a maze. No
+solution of the problem seemed possible other than constant stretching
+of the terms of the Constitution. In 1906, one of the most conservative
+statesmen in the country, Elihu Boot, even went so far as to utter a
+warning that if the states did not use their powers to better advantage
+a "construction of the Constitution will be found to vest the power
+where it will be exercised-in the National Government." The burden thus
+shifted from state to nation was somewhat lightened by the appointment
+of numerous commissions to which was entrusted the administration of
+specific laws or the accumulation of specific data. The earliest of
+these was the Interstate Commerce Commission; later, others were
+appointed to administer laws concerning banking, the tariff and the
+trusts.
+
+With the expansion of the power of the federal government went the
+elevation of the office of chief executive. Cleveland's use of the veto
+power had given an indication of the possibilities of the presidential
+office in obstructing undesirable legislation; his action in bringing
+about the repeal of the purchase clause of the Sherman silver law in
+1890 had shown the more positive force which a determined officer could
+exert. Roosevelt's activity in carrying his anti-trust program to the
+people, and his mediation in the coal strike carried the prestige of
+the presidency to greater heights. President Taft was by no means
+radical in his interpretation of the powers and possibilities of his
+office; nevertheless his conception of it was far removed from the
+conservative philosophy of President McKinley, and he even suggested in
+a message to Congress that the cabinet officers be given seats,
+although without votes, in the Senate and House. His successor
+augmented rather than diminished the powers of the presidential office.
+
+The Senate, on the contrary, lost both in power and in prestige. Many
+reasons for the increasing popular distrust of the Senate after the
+middle nineties can be given. There was a widespread belief that a
+controlling fraction of the body had achieved membership through
+wealth, through the assistance of corporate interests and because of
+skill in the manipulation of political wires. The charge was common
+that a small coterie of powerful strategists held the Senate in their
+hands and with it the control of important legislation. Most of all,
+and especially in the West, many thoughtful people believed that the
+state legislatures were easily influenced to choose inferior or
+untrustworthy men as senators. Whatever the reasons, however, there
+grew increasingly after 1870 and particularly after 1893 a demand for
+the popular election of senators. Between the latter year and 1911, at
+six different times resolutions were presented to Congress proposing an
+amendment to the Constitution which should secure popular election. At
+length Congress gave way, adopted an amendment, and sent it to the
+states. Within ten months thirty-six states had agreed, and after May
+31, 1913, senators were elected by the people.
+
+The demand for greater popular control over the choice of senators was
+a part, merely, of a somewhat general political trend. Distrust of the
+state legislatures had long been observable, and new state
+constitutions had been notable for detailed prohibitions placed upon
+law-making bodies. The West, which had gone to greatest extremes in
+framing new state constitutions, was also the testing-ground for the
+initiative, referendum and recall. The first of these devices--the
+initiative--is a plan by which a specified percentage of the voters may
+initiate legislation--that is, propose a law and require the officials
+of the state to submit it to the electorate. If the people accept the
+proposal, it becomes law as if enacted by the legislature. Under the
+referendum system, any measure already accepted by the legislature is
+held in abeyance on petition of a specified number of voters, until
+presented to the people for approval or rejection. Both the initiative
+and the referendum had been commonly used in Switzerland before being
+adopted in South Dakota in 1898. In less than two decades they had been
+accepted in twenty-one states, all but four of which were west of the
+Mississippi, and in one of the four eastern states, Maryland, only the
+referendum was tried. In Oregon, which made the most complete trial of
+these methods of legislation, both the initiative and the referendum
+were extended to the municipalities. The reasons for the innovation
+were to be found in the determination to discover a means of compelling
+negligent or boss-controlled state legislatures to respond to public
+opinion.[8]
+
+The recall is a process by which any public official may be withdrawn
+from his office by popular vote before the expiration of his term. Los
+Angeles adopted the plan in 1903 and was imitated by a small number of
+other western cities; Oregon in 1908 applied the device to all state
+officers, and in one form or another it has been adopted in ten states
+(1920). During the campaign of 1912 Roosevelt proposed that the voters
+be allowed to ratify or reject the decision of the courts on the
+constitutionality of legislation. The results of the suggestion were
+negligible.
+
+More significant than the recall as an indication of the prevailing
+desire to increase popular control over the processes of government was
+the adoption of direct primaries. Under this expedient the nominees of
+a party for office are chosen directly by the party voters, rather than
+by a party convention. Wisconsin first used the system in 1903 and from
+that state it spread rapidly. At the present time most states have some
+form of direct nomination. The peculiar circumstances surrounding the
+campaign for the Republican nominations in 1912 gave force to the
+demand for presidential preference primaries which were held in about a
+fourth of the states. Only the future can tell with assurance whether
+the demand is more than temporary.
+
+The agitation for women's suffrage was another example of the
+increasing desire for popular control of government. Suffrage for women
+was first granted by Wyoming in 1869 when its territorial government
+was organized, but the movement lagged thereafter until the early years
+of the twentieth century. At that time increasing numbers of states
+began to grant political privileges to women, and finally in 1919
+Congress passed a proposed constitutional amendment expressly stating
+that sex should not be a bar to the suffrage.[9]
+
+Accompanying the increased popular control of government after 1896 was
+a gradual demand for a higher level of political ethics. The
+revelations of the insurance investigations of 1905 were significant of
+this change. Early in that year certain newspapers made charges against
+the Equitable Life Assurance Company which were taken up by the New
+York legislature and referred to a committee for investigation. The
+committee's task was the examination of the affairs of life insurance
+companies doing business in the state of New York; its attorney was
+Charles E. Hughes. The results of the investigation amazed the country.
+The exorbitant salaries paid to officers, the unreasonable expenses
+incurred and the disregard of the rights of the policy holders were of
+concern chiefly to persons doing business with the companies. But it
+also appeared that several of the larger concerns had divided the
+country into districts, and had systematically influenced legislation
+affecting either insurance or financial interests to which they or
+their officers were related; enormous sums were expended and records
+not kept, or so kept as to conceal the real purposes of the
+expenditure. The report of the committee showed that Chauncey M. Depew,
+a member of the United States Senate, was paid $20,000 a year for legal
+services, without his rendering any return that seemed to warrant the
+payments made. The contributions of the companies to the Republican
+campaign funds were very heavy--$50,000 by one company in 1904. It
+appeared from testimony that Democrats also sought contributions from
+the companies but were refused. The final report of the committee
+unsparingly condemned these abuses and embodied a program of
+legislation for their reform, which was put into effect. The public
+received an education in the connection of corporations with politics,
+and Hughes himself at once became a figure of national importance, the
+favorite of the reform element, and was launched upon a career that
+made him governor of New York, a member of the United States Supreme
+Court and candidate for the presidency.[10]
+
+Laws regulating campaign expenditures had long been on the statute
+books although they had been little heeded, but as the result of the
+insurance investigation, New York in 1906 forbade contributions by
+corporations for political purposes. In 1907 Congress passed a similar
+law concerning federal campaigns, and most of the states have since
+passed laws placing restrictions on the use of campaign funds. In the
+campaign of 1908 Bryan requested that the Democratic National Committee
+receive no contributions from corporations, that no sums in excess of
+$10,000 be received from any source and that a list of contributors be
+published in advance of the election. By a law enacted in 1911 Congress
+compelled a statement of the amounts of money spent by committees, and
+limited the amounts which might be spent by candidates for Congress. In
+1919 the Chairman of the Republican National Committee announced that
+the party would raise funds for the next campaign in amounts from $1 to
+$1,000. Both parties were discovering that public sentiment opposed
+large contributions from individuals and corporations, because they
+expect a _quid pro quo_ after the election.[11]
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The best brief general accounts of recent conditions are in F.A. Ogg,
+_National Progress_, with an excellent bibliography, which may be
+supplemented by the _American Year Book_. On hours and conditions of
+labor, J.R. Commons and J.B. Andrews, _Principles of Labor Legislation
+_(1916). The decision in Lochner _v._ New York is in _United States
+Reports_, vol. 198, p. 45. For the courts and economic legislation,
+C.G. Haines, _American Doctrine of Judicial Supremacy _(1914), already
+referred to. An excellent historical account of the workmen's
+compensation idea is by A.F. Weber in _Political Science Quarterly_
+(June, 1902). Ida M. Tarbell, _New Ideals in Business_ (1917),
+describes the accomplishments of the industrial leaders rather than of
+the rank and file.
+
+Some of the political innovations are discussed in A.L. Lowell, _Public
+Opinion and Popular Government_ (1913); _Proceedings of the American
+Political Science Association_, V, 37, "The Limitations of Federal
+Government"; Elihu Boot, _Addresses on Government and Citizenship
+_(1916), "How to Preserve the Local Self-Government of the State." The
+most complete account of the historical development of the power of the
+president is in Edward Stanwood, _History of the Presidency, II
+_(1916), Chap. V. The fullest account of the movement for popular
+election of senators is G.H. Haynes, _The Election of Senators _(1906).
+The initiative, referendum and recall have given rise to a literature
+of their own. Convenient volumes are: C.A. Beard and B.E. Shultz,
+_Documents on the State-wide Initiative_, _Referendum and Recall_
+(1912); W.B. Munro, _The Initiative, Referendum and Recall_ (1912);
+J.D. Barnett, _Operation of the Initiative, Referendum, and Recall in
+Oregon_ (1915).
+
+_American Political Science Review _(Aug., 1915), "Presidential
+Preference Primaries." The articles in A.C. McLaughlin and A.B. Hart,
+_Cyclopaedia of American Government_ (3 vols., 1914), are a convenient
+source on most topics considered in this chapter.
+
+On the use of money in politics: _Report of the Legislative Insurance
+Investigating Committee _(10 vols., 1905-1906), Armstrong-Hughes
+committee; _Testimony before a Sub-committee of the Committee on
+Privileges and Elections, United States Senate, 62d Congress, 2d
+session, pursuant to Senate Resolution 79_ (Clapp Report).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Above, pp. 320-323.
+
+[2] Below, p. 508.
+
+[3] Above, p, 442.
+
+[4] An act of 1906 had been declared unconstitutional.
+
+[5] It should be said, however, that the meaning of this law is far
+from clear and is yet (1920) to be interpreted by the courts.
+
+[6] Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt also favored it. See Ogg,
+_National Progress_, 123-130.
+
+[7] Below, p. 571.
+
+[8] By 1920 twenty-three states had adopted the referendum or the
+initiative and referendum.
+
+[9] The amendment reads: Section 1. The right of citizens of the United
+States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or
+by any State, on account of sex. Section 2. Congress shall have power,
+by appropriate legislation, to enforce the provisions of this article.
+The amendment was ratified by the required number of states and
+proclaimed in force August 26, 1920.
+
+[10] The election of Senator Isaac Stephenson of Wisconsin occasioned
+another outbreak of reform sentiment. Investigation betrayed the fact
+that he had expended $107,793.05 in his primary campaign. The salary of
+a senator at that time was $7,500 per annum.
+
+[11] An investigation of federal campaign expenditures conducted in
+1912-1913 by a committee headed by Senator Moses Clapp uncovered much
+that had hitherto been only the subject of rumor. The Standard Oil
+Company, for instance, contributed $125,000 in 1904. Archbold, the
+vice-president of the company, testified that he told Bliss, the
+Republican treasurer, "We do not want to make this contribution unless
+it is thoroughly acceptable and will be thoroughly appreciated by Mr.
+Roosevelt"; and that Bliss "smilingly said we need have no possible
+apprehension on that score." Archbold complained later when the
+administration attacked the company, but Roosevelt declared that he was
+unaware of the contribution at the time. The Republican fund in 1908
+was $1,655,000. The testimony of Norman E. Mack, Chairman of the
+Democratic National Committee, indicated his perfect willingness to
+accept money wherever he could get it, and that he refused to receive
+contributions from corporations only because of Bryan's scruples.
+Roosevelt declared, on the authority of an insurance officer, that the
+Democrats in the campaign of 1904 were after all the corporation funds
+they could get.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+LATER INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS[1]
+
+At the close of the war with Spain it was commonly remarked that the
+United States had become a world power; books and periodicals written
+on the history of the period were based upon the assumption that
+America had swung out into the current of international affairs and
+that the traditional isolation of this country had become a thing of
+the past. Time must be appealed to, however, for answers to fundamental
+questions concerning the character of this change. Did the United
+States become a world power in the sense that the majority of its
+people threw off that policy of steering clear of permanent alliances
+which had been expressed by Washington in his farewell address, in
+favor of the policy of participation in world affairs on a footing with
+the larger European states? Did the people of the United States after
+1898 take a constant and informed interest in world politics and
+international relations? Or did the people, after a slight excursion
+into the West Indies and the Philippines, return to the traditional
+attitude of "splendid isolation"? Was the extent to which the United
+States became a world power sufficient to make probable its entry into
+a European war?
+
+A cardinal principle of the foreign policy of the United States has
+always been its attachment to international peace, particularly through
+the practice of arbitration. The great hopes raised by the two Hague
+Conferences were striking proofs of this fact. In 1899, at the
+suggestion of Czar Nicholas II of Russia, twenty-six leading powers
+conferred at The Hague, in order to discover means of limiting
+armaments and ensuring lasting peace. A second conference was held in
+1907 at the suggestion, in part, of President Roosevelt. At this
+gathering forty-four states were represented, including most of the
+Latin-American republics. During the two conferences many questions
+relating to international law were discussed, and the conclusions
+reached were expressed in the form of "Conventions," which the several
+powers signed. In the main these agreements related to the rights and
+duties of nations and individuals in time of war. Most important among
+the agreements was one for the pacific settlement of international
+disputes, according to which, in certain less important controversies,
+the states concerned would appoint a "commission of inquiry" which
+would study the case and give its opinion of the facts involved. It was
+also agreed to organize a Permanent Court of Arbitration to be
+available at all times for the peaceful settlement of differences.
+Strictly speaking this body was not a Court, but a list of judges to
+which each nation was to contribute four, and when any countries became
+involved in a controversy they could draw arbitrators from the list.
+Moreover the powers agreed "if a serious dispute threatens to break out
+between two or more of them, to remind these latter that the Permanent
+Court is open to them."
+
+The United States was a party to four of the fifteen cases presented to
+the Court between 1902 and 1913. The first controversy was between the
+United States and Mexico and involved "The Pious Fund," a large sum of
+money which was in dispute between Mexico and the Roman Catholic Church
+of California, and the second concerned claims of the United States,
+Mexico and eight European countries against Venezuela. As the Court was
+successfully appealed to in case after case, high hopes began to be
+entertained that the "Parliament of Man" had at last been established.
+Elihu Root, the Secretary of State, asserted in a communication to the
+Senate in 1907 that the Second Conference had presented the greatest
+advance ever made at a single time toward the reasonable and peaceful
+regulation of international conduct, unless the advance made at The
+Hague Conference of 1899 was excepted.
+
+In the meantime, in 1904, under President Roosevelt's leadership,
+treaties were arranged with France, Germany, Great Britain and other
+nations, under which the contracting parties agreed in advance to
+submit their disputes to The Hague Court, although excepting questions
+involving vital interests, independence or national honor. While the
+Senate was discussing the treaties, it fell into a dispute with the
+President in regard to its constitutional rights as part of the
+treaty-making power, and although there was general agreement on the
+value of the principle of arbitration, yet the Senate insisted upon
+amending the treaties, whereupon the President refused to refer them
+back to the other nations. Secretary Root revived the project, however,
+in 1908 and 1909 and secured amended treaties with a long list of
+nations, including Austria-Hungary, France and Great Britain. President
+Taft signed treaties with France and England in 1911 which expanded the
+earlier agreements so as to include "justiciable" controversies even if
+they involved questions of vital interest and honor, but again the
+Senate added such amendments that the project was abandoned. Bryan,
+Secretary of State from 1913 to 1915, undertook still further to expand
+the principles of arbitration, and during his term of office many
+treaties were submitted to the Senate, under which the United States
+and the other contracting parties agreed to postpone warfare arising
+from any cause, for a year, in order that the facts of the controversy
+might be looked into. Many of these treaties were ratified by the
+Senate.
+
+The attitude of the American people toward the pacific settlement of
+international disputes found expression in many ways in addition to the
+arrangement of treaties. At Lake Mohonk, yearly conferences were held
+at which leading citizens discussed phases of international peace.
+Andrew Carnegie and Edwin Ginn, the publisher, devoted large sums of
+money to countrywide education and propaganda on the subject. The
+leaders of the movement and the membership of the organizations
+included so many of the most prominent persons of their time--public
+officials, university presidents and men of influence as to prove that
+the traditional American reliance upon international arbitration was
+more firmly rooted in 1914 than ever before in our history.
+
+The attitude of the United States toward purely European controversies
+was illustrated in our action on the Moroccan question. In 1905-1906 a
+controversy broke out between Germany and France in relation to
+Morocco, and in January of the latter year a conference was held at
+Algeciras in southern Spain in which ten European nations and the
+United States took part. The result of the meeting was an "Act" which
+defined the policy of the signatory powers toward Morocco. The Senate,
+in ratifying the Act, asserted that its action was not to be considered
+a departure from our traditional policy of aloofness from European
+questions.
+
+[Illustration:
+Caribbean interests of the United States]
+
+The outstanding incident in our relations with that part of America
+south of the republic of Mexico was the controversy with Colombia over
+the Panama Canal strip. The project for a canal across the Isthmus of
+Panama was as old as colonization in America. For present purposes,
+however, it is not necessary to go farther into the past than the
+Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850, by the terms of which the United States
+and Great Britain agreed that neither would obtain any control over an
+isthmian canal without the other. As time went on, however, American
+sentiment in favor of a canal built, owned and operated by the United
+States alone grew so powerful that the Hay-Pauncefote treaty of 1901
+was arranged with Great Britain. This agreement permitted a canal
+constructed under the auspices of the United States. Sentiment in
+Congress was divided between a route through Nicaragua and one through
+that part of the Republic of Colombia known as Panama, but in 1902 an
+act was passed authorizing the President to acquire the rights of the
+New Panama Canal Company, of France, on the isthmus for not more than
+$40,000,000, and also to acquire a strip of land from Colombia not less
+than six miles wide.[2] In case the President was unable to obtain
+these rights "within a reasonable time and upon reasonable terms," he
+was to turn to the Nicaragua route. President Roosevelt was himself in
+favor of the Panama project.
+
+The Hay-Herran convention with Colombia was accordingly drawn up and
+signed in January, 1903, giving the United States the desired rights on
+the isthmus, but the Senate of Colombia rejected the treaty. Thereupon
+the New Panama Canal Company became alarmed because it would lose
+$40,000,000 in case the United States turned from Panama to Nicaragua,
+and its agents busied themselves on the isthmus in the attempt to
+foment a break between Colombia and its province of Panama; the people
+of Panama became aroused because their chief source of future profit
+lay in their strategic position between the two oceans; and the
+President was concerned because Congress would soon meet and might
+insist on the Nicaragua route or at least greatly delay progress. He
+hoped for a successful revolt in Panama which would enable him to treat
+with the province rather than with Colombia, and he even determined to
+advise Congress to take possession forcibly if the revolt did not take
+place.
+
+The administration meanwhile kept closely in touch with affairs in
+Panama, and having reason to suspect the possibility of a revolution
+sent war vessels to the isthmus on November 2, 1903, to prevent troops,
+either Colombian or revolutionary, from landing at any point within
+fifty miles of Panama. Since the only way by which revolution in Panama
+could be repressed was through the presence of Colombian troops, the
+action of the American government made success highly probable in case
+a revolt was attempted. On the next day the plans of the Canal Company
+agents or of some of the residents of Panama came to a head; early in
+the evening a small and bloodless uprising occurred; and while the
+United States kept both sides from disturbing the peace, the insurgents
+set up a government which was recognized within two days, and Philippe
+Bunau-Varilla, a former chief engineer of the Company, was accredited
+to the United States as minister. A treaty was immediately arranged by
+which the United States received the control of a zone ten miles wide
+for the construction of a canal, and in return was to pay $10,000,000
+and an annuity of $250,000 beginning nine years later, and to guarantee
+the independence of Panama. The Secretary of State, John Hay, described
+the process of drawing up the treaty in a private letter of November
+19, 1903:
+
+    Yesterday morning the negotiations with Panama were far from
+    complete. But by putting on all steam, getting Root and Knox and
+    Shaw together at lunch, I went over my project line by line, and
+    fought out every section of it; adopted a few good suggestions:
+    hurried back to the Department, set everybody at work drawing up
+    final drafts--sent for Varilla, went over the whole treaty with him,
+    explained all the changes, got his consent, and at seven o'clock
+    signed the momentous document.
+
+Although the Senate ratified the treaty, the action of the President
+was the cause of a storm both in that body and throughout the nation.
+In self-defence Roosevelt condemned Colombia's refusal to ratify the
+Hay-Herran treaty and asserted that no hope remained of getting a
+satisfactory agreement with that country; that a treaty of 1846 with
+Colombia justified his intervention; and that our national interests
+and the interests of the world at large demanded that Colombia no
+longer prevent the construction of a canal. On the other hand the
+President's critics called attention to the unusual haste that
+surrounded every step in the "seizure" of Panama; condemned the
+disposition of war vessels which prevented Colombia from even
+attempting to put down the uprising; and insinuated that the
+administration was in collusion with the insurgents. Roosevelt's
+successors in the presidency felt there was some degree of justice in
+the claim of Colombia that she had been unfairly treated by her big
+neighbor and several different attempts were made to negotiate treaties
+which would carry with them a money payment to Colombia. On July 29,
+1919, the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate unanimously
+reported to that body the favorable consideration of a treaty providing
+for a money payment of $25,000,000, but other matters intervened and no
+further progress resulted.[3]
+
+The work of constructing the waterway was delayed by changes of plan
+until 1906, when a lock canal was decided upon, and shortly afterward a
+start was made. So huge an undertaking--the isthmus is forty-nine miles
+wide at this point--was an engineering task of unprecedented size, and
+involved stamping out the yellow fever, obtaining a water supply,
+building hospitals and dwellings and finding a sufficient labor force,
+as well as the more difficult problems of excavating soil and building
+locks in regions where land-slides constantly threatened to destroy
+important parts of the work. At length, however, all obstacles were
+overcome and on August 15, 1914, the canal was opened to the passage of
+vessels.
+
+The final diplomatic question relating to the canal concerned the rates
+to be charged on traffic passing through. By the terms of the
+Hay-Pauncefote treaty with Great Britain, the United States agreed that
+the canal should be free and open to all nations "on terms of entire
+equality." In 1912 Congress enacted legislation exempting American
+coast-wise vessels from the payment of tolls, despite the protest of
+Great Britain. As President Wilson was of the opinion that our action
+had been contrary to our treaty agreement, he urged the repeal of the
+act upon his accession in 1913, and succeeded in accomplishing his
+purpose.
+
+The construction of the Canal under American auspices committed the
+United States to new responsibilities in the Caribbean. Her coaling
+station in Cuba, the possession of Porto Rico and the protection of the
+isthmus made it a matter of national safety to preserve stable
+governments in Central America and the West Indies. The infiltration of
+American capital into the region served to ally economic with political
+interest, for like European investors, our capitalists have taken a
+part in the exploitation of South American sugar, fruit, coffee, oil
+and asphalt. With the islands and shores of the Caribbean Sea alone,
+American trade doubled in the decade after 1903. Orderly government
+south of the United States became accordingly essential to the welfare
+of our outlying possessions, and to the commercial interests of a group
+of investors. The most important international questions that have
+arisen in Spanish America related to Venezuela in 1902 and Santo
+Domingo in 1905.
+
+Venezuela had long granted concessions to foreign investors--Germans,
+English, Italians and others--in order to develop her mines, timber and
+railroads, but unsettled conditions in the country frequently resulted
+in the non-fulfillment of the obligations which had been entered into.
+Germany, for example, claimed that the government of Venezuela had
+guaranteed dividends on the stock of a railroad built by German
+subjects and had failed to live up to the contract. Having in mind the
+possible use of force to compel Venezuela to carry out her alleged
+obligations, Germany consulted our state department to discover whether
+our adherence to the Monroe Doctrine would lead us to oppose the
+contemplated action. The attitude of President Roosevelt in 1901 was
+that there was no connection between the Monroe Doctrine and the
+commercial relations of the South American republics, except that
+punishment of those nations must not take the form of the acquisition
+of territory. In 1902 Germany, Great Britain and Italy proceeded to
+blockade some of the ports of Venezuela, and the latter thereupon
+agreed to submit her case to arbitration. Apparently, however, Germany
+was unwilling to relinquish the advantage which the blockade seemed to
+promise, and in the meantime Roosevelt became fearful that the result
+of the blockade might be the more or less permanent occupation of part
+of Venezuela. He therefore told the German ambassador that unless the
+Emperor agreed to arbitration within ten days, the United States would
+send a fleet to Venezuela and end the danger which Roosevelt feared.
+The pressure quickly produced the desired results, and during the
+summer of 1903 many of the claims were referred to commissions. The
+three blockading powers believed themselves entitled to preferential
+treatment in the settlement of their claims, over the non-blockading
+nations, while the latter held that all of Venezuela's creditors should
+be treated on an equality. This portion of the controversy was referred
+to the Hague tribunal, which subsequently decided in favor of the
+contention raised by Germany, Great Britain and Italy, and eventually
+all the claims were greatly scaled down and ordered paid.[4]
+
+The Venezuela case made evident the possibility that European creditors
+of backward South American nations might use their claims as a reason
+for getting temporary control over harbors or other parts of these
+countries. There was also ground for the fear that temporary control
+might become permanent possession. Hence in the Santo Domingo case, the
+United States adopted a new policy. The debts of Santo Domingo were far
+beyond its power to pay; its foreign creditors were insistent. An
+arrangement was accordingly made by which the United States took over
+the administration of the custom houses, turned over forty-five per
+cent. of the income to the Dominican government for current expenses,
+and used the remainder to pay foreign claims. The plan worked so well
+that its main features were continued and imitated in the protectorates
+over Haiti (1915) and Nicaragua (1916).
+
+The progress which has been made in composing the jarring relations
+among the American states is due in part to the Pan American Union and
+to the Pan American Conferences. The Union is an organization of
+twenty-one American republics which devotes itself to the improvement
+of the commercial and political relations of its member states. The
+first Pan American Conference, held at Washington in 1889, has already
+been mentioned.[5] At the second, at Mexico City in 1901, the American
+republics which had not already done so agreed to the conventions
+signed at The Hague in 1899. At the third conference at Rio de Janeiro
+in 1906 and the fourth in Buenos Aires in 1910, its field of effort was
+further broadened, and in the latter year a recommendation was passed
+that the Pan American states bind themselves to submit to arbitration
+all claims for pecuniary damages.
+
+President Wilson continued unbroken the policy of protectorates which
+President Roosevelt had initiated in the case of San Domingo. His
+statements of general policy were conciliatory and evidently designed
+to allay suspicion, and he constantly expressed the view that the
+American states were cooperating equals. And having asserted that the
+United States had no designs upon territory, and nothing to seek except
+the lasting interests of the peoples of the two continents, he gave
+practical evidence of his purposes by urging that all unite to
+guarantee one another their independence and territorial integrity,
+that disputes be settled by investigation and arbitration, and that no
+state allow revolutionary expeditions against its neighbors to be
+fitted out on its territory.[6]
+
+American relations with Great Britain between 1896 and 1914 were such
+as to lend themselves to amicable settlement. The question of the
+boundary between Alaska and Canada, to be sure, contained some of the
+elements of trouble. The treaty of 1825, between Russia and Great
+Britain, had established the boundary between Alaska and Canada in
+terms that were somewhat ambiguous, the most important provision being
+that the line from the 56th degree of north latitude to the 141st
+degree of west longitude should follow the windings of the coast, but
+should be drawn not more than ten marine leagues inland. The coast at
+this point is extremely irregular, and the few important towns of the
+region are at the heads of the bays. With the discovery of gold in the
+Klondike region in 1897 and the consequent rush of population to the
+coast settlements, the question of jurisdiction became important.
+
+The claim of Great Britain was that the word "coast" should be
+interpreted to include adjacent islands. Hence the ten league line
+would follow the general direction of the shore but would cut across
+the inlets and headlands and thus leave the towns in the possession of
+Canada. The American contention was that the line should follow closely
+the windings of the shore of the mainland, thus giving the United
+States a continuous strip of coast. The controversy was referred in
+1903 to a board composed of three Americans, two Canadians and the Lord
+Chief Justice of England. On all the important points the English
+representative concurred with the Americans and a line was subsequently
+drawn in general conformity with our contention.[7]
+
+The most complicated negotiation of the period, as well as one of the
+most complicated in our history, concerned the North Atlantic Coast
+fisheries. Under the treaty of 1818 relating to matters remaining over
+from the War of 1812, the United States possessed certain rights on the
+fishing grounds off Newfoundland and Labrador. From then on there was
+intermittent negotiation concerning the meaning of the terms of the
+treaty and the justice of fishing regulations made by Canada. In 1908
+the United States and Great Britain made a general arbitration treaty,
+under the terms of which the fisheries question was referred to members
+of the Court of Arbitration at The Hague.[8] The award, made in 1910,
+upheld the rights of American fishermen on the coasts of Newfoundland,
+and recommended the establishment of a permanent fishery commission to
+settle all future controversies. This was accomplished in 1912 and an
+irritating and long-standing dispute was put to rest.
+
+"Dollar diplomacy" was the chief novelty in our relations with China.
+The expression was used in President Taft's administration, when his
+Secretary of State, P.C. Knox, devoted much attention to promoting
+loans, contracts and concessions in Central and South America, and more
+particularly in China. The argument for dollar diplomacy was that it
+opened new fields for the use of American capital, and thus indirectly
+benefited the whole people. The President also believed that
+investments in China would further American influence there and react
+favorably in continuing the open-door policy which had been initiated
+by Secretary Hay. The objection most commonly made was that the
+government became bound up in the interests of investors and might be
+compelled to interpose with armed force when difficulties arose between
+the investor and the state where the investment was made.
+
+An opportunity for large investments in China was presented during
+1912-1913. In the former year a revolution in that distracted country
+had come to an end and a republic had been set up with Yuan Shih-kai as
+President. Since the new government was in need of funds, it undertook
+to borrow through an associated group of bankers from six foreign
+nations, the United States among them. The financial interests agreed
+to the loan, but insisted on having a hand in the administration of
+Chinese finance, so as to ensure repayment. At this point President
+Wilson's administration began. The bankers at once asked him whether he
+would request them to participate in the "six-power" loan, as President
+Taft had done. Wilson declined to make the request, fearing that at
+some future time the United States might be compelled to interfere in
+Chinese financial and political affairs, whereupon the American bankers
+withdrew and the six-power group subsequently disintegrated.
+
+Relations with Japan have been a cause for negotiation on several
+occasions. During the Russo-Japanese War, which came to a close in
+1905, American sympathies were mainly with the Japanese. The
+correspondence which brought about a cessation of hostilities was
+initiated by President Roosevelt, and the peace conference was held in
+Portsmouth, New Hampshire. During the course of the sessions American
+sympathies shifted somewhat to the Russian side, and when the Japanese
+did not receive all that they demanded of Russia they felt somewhat
+dissatisfied.
+
+A subject which seemed at times to contain unpleasant possibilities was
+the restriction of Japanese immigration into the United States. The
+western part of the country, especially California, has objected
+vigorously to the presence of the Japanese on the coast, and as Japan
+refused to agree to such a treaty as that which restricts Chinese
+immigration, recourse was had to the Root-Takahira agreement of 1908,
+by which the Japanese government itself undertook to prevent the
+emigration of laborers to the United States. It was more difficult to
+reach an agreement concerning Japanese who were already living in the
+United States. In 1913 the legislature of California had before it a
+law forbidding certain aliens from holding land in the state. As the
+act would apply almost solely to the Japanese, the federal government
+was placed in an embarrassing position. Under existing treaties the
+Japanese were granted equal rights with other aliens, but the states
+were able to modify the practical operation of treaty provisions, as
+California planned to do, by declaring certain aliens ineligible to
+citizenship and then placing particular restrictions upon them. The
+Secretary of State, William J. Bryan, went to California and attempted
+to persuade the state authorities to alter their land laws. Although
+the law was eventually passed, it was modified to the extent of
+allowing Japanese to lease agricultural lands for terms not greater
+than three years.
+
+In 1917, Robert Lansing, the American Secretary of State, and Viscount
+Ishii, special ambassador of Japan, reached an important agreement
+concerning American relations in the Orient. By it the United States
+admitted the interest of Japan in China, but the two placed themselves
+on record as mutually opposed to the acquisition by any government of
+special rights in China that would affect the independence or the
+territorial integrity of that country. Nevertheless Japan had already
+forced China in 1915 to grant her territorial and economic concessions
+that constituted a grave menace to Chinese independence, and final
+settlement between the two awaited later events.
+
+It is impossible at the present time to give an accurate account of
+American relations with Mexico during the decade preceding 1920. Mexico
+and Mexican affairs are but ill understood in the United States; and
+the purposes and acts of the chief figure in the most important events,
+President Wilson, will not be fully known until papers are made public
+and explanations presented that only he can give. His conduct of
+Mexican affairs, moreover, had to face constant change on account of
+the outbreak and progress of a European war in 1914, and many critical
+decisions had to be arrived at during 1915-1916 when political
+partisanship in the United States was at fever heat and when the most
+bitter opponents of the administration were ready to pounce upon every
+act and hold it up to public scorn. Nor is the exact character of some
+of the pressure brought to bear upon the President fully known.
+American capital in vast amounts had gone into Mexico as into other
+parts of Latin America. Mining companies, railroad, ranching and
+plantation companies, and private individuals had invested in a land
+that has been called "the storehouse of the world," because of its
+fabulous resources in mineral wealth and fertile soil. In 1912
+President Taft said that American investments had been estimated at one
+billion dollars. President Wilson in 1916 warned the public that agents
+of American property owners in Mexico were scattered along the border
+originating rumors which were unjustified by facts, in order to bring
+about intervention for the benefit of investors. For these reasons most
+accounts of Mexican relations, whether they uphold or condemn the steps
+taken by the administration, are rendered defective by prejudice or
+lack of information. It is possible, therefore, to give only a bare
+narrative of a few of the most important events following 1910.
+
+The strong hand of Porfirio Diaz ruled Mexico from 1877 to 1880 and
+from 1884 to 1911. The government was autocratic; the resources of the
+country were in the hands of foreigners; and while a few magnates were
+wealthy, the mass of the people were poor and ignorant. The country was
+infested with bands of robbers, but Diaz managed to control them and
+even made some of the leaders governors of states. Such was the country
+that is separated from Arizona and New Mexico by an imaginary line and
+from Texas by a narrow river that shrinks in summer almost to a bed of
+sand.
+
+In 1910 Francisco Madero organized a revolt, compelled Diaz to flee to
+Europe in 1911, and was himself chosen President. Taft meanwhile had
+sent troops to the border, stray bullets from across the line killed a
+few American citizens and the demand for intervention began. Madero was
+soon overthrown by General Victoriano Huerta, who became provisional
+president. Shortly afterward Madero was shot under circumstances that
+pointed to Huerta as the instigator of the assassination, but his
+friends kept the fires of revolt alive, and Governor Carranza of
+Coahuila, the state across the border from northwest Texas, refused to
+recognize the new ruler. It was at this juncture that Wilson succeeded
+Taft. General Huerta was promptly recognized by the leading European
+nations but President Wilson refused to do so, on the ground that the
+new government was founded on violence, in defiance of the constitution
+of Mexico and contrary to the dictates of morality. He then sent John
+Lind to Mexico to convey terms to Huerta--peace, amnesty and a free
+election at which Huerta himself would not be a candidate. When the
+latter refused the proposal, President Wilson warned Americans to leave
+Mexico and adopted the policy of "watchful waiting," hoping that Huerta
+would be eliminated through inability to get funds to administer his
+government. In the meanwhile the destruction of lives and property
+continued.
+
+War was barely avoided in the spring of 1914 when a boat's crew of
+American marines was imprisoned in Tampico. An apology was made, but
+General Huerta refused to order a salute to the United States flag, and
+troops were accordingly landed at Vera Cruz, where slight encounters
+ensued. At this juncture Argentina, Brazil and Chile, "the ABC powers"
+made a proposal of mediation which was accepted. The conference averted
+war between the United States and Mexico, although failing to solve the
+questions at issue. Shortly afterward, however, Huerta retired from the
+field unable to continue his dictatorship, and the American troops were
+withdrawn.
+
+The end was not yet however. Carranza and his associate, Villa, fell to
+quarreling. Bands of ruffians made raids across the border, and Mexico
+became more than before a desolate waste peopled with fighting
+factions. At President Wilson's suggestion six Latin-American powers
+met in Washington in 1915 for conference, and decided to recognize
+Carranza as the head of a _de facto_ government. Diplomatic relations
+were then renewed after a lapse of two and a half years. In a message
+to Congress the President reviewed the imbroglio, but expressed doubts
+whether Mexico had been benefited.
+
+His fears soon proved to be well founded. In 1916 Villa crossed into
+New Mexico and raided the town of Columbus. With the consent of
+Carranza the United States sent troops under General Pershing across
+the line to run down the bandits, but the only result was to drive the
+Villistas from the region near the border. Renewed raids, this time
+into Texas, indicated the need of larger forces and the state militia
+were called upon, but after nearly a year of service they were
+withdrawn early in 1917. Not long afterward Carranza was elected
+president for a term of four years, but in 1920 another revolt ended in
+his assassination. The country is in a condition of wretchedness, and
+neither life nor property is safe from bands of marauders, President
+Wilson has patiently attempted to give Mexico a chance to work out her
+own salvation without hindrance from other countries and without
+exploitation by investors,--but the problem remains unsettled.[9]
+
+In view of some aspects of the foreign relations of the United States
+since 1914, it is apparent that such diplomatic incidents as those
+concerned with boundaries, fisheries and Latin-American protectorates
+were not the most important forces in determining the outlook of
+America upon Europe. In spite of the huge immigration of Europeans into
+America since the Civil War, the United States has seldom drawn upon
+European experience and has never sought to model itself on European
+lines. American legislators have not commonly studied either English or
+continental practices; our institutions and our constitutional
+limitations have been so peculiarly our own that slight attention has
+been paid to the outside world. Even the ancient resentment against
+England had dwindled by 1914, leaving the United States without any
+traditional "enemy." Tradition, as well as geographical isolation,
+tended to keep us apart from the currents of European action.
+
+Nevertheless America was being inter-related with the rest of the world
+through means with which the diplomats had little to do. In 1867 the
+Atlantic cable had finally been placed in successful operation, and
+forty years afterward the globe was enmeshed in 270,000 miles of
+submarine telegraph wires. In 1901 wireless telegraphic messages were
+sent across the ocean, and within a few years private and press notices
+were being sent across the Atlantic, vessels were commonly equipped
+with instruments, and international regulations concerning
+radio-telegraphy were adopted by the chief powers of the world. Most
+important of all was the constant passage of merchant vessels shuttling
+back and forth between America and Europe, and weaving the two into one
+commercial fabric. With Great Britain, with Germany, with France, Italy
+and the Netherlands, during 1913, the United States exchanged products
+valued at nearly two and a half billion dollars. This was an amount
+more than twice as great as the entire trade with Europe twenty years
+before. Over half a billion dollars' worth was with Germany, to which
+country we sent cotton, copper, food-stuffs, lard and furs in return
+for fertilizers, drugs, dyes, cotton manufactures and toys. American
+corporations had branches in Germany, while German manufacturers
+invested hundreds of millions of dollars in factories here. So huge a
+volume of commerce concerned the welfare not only of the ordinary
+commercial classes--ship owners, exporters and investors--but the much
+larger number of producers, manufacturers, miners, meat-packers, and
+farmers who directly and indirectly supplied the materials for export.
+
+In the meantime a change was taking place in the attitude of America
+toward world affairs. Inaccurate as it was to describe the United
+States as a world power at the time of the Spanish War, nevertheless
+the war itself and the colonial responsibilities which it entailed
+helped to a small degree to break down the isolation of America;
+frequent communication with Europe, and the expansion of American
+commerce tended in the same direction.
+
+The international relations of the United States for the twenty years
+immediately preceding 1914 may then be briefly summarized. The one
+international problem which interested the greatest numbers of people
+was the best method of arriving at international peace. Other problems,
+except the Mexican question, were simple and inconspicuous, and the
+majority of Americans knew little of European politics or international
+relations. Only in the fields of communication and commerce was the
+United States becoming increasingly and intimately related to the
+remainder of the world, and the extent to which this change
+supplemented the effect of the war with Spain in broadening the
+American international outlook was a matter of conjecture.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The general texts mentioned at the close of Chapter XIII continue to be
+useful.
+
+On the Hague Conferences reliance should be placed upon G.F.W. Holls,
+_The Peace Conference at the Hague_ (1900), by the secretary of the
+American delegation; A.D. White, _Autobiography of Andrew D. White_ (2
+vols., 1905), by a member of the delegation; J.W. Foster, _Arbitration
+and the Hague Court_ (1904); P.S. Beinsch, in _American Political
+Science Review_, II, 204 (Second Conference).
+
+The best brief account of the acquisition of the canal strip is in
+Latané; Theodore Roosevelt's story is in his _Autobiography_ and his
+_Addresses and Presidential Messages_. On the Caribbean, C.L. Jones,
+_Caribbean Interests of the United States_ (1916). The Venezuela
+arbitrations are in _Senate Documents_, 58th Congress, 3rd session, No.
+119 (Serial Number 4769). The Alaskan boundary question is clearly
+discussed in Latané, with a good map, and J.W. Foster, _Diplomatic
+Memoirs_ (2 vols., 1909). _The Proceedings in the North Atlantic Coast
+Fisheries Arbitration_ are in _Senate Document_ No. 870, 61st Congress,
+3rd session (12 vols, 1912-1913): more briefly in G.G. Wilson, _Hague
+Arbitration Cases_ (1915). S.K. Hornbeck, _Contemporary Politics in the
+Far East_ (1916), is useful for Asiatic relations. Ogg, Fish, and the
+_American Year Book_ provide material on Mexican affairs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The Presidents and Secretaries of State during this period were as
+follows:
+
+    McKinley, 1897-1901; John Sherman, William R. Day, John Hay.
+    Roosevelt, 1901-1909; John Hay, Elihu Root, Robert Bacon.
+    Taft, 1909-1913; P.C. Knox.
+    Wilson, 1913-1921; W.J. Bryan, Robert Lansing, B. Colby.
+
+[2] The French company had a concession on the isthmus and had already
+done considerable work.
+
+[3] Roosevelt, after his retirement from office was widely reported as
+having said in an address at the University of California: "If I had
+followed traditional, conservative methods, I would have submitted a
+dignified state paper of probably two hundred pages to Congress, and
+the debate on it would have been going on yet; but I took the Canal
+Zone and let Congress debate." Cf. Jones, _Caribbean Interests_,
+238-239.
+
+[4] For the Roosevelt "threat," together with another version of the
+story, cf. Thayer, _Hay_, II, 284-289 and _North American Review_,
+Sept., 1919, 414-417, 418-420.
+
+[5] Above, p. 289.
+
+[6] The latest acquisition of the U.S. in the Caribbean Sea was the
+Virgin Islands which were purchased from Denmark in 1916.
+
+[7] The American members of the Commission were Elihu Root, who was
+then Secretary of War, Senator H.C. Lodge, and ex-Senator George
+Turner. The English member was the Lord Chief Justice, Baron
+Alverstone; the Canadians were Sir Louis Amable Jetté, Lieutenant
+Governor of Quebec, and Allen B. Aylesworth of Toronto.
+
+[8] The American member of the tribunal was Judge George Gray. The
+closing argument for the United States was made by Elihu Root. Robert
+Lansing was one of the associate counsel.
+
+[9] The number of Americans killed in Mexico as given by the ambassador
+in 1919 was as follows: 1911, 10; 1912, 6; 1913, 24; 1914, 30; 1915,
+26; 1916, 46; 1917, 39; 1918, 31. N.Y. _Times_, July 20, 1919. For the
+revolution of 1920 consult N.Y. _Times_, May 16 ff.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+WOODROW WILSON
+
+A definite account of the eventful years following 1913 can be written
+only after time has allayed partisanship; after long study of the
+social, economic and political history has separated the essential
+from the trivial; after papers that are now locked in private files
+have been opened to students; and after the passage of years has given
+that perspective which alone can measure the wisdom or the folly of a
+policy. It will be little less difficult to make a just appraisal of
+the chief American participants in those years, and particularly of
+President Woodrow Wilson. At present it is possible only to avoid
+partisanship so far as it can be done, read with open mind whatever
+documents are available, and refrain from either praise or condemnation.
+On all sides it is agreed that during his administration Wilson
+became one of the three or four world-figures, and for that reason
+his characteristics, as well as the events of his presidency demand
+unusual attention.
+
+Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia, in 1856. His ancestors
+were Scotch-Irish and his father an educator and Presbyterian
+clergyman. After graduating from Princeton College he practiced law,
+studied history and politics, and taught these subjects at several
+different institutions. Subsequently he became a professor at
+Princeton and later its President. He was a prolific and successful
+writer. His book on _Congressional Government_, for example, went
+through twenty-four impressions before he became President of the
+United States. _The State_, an account of the mechanism of government
+in ancient and modern times, and some of his portrayals of American
+history were hardly less in demand. His election as Governor of New
+Jersey in 1910 and his election to the presidency two years later have
+already been mentioned.
+
+The outstanding characteristic of Wilson is a finely-organized,
+penetrating intelligence. Somewhat like a silent chess-player he
+thinks many moves in advance, a fact which makes it difficult to judge
+a single act of his without a knowledge of the whole plan. Before
+coming to the presidency he had long pondered on the proper and
+possible function of that office, and had drawn in imagination the
+outlines and many of the details of the role which he was to play.
+Years of careful study had drilled him in the accumulation of facts.
+As a specialist in polities and history he was accustomed to make up
+his mind on the basis of his own researches, and to change his
+judgments without embarrassment when new facts presented themselves.
+His literary style is characterized by precision, a close texture and
+frequently by suppressed emotion. He thinks on an international scale
+and with a profundity that often dwarfs associates who are by no means
+pygmies themselves. An unbending will, an alert conscience, stubborn
+courage, restrained patience, political sagacity, a thoroughgoing
+belief in democracy and above all an instinctive understanding of the
+spiritual aspirations of the common people made him the most powerful
+political figure in America within a brief time after his accession to
+the presidency. On the other hand, his aloofness from counsel during
+the later part of his presidency exceeded that of Cleveland, and his
+abnormal self-reliance was greater than that of Roosevelt.
+
+In reviewing the history of the years following 1913, it is necessary
+to have a sense of the immensity of the problems involved, as well
+as a restrained judgment and some knowledge of the chief actors.
+Beginning in 1914, the great nations of Europe were constantly menaced
+by appalling dangers; their leaders were daily confronted with
+decisions of the utmost importance. Because of the close commercial,
+industrial and financial bonds between the two continents, America
+could not fail to be affected. She too was compelled to take her part
+in a drama which was far greater than any in which she had before
+engaged. Both the President and Congress were confronted with problems
+the solution of which would vitally affect not only the people of
+America, but the people of the world; never before had their decisions
+been so subject to the possibilities of mistakes which would certainly
+be momentous and might be tragic.
+
+When Wilson and his party came into power in 1913, as the result of
+the schism among the Republicans, their position was by no means
+secure. The President had been elected by a distinct minority in the
+popular vote and his practical political experience had been less than
+that of any chief executive since Grant. His party had been in power
+so little since the Civil War that it had no body of experienced
+administrators from which to pick cabinet officers, and no corps of
+parliamentary leaders practiced in the task of framing and passing a
+constructive program. The party as a whole was lacking in cohesion
+and had perforce played the role of destructive critic most of the
+time for more than half a century; its principles were untested in
+actual experience, and although its majority in the House was large,
+in the Senate its margin of control was so narrow as to suggest the
+near possibility of the failure of a party program. Wilson was under
+no illusions as to the circumstances of his election and he realized
+that both he and his party were on probation.
+
+The appointment of the cabinet occasioned unusual interest. Bryan, the
+one Democrat who had a large and devoted personal following, became
+Secretary of State. His influence in nominating Wilson had been very
+great and the adherence of his admirers was necessary if the party was
+to be welded into an effective organization. Several of the other
+members of the cabinet proved themselves to be men of unusual
+capacity, and their ability to cooperate with one another provided
+the "teamwork" which the President was anxious to obtain.[1]
+
+His conception of the part which the chief executive ought to play
+was a definite one. He looked upon the President as peculiarly the
+representative of the whole people in the federal government, as the
+leader of the party in power and as commissioned by the voting
+population to carry out the platform of principles upon which the
+party and its leader were elected. He believed that the unofficial
+leaders who are better known as "bosses" existed partly because of the
+absence of official leaders. As Governor of New Jersey he had acted on
+the principles that he had outlined for the chief executive of the
+nation, and upon his accession to the presidency he began at once to
+put into effect a similar program.
+
+Congress was called for a special session on April 7, 1913, in order
+to revise the tariff. It was a dangerous task--one which had
+discredited the Democrats in 1894 and divided the Republicans in
+1909--but plans had been laid with care in order to avoid previous
+mistakes. The Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means in the
+House, Oscar W. Underwood, had begun the preparation of a bill during
+the session before and had discussed it with Democratic members of the
+Senate Committee on Finance, and with the President.
+
+At the opening of the session Wilson broke the precedent established
+by Jefferson in 1801, and read his message personally to Congress,
+instead of sending it in written form to be read by a clerk. In
+substance the message expressed the President's conviction that the
+appearance of the chief executive in Congress would assist in
+developing the spirit of cooperation, and outlined the tariff problem
+which they were together called upon to settle. He declared that the
+country wished the tariff changed, that the task ought to be completed
+as quickly as possible and that no special privileges ought to be
+granted to anybody. He advocated a tariff on articles which we did not
+produce and upon luxuries, but he urged that otherwise the schedules
+be reduced vigorously but without undue haste. Other considerations
+were more important, however, than the substance of the message.
+Previous documents of this kind had been long and filled with a wide
+variety of recommendations concerning both international and domestic
+relations; Wilson's speech occupied but a few moments, it focused the
+attention of Congress upon one subject, and fixed the eyes of the
+country upon the problem. The nation knew that one task was in hand,
+and knew where to lay the blame if delay should ensue. It was a great
+responsibility that the President had assumed, but he assumed it
+without hesitation.
+
+Underwood presented his bill at once and it passed the House without
+difficulty, but in the Senate the Democratic majority of six was too
+small to guarantee success in the face of the objections of Louisiana
+senators to the proposal for free sugar, and the usual bargaining for
+the protection of special interests. When the lobby appeared--the
+group that had so mangled the Wilson-Gorman bill and discredited the
+Payne-Aldrich Act--the President issued a public statement warning the
+country of the "extraordinary exertions" of a body of paid agents
+whose object was private profit and not the good of the public. So
+vigorous an action resulted in hostility to Wilson, but Congress found
+itself unusually free from objectionable pressure. Hence while experts
+differed in regard to the wisdom of one part or another of the bill,
+it was not charged that its schedules bore the imprint of favoritism
+for any particular private interests. Discussion in the Senate was so
+extended that the Underwood act did not finally pass and receive the
+President's signature until October 3.
+
+The general character of the measure is indicated by the number of
+changes made in the tariffs as they existed at the time of the passage
+of the act. On 958 articles the duties were reduced; on 307 they were
+left unchanged; and on eighty-six (mainly in the chemical schedule),
+they were increased. Despite the numerous reductions, the Underwood
+law retained much of the protective purpose of preceding enactments.
+Attempts were made to decrease the cost of living by considerable
+reductions on certain agricultural products and by placing others on
+the free list; wool was to be free after December 1, 1913, and the
+duty on sugar was to be reduced gradually and taken off completely on
+May 1, 1916; duties on cotton goods and on woolens ("Schedule K") were
+heavily reduced. Underwood represented an iron manufacturing section
+of Alabama, but he showed an uncommon attention to the general
+interest by favoring large reductions on pig-iron and placing iron ore
+and steel rails on the free list. An important part of the law was a
+provision for an income tax, which had been made possible by the
+Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution proclaimed on February 25,
+1913. Incomes over $3,000 ($4,000 in the case of married persons),
+were to be taxed one per cent., with an additional one per cent. on
+incomes of $20,000 to $50,000, and similar graded "surtaxes" on higher
+incomes, reaching six per cent. on those above $500,000. The board
+which the Republicans had established for the scientific study of the
+tariff had been allowed to lapse by the Democrats, but was revived in
+1916 through the appointment of a bi-partisan Commission of six
+members with twelve-year terms.
+
+On June 23, 1913, after the tariff bill had been piloted around the
+chief difficulties in its way, the President again addressed
+Congress-this time on currency legislation. Again he laid down certain
+principles-a more elastic currency, some means of mobilizing bank
+reserves, and public control of the banking system. Before mentioning
+the further history of this recommendation, however, it is necessary
+to have in mind the main facts in the development of the monetary
+issue since 1900. Complaint had been common since that year. One
+difficulty lay in the fact that the volume of the currency could not
+quickly increase and decrease as busy times demanded more or quiet
+times required less of the circulating medium. At those parts of the
+year, for example, when the crops were being moved there was a greater
+demand for currency than the banks could conveniently meet. They
+could, to be sure, buy United States bonds and issue national bank
+notes upon them as security, but this was a slow and costly process.
+The dangers of the existing inelastic arrangement were illustrated in
+the panic of 1907.
+
+In that year occurred a financial crisis which resulted in business
+failures, unemployment and the indictment of prominent figures in the
+commercial world; it was precipitated by a gamble in copper stocks. An
+unsuccessful attempt to corner the stock of a copper company led to
+the examination of the Mercantile National Bank of New York, with
+which the speculators had intimate connections. Meanwhile the
+president of the bank and all the directors were forced to resign. One
+of the associates of a director in the Mercantile was the president of
+the Knickerbocker Trust Company, and depositors in the latter bank
+thereupon became frightened, and $8,000,000 were withdrawn in three
+hours. The alarm then spread to the depositors of the Trust Company of
+America--the president of the Knickerbocker was one of its
+directors--and $34,000,000 were withdrawn by the now thoroughly
+anxious depositors, who stood in line at night in order to be ready
+for the next day. The panic spread to other parts of the nation;
+country banks withdrew funds from the city banks, and they from New
+York; and at length the government came to the aid of the distressed
+institutions and deposited $36,000,000 between October 19 and 31.
+Nevertheless, at the time when depositors were trying to get their
+money there was sufficient currency in existence to satisfy all needs.
+The defect lay in the lack of machinery for pooling resources in such
+a way as to relieve any institution that was in temporary straits. The
+experts pointed also to the unscrupulous manipulation of the supplies
+of currency by New York financiers. There was widespread comment on
+the fact that if the magnates did not actually constitute a "money
+trust" they were nevertheless able to expand and contract the
+available supply to such an extent as to serve their own ends and
+embarrass the public.
+
+In the meanwhile many experts, among them Senator Nelson W. Aldrich,
+had been studying the entire banking system. The result of this work
+was the Aldrich-Vreeland Act of 1908 providing a temporary method for
+making the supply of currency more flexible and also arranging for a
+National Monetary Commission to investigate the currency and banking
+systems in this and other countries. The Commission published
+thirty-eight volumes of information and recommendations, which were a
+storehouse of facts concerning the problem, although no legislation
+resulted. All that Taft did was to pass the task along to Wilson.
+
+As has been seen, President Wilson seized the opportunity at once.
+Senator Owen and Carter Glass, Chairmen of the Senate and House
+Committees on Banking and 'Currency, together with William G. McAdoo,
+the Secretary of the Treasury, and the President himself drafted the
+Federal Reserve bill. This measure received careful attention, being
+the cause of extended hearings and debate in Congress and of
+discussion in banking circles. The special session wore on and came to
+an end, but the regular session began at once (December 1), and
+consideration of the measure continued without interruption. At length
+on December 22 the House acted favorably, thirty-four Republicans,
+eleven Progressives, and one Independent assisting the Democrats in
+passing the bill; on the following day the Senate passed it, one
+Progressive and three Republicans voting with the majority. In many
+details the act as passed differed from the original plan, but in its
+essential points it was not amended. Although its precise form was the
+work of a few men, the project in general, of course, represented the
+labors of many persons extending over many years, and for that reason
+embodied the best that American experts could give.
+
+The Act provided for the establishment of Federal Reserve Banks, to be
+placed in districts--the number being eventually fixed at twelve. The
+capital for each Reserve Bank was to be supplied by the banks in its
+district which became member banks. In other words the Reserve Banks
+were to act as banks for their members, but not for private
+individuals. In control of the twelve was a Federal Reserve Board,
+composed of the Secretary of the Treasury, the Comptroller of the
+Currency and five persons appointed by the president for terms of ten
+years. It was at this point that the chief controversies raged between
+the bankers and the proponents of the administration measure. The
+bankers desired one central bank, which the administration opposed
+because it feared centralized control over the currency supply; and
+the bankers disliked the proposal for a Reserve Board appointed by the
+president, because they apprehended the entrance of politics into the
+appointments. The President and his supporters were determined,
+however, not to allow the bankers to appoint the Board or any portion
+of it, because they wished the system to be operated solely in the
+public interest.
+
+Greater elasticity was given to the currency supply through the
+issuance of federal reserve notes, at the discretion of the Federal
+Reserve Board, to the several regional Federal Reserve Banks. These
+notes were to be obligations of the government and were expected to
+replace the former national bank notes. When a local bank requires
+more currency it may deposit with the Federal Reserve Bank such
+valuable commercial paper as may be acceptable--for example,
+promissory notes of reliable business firms--and receive at once a
+supply of federal reserve notes. When business is brisk and large
+supplies of currency are demanded, the local banks will deposit
+whatever paper may be necessary to meet their needs; when the
+emergency has passed they will withdraw notes from circulation, return
+them to the reserve bank and receive their paper again.[2] The second
+great purpose of the new system was to supply central reservoirs for
+the storage of the reserves of the member banks. Each local bank is
+required to keep certain prescribed balances in the reserve bank of
+its district, and the federal government may also deposit funds in it.
+In conformity with strict regulations the reserves thus accumulated in
+a Federal Reserve Bank may be directed here and there in the district
+as needed, and even from district to district, under the control of
+the Federal Reserve Board. Moreover they are not available for those
+speculative ventures which have caused so much trouble in the past.[3]
+The operation of the law has apparently more than met the expectation
+of its friends. It had hardly been established when a war broke out in
+Europe, but the unusual financial situation which resulted in America
+was cared for without great strain.
+
+The third major plank in the Democratic platform of 1912 called for
+legislation concerning trusts, and the President accordingly turned
+his attention to that topic in his address to Congress on January 20,
+1914. He declared that there was no intent to hamper business as
+conducted by enlightened men, but that, on the contrary, the
+antagonism between business and government had passed. He recommended
+the prohibition of interlocking directorates by which railroads, banks
+and industrial corporations became allied in one monopolistic group,
+and he suggested that the processes and methods of harmful restraint
+of trade be forbidden item by item in order that business men might
+know where they stood in relation to the law. Finally, he believed
+that the country demanded a commission which should act as a clearing
+house for facts relating to industry and which should do justice to
+business where the processes of the courts were inadequate. The
+results of this undertaking were the Federal Trade Commission act of
+September 26, 1914, and the Clayton Anti-trust act of October 15.
+
+The former of these laws created a Commission of five persons to
+administer the anti-trust laws and to prevent the use of unfair
+methods by any persons or corporations which were subject to the
+anti-trust laws. Whenever it had reason to believe that such
+expedients were being used, the Commission was to issue an order
+requiring the cessation of the practice. If the order was not obeyed,
+the Commission was to apply for assistance to the circuit court of
+appeals in the district where the offense was alleged to have been
+committed. The purpose of the provision was evidently to prevent
+unfair practices rather than to punish them. Another section of the
+law empowered the Commission to gather information concerning the
+practices of industrial organizations, to require them to file reports
+in regard to their affairs, and to investigate the manner in which
+decrees of the Courts against them were carried out. Under direction
+of the president or Congress, the Commission could investigate alleged
+violations of the law, and on its own initiative it might report
+recommendations to Congress for additional legislation.[4]
+
+The Clayton act specifically prohibited many of the practices common
+to industrial enterprises. Sellers of commodities were forbidden to
+discriminate in price between different purchasers--after making due
+allowance for differences in transportation costs; corporations were
+forbidden to acquire any of the stock of other similar industries,
+where the effect would be substantially to lessen competition; and
+directors of banks and corporations were prohibited, with stated
+exceptions, from serving in two or more competing organizations. The
+Clayton act also settled, at least for the time, several of the
+complaints raised by the labor interests, especially at the time of
+the Pullman strike. Labor and agricultural organizations were
+specifically declared not to be conspiracies in restraint of trade;
+injunctions were not to be granted in labor disputes unless necessary
+to prevent irreparable injury; and trials for contempt of court were
+to be by jury, except when the offense was committed in the presence
+of the court. The law also prohibited the railroads from dealing with
+concerns in which their directors were interested, except under
+specified conditions.
+
+The success of the President in pushing his party program made his
+prestige the outstanding fact in politics. His leadership was
+indisputable and it was evident that he regarded a party platform as a
+serious program, to the fulfilment of which the party was committed by
+its election. While the trust legislation was under discussion,
+however, he asked for an act which required all the strength that he
+could muster.
+
+It will be remembered that the Panama Canal act of 1912 had exempted
+American coast-wise traffic through the canal from the payment of
+tolls. The law had been passed under a Republican, President Taft, and
+both the Progressive and Democratic platforms of 1912 had favored
+exemption. On March 5, 1914, Wilson appeared before Congress and urged
+the repeal of the act on the ground that it was a violation of that
+part of the treaty with Great Britain in which this country agreed
+that the canal should be open to all nations upon an equality, and
+that it was based on a mistaken economic policy. He was opposed by
+Underwood and Champ Clark, two of the most powerful Democratic
+leaders, but he had the aid of Senator Root, a distinguished
+Republican who had been Secretary of State under President Roosevelt,
+and in the end he was victorious. The division in the party was
+quickly healed and forgotten.
+
+The Congressional elections of 1914 greatly reduced the Democratic
+majority in the House, although leaving control with that party, but
+they slightly increased its margin in the Senate. European affairs and
+the election of 1916 occupied political attention during the second
+half of the administration, nevertheless the President and Congress
+proceeded with their program of legislation. Important acts were those
+providing for the development of the resources of Alaska, the Newlands
+act for the arbitration of disputes among railway employees, a law
+providing for federal aid in the building of state highways, measures
+giving a larger amount of self-government to the Philippines and Porto
+Rico, and one establishing a series of Federal Farm Loan Banks
+intended to enable the agricultural population to get capital at low
+rates of interest.[5] The major items, as well as the smaller ones in
+the Democratic program were in line with many of the proposals made by
+the Progressives in their platform in 1912. Attracted by these
+accomplishments and by the forceful leadership of the President large
+numbers of the Progressives made the transition into the Democratic
+party, and from 1913 to 1916 much of the political strategy of both
+Democrats and Republicans was devoted to attracting the insurgent wing
+of the Republican organization.
+
+The enactment of such a body of legislation, with the resulting
+appointment of many officials and clerks, brought the President face
+to face with the same civil service problem that had caused so much
+trouble for Cleveland. Upon their accession in 1913 the Democrats had
+been out of power so long that they exerted the pressure, usual under
+such circumstances, for a share in the offices. The merit system,
+however, was even more firmly entrenched than in 1897 when Cleveland
+had made such additions to the classified lists, for both Roosevelt
+and Taft had extended the merit principle to certain parts of the
+consular and diplomatic service. Roosevelt had also made considerable
+extensions in the application of the system to deputy collectors of
+internal revenue, fourth-class postmasters, and carriers in the rural
+free-delivery service; Taft had also increased the number of employees
+who were appointed under the merit system, notably about 36,000
+fourth-class postmasters not touched by his predecessor. Some of the
+acts passed early in President Wilson's administration--the Federal
+Reserve law, for example--expressly excepted certain employees from
+civil service examinations. Bryan, as Secretary of State, showed a
+lack of devotion to the cause of reform in the conduct of his
+department. On the other hand the President took a most important step
+in relation to postmasters of the first, second and third classes,
+which had always been appointed by the president with the advice and
+consent of the Senate, and had been among the plums in the gift of the
+executive that had been most sought after. On March 31, 1917, Wilson
+announced that thereafter the nominees for postmasters of the first
+three classes would be chosen as the result of civil service
+examination.
+
+While the United States was absorbed, in these various ways, in the
+task of internal construction, an event was occurring in a town in
+Bosnia which was destined to affect profoundly the course of American
+history. On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir-apparent
+to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was assassinated by a
+youth of Serbian blood and sympathies in Sarajevo. In Austria the act
+was looked upon as an incident in a revolutionary movement intended to
+detach a part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and unite it with
+Serbia. A month later Austria declared war on Serbia, and in a brief
+time, such was the state of the European alliances, Austria and
+Germany were opposed to Serbia, Russia, Belgium, France, Montenegro
+and Great Britain in a devastating war. In August, Japan joined the
+"Allies," as the nations on Serbia's side were known, and Turkey, in
+November, took the side of the Teutonic powers. The act that brought
+Belgium into the war was of interest to the United States. Germany had
+declared war on Russia, the friend of Serbia, and expected that
+France, Russia's ally, would step into the fray. Being thoroughly
+prepared for war, Germany believed that she could crush France before
+the latter could take any effective steps. The most convenient path
+into France lay through Belgium, a small, neutral nation with no
+interest in the conflict, and the German armies were thereupon poured
+across the boundary. High German authority freely admitted the wrong
+of the act, but excused it on the ground of military necessity.
+Belgium felt that she could not do otherwise than resist the invader
+and was thus drawn into the vortex. Her danger helped bring Great
+Britain into the conflict.
+
+The relation of the United States to the conflict seemed remote, and
+President Wilson on August 4 issued a formal proclamation of
+neutrality, which was soon followed by an address to the people of the
+country urging them to be neutral both in thought and in act. For a
+time it was not difficult for the country to obey the injunction.
+Although stories of the ruthlessness, of the German soldiery in
+Belgium poured into the columns of American periodicals, the people
+found difficulty in believing them because they had long admired the
+efficiency and virility of the Germans. Scarcely a year before the war
+broke out, ex-Presidents Roosevelt and Taft had extolled the German
+Emperor as an apostle of peace, and President Butler of Columbia
+University had declared that the people of any nation would gladly
+elect him as their chief executive. More than a month and a half after
+the invasion of Belgium, Roosevelt published an article in _The
+Outlook_ in which he expressed pride in the German blood in his veins,
+asserted that either side in the European conflict could be sincerely
+taken and defended, and continued:
+
+    When a nation feels that the issue of a contest in which ... it
+    finds itself engaged will be national life or death, it is
+    inevitable that it should act so as to save itself.... The rights
+    and wrongs of these cases where nations violate the rules of
+    abstract morality in order to meet their own vital needs can
+    be precisely determined only when all the facts are known and
+    when men's blood is cool.... Of course it would be folly to jump
+    into the gulf ourselves to no good purpose; and very probably
+    nothing that we could have done would have helped Belgium. We
+    have not the smallest responsibility for what has befallen her.
+
+In view of the mass of conflicting rumors concerning the war, which
+reached American attention, it was natural to take the neutral
+position adopted by Roosevelt, but it was inevitable, because of our
+racial diversities, that sympathies and opinions should soon differ
+widely. Within a short time, pamphlets were published containing the
+correspondence among the several European powers which had taken place
+just before the outbreak of the war. These and other documents were
+widely studied in the United States and led to the belief that
+England, France and Russia had been the real peace lovers and that
+Germany had been the aggressor.
+
+The immediate economic effect of the war, in the meanwhile was the
+unsettlement of American financial and industrial affairs, but when
+the English navy obtained the mastery of the seas, the vessels of the
+Teutonic powers were driven to cover in neutral ports or kept
+harmlessly at home, and American trade with neutral nations and the
+Allies took on new life. Moreover the latter were in need of food,
+munitions and war materials of all kinds and they turned to American
+factories. Manufacturers who could accept "war orders" began at once
+to make fortunes; wages and prices rose, and it became evident that
+the United States would be profoundly affected by the struggle.
+England's control of the sea, moreover, early presented other
+problems. According to international practice, both sides in the
+European conflict might purchase munitions from neutrals, of which the
+United States was the largest, but on account of her weakness on the
+sea Germany was unable to take advantage of this opportunity, while
+the Allies constantly purchased whatever supplies were needed. At
+first, the German government protested through diplomatic channels,
+but our government was able to show not only that international
+practice approved the course followed by the United States, but also
+that Germany had herself followed it in previous wars.
+
+There then followed propaganda on a large scale by German agents
+under the direction of Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, which was intended to
+influence public opinion to demand the prohibition of the shipment of
+munitions to the Allies. As this activity failed of its purpose,
+resort was then had to fraudulent clearance papers by which military
+supplies for German use were shipped from the United States without
+conforming to our customs regulations; bombs were placed in ships
+carrying supplies to England; fires were set in munitions factories;
+strikes and labor difficulties were fomented by German agents and at
+length the government had to ask for the recall of the Austrian
+Ambassador, Dr. Dumba, and the German military and naval _attachés_
+at Washington, Captain Franz von Papen and Captain Karl Boy-Ed.
+
+Relations with the Allies, in the meantime, were far from
+satisfactory. The unprecedented scale on which the war was being
+fought made huge supplies of munitions, food and raw materials such as
+copper and cotton absolute necessities. England was able to shut off
+the direct shipment into Germany of stores having military value, but
+this advantage was of little use so long as the ports of Holland and
+the Scandinavian countries were open to the transit of such supplies
+indirectly to Teutonic soil. When England attempted to regulate and
+restrict trade with these countries, the United States was the chief
+sufferer. Ships were held up and their cargoes examined-during 1915,
+for example, copper valued at $5,500,000 was seized while on the way
+from the United States to neutral nations. On December 26, 1914, the
+United States protested against the number of vessels that were
+stopped, taken into British ports and held, sometimes, for weeks; and
+in reply England pointed out the large increase in the amount of
+copper and other materials sent to countries near Germany, and
+declared that the presumption was strong that these stores were being
+forwarded to the enemy.
+
+With her navy driven from the seas, Germany began to feel the effects
+of the blockade, and accordingly turned to the submarine as the hope
+for victory. On February 4, 1915, Germany declared the English channel
+and the waters around Great Britain a war zone, in which enemy
+merchant vessels would be destroyed "even if it may not be possible
+always to save their crews and passengers." Great Britain replied on
+March 11 by an order that merchant vessels going into Germany or out
+of her ports, as well as merchant vessels bound for neutral countries
+and carrying goods bound for the enemy, must stop at a British or
+allied port. At these points the cargoes were looked over and any war
+materials or goods which were regarded as "contraband" were seized.
+Even though the owners were eventually reimbursed for the cargoes
+taken, the delay and the interference with trade were burdensome, and
+the United States accordingly protested that England was establishing
+an illegal blockade and that the United States would champion the
+rights of neutrals. Some slight retaliatory legislation aimed at the
+Allies was passed by Congress, but for the most part interest in this
+controversy died in the face of the growing irritation with Germany.
+The German declaration of February 4, 1915, in regard to submarine
+warfare caused an energetic protest by the United States on the ground
+that an attack on a vessel made without any determination of its
+belligerent character and the contraband character of its cargo would
+be unprecedented in naval warfare. The American note declared Germany
+would be held to a "strict accountability" for any injury to American
+lives and property. Nevertheless, the results of the submarine
+campaign began to appear at once, and in ten weeks sixty-three
+merchant ships belonging to various nations were sunk, with a loss of
+250 lives. On May 7 the United States was astounded to hear that the
+passenger ship _Lusitania_ had been torpedoed, and 1,153 persons
+drowned, including 114 Americans. The allied and neutral nations were
+profoundly stirred, and from that moment there grew an increasing
+demand in the United States for war with Germany. The President called
+for a disavowal of the acts by which the _Lusitania _and other vessels
+had been sunk, all possible reparation, and steps to prevent the
+recurrence of such deeds.
+
+Within a few days of the _Lusitania _catastrophe and before the
+protest of our government was made public, President Wilson spoke in
+Philadelphia, and in the course of his remarks said, "There is such a
+thing as a man being too proud to fight." The address had no relation
+to the international situation, and moreover the objectionable phrase
+carried an unexpected and different meaning when separated from its
+context and linked to the _Lusitania_ affair. The words were seized
+upon by the President's critics, however, as an indication of the
+policy of the government in the crisis and were severely condemned. On
+the other hand the formal protest was received with marked
+satisfaction. It was understood to be the work of Wilson himself, who
+practically took over the conduct of the more important foreign
+affairs. When the German government replied without meeting the
+demands of the President, he framed a second note which brought the
+possibility of war so near that Secretary Bryan resigned rather than
+sign it.[6] A second reply merely prolonged the controversy and Wilson
+thereupon renewed his demands and declared that a repetition of
+submarine attacks would be regarded as "deliberately unfriendly." The
+statement brought the nation appreciably nearer war, but if the
+comments of the newspaper press may be relied upon as an index of
+public opinion, the President had again expressed the feelings of the
+people. In the meanwhile German submarine warfare was modified in the
+direction desired by the United States. Instead of sinking merchant
+vessels on sight and without warning, the commanders of submarines
+stopped them, visited and searched them, and gave the passengers and
+crews opportunity to escape. On August 19, 1915, the _Arabic _was sunk
+without warning, but the German government in conformity with its new
+policy disavowed the act, apologized and agreed to pay an indemnity
+for American lives lost. The negotiations concerning the _Lusitania_
+continued to drag on, but otherwise relations between Germany and the
+United States had reached the point where peace could be maintained if
+no further accident or provocation intervened.
+
+Despite the general approval of the President's firm stand against
+Germany, there was an inclination in some quarters to do everything
+possible to avoid a conflict, even if the effort necessitated the
+relinquishment of rights that had hitherto been well recognized. In
+February, 1916, Representative McLemore introduced a resolution
+requesting the President to warn American citizens to refrain from
+traveling on armed belligerent vessels, whether merchantmen or
+otherwise and to state that if they persisted they would do so at
+their own peril. The House, according to the Speaker, was prepared to
+pass the resolution. The positions taken on this subject by the
+administration had not been entirely consistent, but the President was
+now holding that Americans had the right under international law to
+travel on such vessels and that the government could not honorably
+refuse to uphold them in exercising their right. "Once accept a single
+abatement of right," he asserted, "and many other humiliations would
+certainly follow, and the whole fine fabric of international law might
+crumble under our hands piece by piece." Moreover he felt that the
+conduct of international relations lay in the hands of the executive
+and that divided counsels would embarrass him in dealing with Germany.
+He therefore asked the House to discuss the McLemore resolution at
+once and come to a vote. Under this pressure the House gave way and
+tabled the resolution, ninety-three Republicans joining with 182
+Democrats against thirty-three Democrats and 102 Republicans.
+
+On March 24 the French channel steamer _Sussex_ was sunk, with the
+loss of several Americans, and the submarine issue was thus brought
+forward again. The President accordingly appeared before Congress and
+reviewed the entire controversy. "Again and again," he reminded his
+hearers, "the Imperial German Government has given this Government its
+solemn assurances that at least passenger ships would not be thus
+dealt with, and yet it has again and again permitted its undersea
+commanders to disregard those assurances with entire impunity." He
+asserted that America had been very patient, while the toll of lives
+had mounted into the hundreds, and informed Congress that he was
+presenting a warning that "unless the Imperial German Government
+should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its
+present methods of warfare against passenger and freight carrying
+vessels this Government can have no choice but to sever diplomatic
+relations with the Government of the German Empire altogether." The
+_Lusitania _notes, the _Sussex_ address and other speeches made by the
+President wore read all over the United States and, indeed, throughout
+a great part of the world. He was attempting the novel and daring
+experiment of framing a foreign policy in public view, and was thus
+becoming the recognized spokesman of the neutral world.
+
+Our international relations were in a disturbed and critical condition
+when the presidential campaign of 1916 came on. The Republicans and
+the Progressives planned to meet in Chicago on June 7 for the
+nomination of candidates, in the hope that the two parties might unite
+upon a single nominee and platform, and thus defeat Wilson who was
+sure to be the Democratic candidate. At first, however, the two wings
+of the Republican party were in complete disagreement. As far as
+principles went they had not thoroughly recovered from the schism of
+1912. For their candidate the Progressives looked only to Roosevelt,
+whom the Republicans would not have. Roosevelt himself refused to
+enter any fight for a nomination and announced, "I will go further and
+say that it would be a mistake to nominate me unless the country has
+in its mood something of the heroic." After conferences between
+Republican and Progressive leaders which failed to bring about
+unanimity, the Republican convention nominated Justice Charles E.
+Hughes of the Supreme Court, and the Progressives chose Roosevelt.
+Hughes was a reformer by nature, recognized as a man of high
+principles, courageous, able and remembered as a vigorous and popular
+governor of New York.
+
+The Republican platform called for neutrality in the European war;
+peace and order in Mexico, preparedness for national defence, a
+protective tariff and women's suffrage. It also advocated some of the
+economic legislation favored by the-Progressives in 1912. The
+Progressive platform laid most emphasis on preparation for military
+defence-a navy of at least second rank, a regular army of 250,000 and
+a system for training a citizen soldiery. It also urged labor
+legislation, a protective tariff and national regulation of industry
+and transportation. The Republican platform severely denounced the
+administration, but the Progressives stated merely their own
+principles.
+
+In the course of his actions after the nomination, however, Roosevelt
+indicated his belief that the public welfare demanded the defeat of
+the Democrats. He declared that he did not know Hughes's opinions on
+the vital questions of the day and suggested that his "conditional
+refusal" be put into the hands of the National Progressive Committee
+and that a statement of the Republican candidate's principles be
+awaited. If these principles turned out to be satisfactory then
+Roosevelt would not run; otherwise a conference could be held to
+determine future action. Subsequently Roosevelt issued a declaration
+expressing his satisfaction with Hughes, condemning Wilson and urging
+all Progressives to join in defeating the Democrats. Such an action
+would, of course, spell the doom of the Progressives as a political
+organization, but he declared that the people were not prepared to
+accept a new party and that the nomination of a third party candidate
+would merely divide the Republicans and ensure a Democratic victory.
+The action of Roosevelt commended itself to a majority of the National
+Committee, but a minority were displeased and supported Wilson.
+
+The Democrats met at St. Louis on June 14 and renominated President
+Wilson in a convention marked by harmony and enthusiasm. For the first
+time in many years the party could point to a record of actual
+achievement and it challenged "comparisons of our record, our keeping
+of pledges, and our constructive legislation, with those of any party
+at any time." After recalling the chief measures passed during the
+administration, the party placed itself on record as favoring labor
+legislation, women's suffrage, the protection of citizens at home and
+abroad, a larger army and navy and a reserve of trained citizen
+soldiers.[7]
+
+The campaign turned upon the question whether the country approved
+Wilson's foreign policy, rather than upon the record of the Democratic
+party and its platform of principles, and in such a contest each side
+had definite advantages. As the candidate of the party which had been
+in power most of the time for half a century, Hughes had the support
+of the two living ex-presidents and the backing of a compact
+organization with plenty of money. He had been out of the turmoil of
+politics for six years as a member of the Supreme Court and hence had
+not made enemies. His party was strong in the most populous portions
+of the country and in the East where dissatisfaction with the
+President's foreign policy was strongest. In particular the unhappy
+Mexican difficulty, which has already been mentioned, had not been
+settled, and it was an easy matter for Hughes to point out real or
+alleged inconsistencies and mistakes in his opponent's acts. Wilson
+had been elected four years before by a minority vote and had served
+through a term of years that had brought forward an unusual number of
+perplexing questions on which sincere men disagreed, and had,
+therefore, aroused a host of enemies. On the other hand, he had the
+advantage of being in power, and his supporters could urge the danger
+of "swapping horses while crossing a stream." He had a foreign policy
+which the people knew about, experience in the Presidency and a record
+for leadership in constructive accomplishment.[8]
+
+The particular characteristics of the campaign were mainly the results
+of the activities of Hughes, Roosevelt and Wilson. In his speech
+accepting the nomination Hughes attacked the record of the
+administration in regard to the civil service, charged the President
+with interfering in Mexican affairs without protecting American
+rights, and asserted that if the government had shown Germany that it
+meant what it said by "strict accountability" the Lusitania would not
+have been sunk. He also announced that he favored a constitutional
+amendment providing for women's suffrage. Later he made extended
+stumping tours in which he reiterated his attacks on the
+administration, but he disappointed his friends by failing to reveal a
+constructive program. Roosevelt, meanwhile, assisted the Republican
+candidate by a series of speeches, one of the earliest of which was
+that of August 31, in Maine. That state held its local elections on
+September 11 and it was deemed essential by both parties to make every
+effort to carry it so as to have a good effect on party prospects
+elsewhere. Roosevelt's speech typified his criticisms of the
+administration. He declared that Wilson had ostensibly kept peace with
+Mexico but had really waged war there; he asserted that the President
+had shown a lack of firmness in dealing with Mexico and had kissed the
+hand that slapped him in the face although it was red with the blood
+of American women and children; he compared American neutrality in the
+European War with the neutrality of Pontius Pilate and believed that
+if the administration had been firm in its dealings with Germany there
+would have been no invasion of Belgium, no sinking of vessels and no
+massacres of women and children.
+
+Wilson followed the example of McKinley in 1896 and conducted his
+campaign chiefly through speeches delivered from the porch of "Shadow
+Lawn," his summer residence in New Jersey. In this way he emphasized
+the legislative record of the Democrats, defended his foreign policy
+and attacked the Republicans as a party, although not referring to
+individuals. An important part of his strategy was an attempt to
+attract the Progressives to his support. He met his opponent's
+vigorous complaints in regard to his attitude toward Mexico and the
+European War by pressing the question as to the direction in which the
+Republicans would change it. As Hughes was apparently unwilling to
+urge immediate war on Germany, he could only retort that a firm
+attitude in the beginning would have prevented trouble, and there the
+matter rested throughout the campaign. Supporters of Wilson also
+defended his foreign policy, summing up their contentions in the
+phrase, "He kept us out of war."
+
+Foreign policy as a political issue was pressed temporarily into the
+background by the sudden demand of the railroad brotherhoods for
+shorter hours and mote pay, threatening a nation-wide strike if their
+plea was unheeded. Neither party wished to risk the labor vote by
+opposing the unions, and the public did not desire a strike, much as
+it deprecated the attitude of the labor leaders in threatening trouble
+at this juncture. The President took the lead in pressing a program of
+railroad legislation, part of which was a law granting the men what
+they desired. This was immediately passed, although the remaining
+recommendations were laid aside. In the House the Republicans joined
+with the Democrats in putting the law through, although nearly thirty
+per cent. of the members refrained from voting at all, but in the
+Senate party lines were more strictly drawn. In many quarters the
+President was vigorously condemned on the ground that he had
+"surrendered" to a threat. Hughes joined in the dissent, but somewhat
+dulled its effect by giving no evidence of opposition until the law
+was passed and by stating that he would not attempt to repeal it if
+elected. During the closing days of the campaign Hughes issued a
+statement declaring that he looked upon the presidency as an executive
+office and stated that if chosen he would consider himself the
+administrative and executive head only, and not a political leader
+commissioned with the responsibility of determining policies. At the
+close of the campaign, also, the benefits of a protective tariff were
+urged as a reason for electing Hughes.
+
+[Illustration:
+Election of 1916, by Counties]
+
+The result of the balloting on November 7 was in doubt for several
+days because the outcome hinged on the votes of California and
+Minnesota, either of which would turn the scale. In the end Wilson was
+found to have received 9,128,837 votes and Hughes, 8,536,380. The vote
+in the electoral college was 277 to 254. The outcome was remarkable in
+several respects. Each candidate received a larger popular vote than
+had ever before been cast; Wilson won without New York or any of the
+other large eastern states, finding his support in the South and the
+Far West; each side was able to get satisfaction from the result, the
+Republicans because their party schism was sufficiently healed to
+enable them to divide the House of Representatives evenly with their
+opponents, and the Democrats because their candidate was successful in
+states which elected Republican senators and governors by large
+majorities.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+In the nature of the case, any bibliography which concerns the events
+of so recent and important a period is of temporary value only. Ogg
+presents an excellent one, but many important volumes have been
+printed since 1917, his date of publication.
+
+A reliable account of the chief events is contained in the _American
+Year Book_. The numerous biographies of President Wilson are written
+under the difficult conditions that surround the discussion of recent
+events. Available ones are: E.C. Brooks, _Woodrow Wilson as President_
+(1916), eulogistic, but contains extracts from speeches; W.B. Hale,
+_Woodrow Wilson, The Story of His Life_ (1912); H.J. Ford, _Woodrow
+Wilson_ (1916); A.M. Low, _Woodrow Wilson, an Interpretation_ (1918),
+a friendly and substantial analysis by an English newspaper
+correspondent; W.B. Dodd, _Woodrow Wilson and His Work_ (1920),
+sympathetic, written in the spirit of the investigator, and the best
+life up to the time of its publication. Better than any biography is a
+careful study of Wilson's addresses and speeches, editions of which
+have been prepared by A.B. Hart, J.B. Scott, A. Shaw and others.
+
+Periodical literature concerning the legislative program of the first
+Wilson administration is especially abundant. On the tariff, in
+addition to Taussig, consult: _Quarterly Journal of Economics_ (1913),
+"The Tariff Act of 1913"; _Journal of Political Economy_ (1914), "The
+Tariff of 1913." On the federal reserve system, _Political Science
+Quarterly_ (1914), "Federal Reserve System"; _Quarterly Journal of
+Economics_ (1914), "Federal Reserve Act of 1913"; _American Economic
+Review_ (1914), "Federal Reserve Act"; _Journal of Political Economy_
+(1914), "Banking and Currency Act of 1913"; H.P. Willis, _The Federal
+Reserve_ (1915); E.W. Kemmerer, _The A B C of the Federal Reserve
+System_ (1918). On the anti-trust acts, _Political Science Quarterly_
+(1915), "New Anti-Trust Acts"; _Quarterly Journal of Economics_
+(1914), "Trust Legislation of 1914"; _American Economic Review_
+(1914), "Trade Commission Act." For the early stages of the European
+conflict see the references under Chapter XXV.
+
+The best accounts of the election of 1916 are in the _American Year
+Book_, and in Ogg. Other readable accounts are: _Nineteenth Century_
+(Dec., 1916), "The Re-Election of President Wilson"; W.E. Dodd,
+_Woodrow Wilson_ (1920).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The cabinet, 1913-1920, was as follows: Secretary of State, W.J.
+Bryan (to 1915), R. Lansing (to 1920), B. Colby; Secretary of the
+Treasury, W.G. McAdoo, C. Glass, D.F. Houston; Secretary of War, L.M.
+Garrison, N.D. Baker; Attorney-General, J.C. McReynolds, T.W. Gregory,
+A.M. Palmer; Postmaster-General, A.S. Burleson; Secretary of the Navy,
+J. Daniels; Secretary of the Interior, F.K. Lane, J.B. Payne;
+Secretary of Commerce, W.C. Redfield, J.W. Alexander; Secretary of
+Labor, W.B. Wilson.
+
+[2] On Apr. 23, 1920, the amount of federal reserve notes outstanding
+was $3,068,307,000.
+
+[3] On Apr. 23, 1920, the reserves deposited by member banks reached a
+total of $2,083,568,000.
+
+[4] The Commission superseded the Bureau of Corporations.
+
+[5] The appointment of Louis D. Brandeis to the Supreme Court brought
+to that body a well-known proponent of the newer types of social and
+economic theory. At first the opposition to confirming his nomination
+in the Senate, based upon certain facts in his career and allegations
+concerning them, was uncommonly pronounced. Dissent diminished,
+however, in the face of investigation, and the nomination was
+confirmed by a large majority on June 1, 1916.
+
+[6] Bryan remained in sympathy with the administration in other
+respects, and aided in the campaign of 1916.
+
+[7] Despite Roosevelt's refusal to run, the Progressive
+Vice-Presidential candidate continued the campaign. The Socialist
+Labor party, the Socialist party and the Prohibitionists also
+presented candidates.
+
+[8] The Republican campaign fund was $2,445,421 contributed by 34,205
+persons; the Democratic fund, $1,808,348 given by 170,000 persons.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+THE UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD WAR
+
+The reelection of Wilson in November, 1916, could hardly be interpreted
+in any other light than as an approval of his patient foreign policy.
+Nevertheless, for the ensuing five months the problem of our
+international relations, and especially the question whether we ought
+to enter the World War, continued to divide the American people into
+hostile camps. The opponents of the President, led by Roosevelt,
+contended that Wilson was lacking in "patriotism, courage and
+foresight"; that the failure of the administration to protest against
+Germany's march across Belgium was due to timidity and a "mean
+commercial opportunism" which caused the President to act in the spirit
+of refusing to perform a duty unless there was a pecuniary profit to be
+gained thereby; and that the interchanges of diplomatic notes with the
+German government were "benevolent phrase-mongering" which did not
+accomplish anything. When Germany used the submarine to sink vessels
+despite the President's "strict accountability" note and when the
+administration did not then take forceful action against the offender,
+his opponents declared that the President meant "precisely and exactly
+nothing" by his words. Late in 1915 Wilson became convinced of the
+necessity of an increase in our means of defense, and in order to
+arouse Congress to action he went out into the Middle West where he
+addressed large audiences on "preparedness." After long discussion
+Congress passed the National Defense Act by the provisions of which the
+military strength of the country was to be expanded to 645,000 officers
+and men during a period of five years. The President's conversion to
+preparedness was interpreted as a tardy recognition of an obvious duty,
+and his plan deprecated as no more than a "shadow program." And later,
+as his attitude became more warlike, the opposition declared that he
+had at last acted because of "pressure" and "criticism," rather than
+because of a definite and positive purpose of his own. In brief, then,
+a considerable portion of the country insisted upon America's early
+entrance into the European conflict, and judged Wilson to be a timid
+politician who lacked a courageous foreign policy and who was being
+driven toward war by the force of public opinion.
+
+On the other hand, the traditional American disinclination to become
+entangled in foreign complications was the decisive force with the
+majority. In an address which the President delivered in New York he
+said that he received a great many letters from unknown and
+uninfluential people whose one prayer was, "Mr. President, do not allow
+anybody to persuade you that the people of this country want war with
+anybody." There were, moreover, Americans who still retained the
+traditional dislike of England and who hesitated to support an alliance
+with that nation; others did not relish association with Russia, which
+had long been looked upon as the arch-representative of autocracy; and
+others were indifferent or confused or inclined to the German side.
+
+The attitude of the President, meanwhile, constantly found expression
+in addresses to Congress and the people, which were so widely read and
+discussed and which had so great an influence in forming public opinion
+that the more prominent of them must be mentioned. Beginning with the
+proclamation of neutrality on August 18, 1914, and a speech at
+Indianapolis on January 8, 1915, he asserted the belief that the United
+States should remain neutral, not only because it was the traditional
+policy to stand aloof from European controversies but also because "it
+was necessary, if a universal catastrophe was to be avoided, that a
+limit should be set to the sweep of destructive war ... if only to
+prevent collective economic ruin and the breakdown throughout the world
+of the industries by which its populations are fed and sustained." He
+also hoped that the time might quickly come when both sides would
+welcome mediation by a great people that had preserved itself neutral,
+self-possessed and sympathetic with the burdens of the warring powers.
+Before the close of 1915 he gave up his earlier opposition to military
+preparation, as has been seen, and while the project for a larger
+defensive force was being discussed, he made a significant address on
+May 27, 1916, to the League to Enforce Peace. With the causes and
+objects of the war, he declared, America was not concerned; the
+"obscure fountains" of its origins we were not interested to explore;
+in its spread, however, it had so "profoundly affected" America that we
+were no longer "disconnected lookers-on," but deeply concerned. "We are
+participants," he asserted, "whether we would or not, in the life of
+the world. The interests of all nations are our own also. We are
+partners with the rest." Oddly enough the statement that the origins of
+the war and the purposes for which it was started did not concern us
+was widely circulated, and misinterpreted as indicating a lack of
+sympathy with the ideals for which the Allies were fighting at the time
+speech, while the remainder of the address, which was far more
+significant, was largely overlooked. Nevertheless the declaration that
+the war had become our concern was an important part of Wilson's series
+of utterances on the issues of the day, and demands emphasis at this
+point because the President was representative, in holding this
+opinion, of a great body of his countrymen. The conviction that the
+European war had become our affair was deepened in the minds of many
+Americans when news arrived late in 1916, that the Teutonic military
+authorities were seizing and deporting Belgian workmen and compelling
+them to labor in German fields and factories.
+
+In December, President Wilson again claimed the attention of the world
+by his reply to a proposal by Germany that peace negotiations be entered
+upon. He declared--and his note was sent to all belligerents--that the
+leaders of the two sides had stated their objects in general terms only:
+
+But, stated in general terms, they seem the same on both sides. Never
+yet have the authoritative spokesmen of either side avowed the precise
+objects which would, if attained, satisfy them and their people that
+the war had been fought out.
+
+The support of America in the war had long since become the great stake
+for which both sides in the conflict were playing, and the crisis of
+the game was at hand. On January 22, 1917, Wilson addressed the Senate
+and stated the results of his action. The reply of the Germans, he
+declared, had merely stated their readiness to meet their antagonists
+in conference to discuss terms of peace; the Allies had detailed more
+definitely the arrangements, guarantees and acts of reparation which
+would constitute a satisfactory settlement. He proceeded then to add
+that the, United States was deeply concerned in the terms of peace
+which would be made at the close of the conflict, and to enumerate some
+of those for which Americans would be most insistent: equality of
+rights among nations; the recognition of the principle that territories
+should not be handed about from nation to nation without the consent of
+the inhabitants of the territories; an outlet to the sea for every
+nation where practicable; the freedom of the seas; and the limitation
+of armaments. The interchange of notes had made two things clear; that
+the concern of the United States in the war was intimate, and that
+the people of this country would know definitely the purposes of the
+conflict before they decided to enter it.
+
+On January 31, Germany announced an extension of her submarine warfare.
+A wide area surrounding the British Isles, France, and Italy, and
+including the greater part of the eastern Mediterranean Sea was
+declared to be a barred zone. All sea traffic, neutral as well as
+belligerent, the note warned, would be sunk, except that one American
+ship would be allowed to pass through the zone each week provided that
+it followed a designated, narrow lane to the port of Falmouth, England,
+that it was marked with broad red and white stripes, and carried no
+contraband. The President promptly broke off relations with Germany,
+sent the German ambassador home and appeared before Congress to state
+to that body and to the people the reasons for his decision. He
+recounted the substance of his earlier correspondence with Germany in
+regard to submarine warfare and recalled the promise of the German
+government that merchant vessels would not be sunk without warning and
+without saving human lives. He declared that the American government
+had no alternative but to sever relations, although refusing to believe
+that Germany would ruthlessly use the methods which she threatened,
+until convinced of her determination by "overt acts." Information of
+the move made by the United States was sent to American diplomatic
+representatives in neutral countries with the suggestion that they take
+similar action. Shortly afterward the President requested Congress to
+pass legislation enabling him to supply armament and ammunition to
+merchant vessels, and an overwhelming majority of both houses was ready
+to accede to the request. A small minority in the Senate, however, was
+able, under existing rules, to prevent Congressional action, although
+the President found authority in existing statutes and was able to
+proceed.[1]
+
+Every important event in March, 1917, tended toward war between the
+United States and Germany. On the first day of the month the State
+Department made public a note from the German Secretary of State to the
+German minister in Mexico which suggested a German-Mexican alliance in
+case of the entry of the United States into the war. Germany was to
+contribute financial support to Mexico and the latter was to recover
+Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, which had been lost to the United States
+many years before. Knowledge of this intrigue gave a distinct impetus
+to the war spirit in all parts of the country. On March 5, President
+Wilson was inaugurated for the second time and took occasion to state
+again the attitude of the United States toward the war. Although
+disclaiming any desire for conquest or advantage, and reaffirming the
+desire of the United States for peace, he expressed the belief that we
+might be drawn on, by circumstances, to a more active assertion of our
+rights and a more immediate association with the great struggle. Once
+more he stated the things for which the United States would stand
+whether in war or in peace: the interest of all nations in world peace;
+equality of rights among nations; the principle that governments derive
+their just powers from the consent of the governed; the freedom of the
+seas; and the limitation of armaments. Later in the month information
+reached America that there had been a revolution in Russia, that the
+Czar had been compelled to abdicate and that a republican government
+had been established. The news was gladly heard in the United States as
+it seemed to presage the overthrow of autocracy everywhere. On March
+22, the new Russian government was formally recognized by the United
+States and later a loan of $100,000,000 was made.
+
+In the meanwhile the "overt acts" which the President and the American
+people hoped might not be committed became sufficiently numerous to
+prove that Germany had indeed entered upon the most ruthless use of the
+submarine. Seven American vessels were torpedoed, with the loss of
+thirteen lives, and many more vessels of belligerent and neutral
+nations were sunk, in most cases without warning. The President
+accordingly summoned Congress to meet in special session on April 2.
+When that body assembled he again and for the last time explained the
+character of German submarine warfare, charging that vessels of all
+kinds and all nations, hospital ships as well as merchant vessels were
+being sunk "with reckless lack of compassion or of principle."
+International law, he complained, was being swept away; the lives of
+non-combatant men, women and children destroyed; America filled with
+hostile spies and attempts made to stir up enemies against us; armed
+neutrality had broken down in the face of the submarine, and he
+therefore urged Congress to accept the state of war which the action of
+Germany had thrust upon the United States. Such action, he believed,
+should involve the utmost cooperation with the enemies of
+Germany--liberal loans to them, an abundant supply of war material of
+all kinds, the better equipment of the navy and an army of at least
+500,000 men chosen on the principle of universal liability to service.
+An important part of the President's address was that in which he
+distinguished between the German people and the German government. With
+the former, he asserted, we had no quarrel, for it was not upon their
+impulse that their government acted in entering the war. But the
+latter, the Prussian autocracy, "was not and never could be our
+friend." Once more he disclaimed any desire for conquest or dominion:
+
+    We are glad ... to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and
+    for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for
+    the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men
+    everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world
+    must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the
+    tested foundations of political liberty.
+
+The response of Congress was prompt and nearly unanimous. In the House
+by a vote of 373 to fifty, and in the Senate by eighty-two to six, a
+resolution accepting the status of war was quickly passed and proclaimed
+by the President on April 6.[2] His position was a strong one. His
+patience and self-control, to be sure, had been carried to the extreme
+where they seemed like cowardice and lack of policy to the more
+belligerent East; but they had convinced the more pacific West that he
+could not be hurried into war without adequate reasons. All sections and
+all parties were united as the country had never been united before. His
+insistence that the United States had no ulterior motives in entering
+the war and his constant emphasis on ideals and the moral issues of the
+conflict placed the struggle on a lofty plane, besides giving him and
+his country at that time a position of leadership in the world such as
+no man or nation had ever hitherto enjoyed. Moreover the evolution
+through which the President went, from adherence to the traditional
+aloofness from European affairs to throwing himself enthusiastically
+into the conflict, was an evolution through which most of his countrymen
+were passing. Every public address which the President delivered, every
+message to Congress, every request to the legislative branch of the
+government was read widely, disagreed to or received with enthusiasm in
+one quarter or another and discussed everywhere with interest and
+energy. The result was the education of America in a new foreign policy.
+It was no slight matter to discard the traditions of a century and a
+quarter, and the brevity and inconsiderable size of the controversy was
+the marvel, rather than its length and bitterness.[3]
+
+America had need of her unity and her enthusiasm. The size of the
+conflict, the number of men that must be raised and trained, the
+quantity of materials required, the amount of money needed, and, above
+all, the mental readjustment necessary in a nation that had hitherto
+buried itself in the pursuits of peace--all these considerations
+emphasized the importance of the task that the United States was
+undertaking. Into Washington there poured a bewildering stream of offers
+of assistance; organizations had to be built up over night to take hold
+of problems that were new to this country; men found themselves hurried
+into tasks for which they must prepare as best they might, and under
+crowded working conditions, changing circumstances and confusion of
+effort that beggar description. In many cases, America could learn
+valuable lessons from European experience, and to that end commissions
+of eminent statesmen and soldiers were sent to this country to give us
+the benefit of their successes and failures.
+
+An important step had already been taken in the creation of the Council
+of National Defense on August 29, 1916, an act which indicated a
+realization that the United States might at any time be drawn into the
+European struggle. The body was composed of six members of the Cabinet,
+with the Secretary of War as chairman, and was assisted by an Advisory
+Commission composed of seven experts in the various industries that
+would be most essential to the prosecution of the war. The Council
+furnished the means of coordinating the industries of the country and
+getting them into touch with the executive departments of the
+government. State councils of defense were likewise organized to arouse
+the people to the performance of their share in the nation's work, to
+circulate information and to assist the several agencies of the federal
+government. A National Research Council mobilized the scientific talent
+of the country and brought it to bear on certain of the problems of
+warfare. A Naval Consulting Board examined inventions offered to the
+Navy Department. The Committee on Public Information furnished condensed
+war news to town and country papers, circulated millions of pamphlets
+explaining the causes of the war and upholding America's purposes in it,
+and directing speakers who aided in campaigns for raising money and
+educating the people in their duty during the crisis. The War Industries
+Board developed plans for the production of the multifarious supplies
+needed. The United States Shipping Board took hold of the problem of
+building sufficient ships to transport troops and cargoes, and to
+replace vessels sunk by submarines. By means of a Committee on Labor the
+laboring men gave their support to the conduct of the war and agreed to
+delay controversies until the war was over.
+
+The exhausted condition of the supplies of food among the Allies, and
+the size of the armies which America decided to raise, made the Food
+Administration one of importance. At the time when the United States
+entered the war there was a dangerous shortage of food in Europe due to
+the decrease in production and to the lack of the vessels necessary to
+bring supplies from distant parts of the world. The problem centered
+mainly in wheat, meat, fats and sugar. The demand upon the United States
+was not only large but increasing. Accordingly, legislation was passed
+on August 10, 1917, which made it unlawful to destroy or hoard food; it
+provided for the stimulation of agriculture; and it authorized the
+President to purchase and sell foods and fix the price of wheat. Wilson
+appointed as the chief of the Food Administration Herbert C. Hoover,
+whose experience with the problem of Belgian relief enabled him to act
+promptly and effectively. Hoover's one great purpose was to utilize all
+food supplies in such a way as would most help to win the war. He
+cooperated with the Department of Agriculture which had already started
+a campaign for stimulating the cultivation of farms and gardens on all
+available land. Food administrators were appointed in the states and
+local districts. Speakers, posters, libraries and other agencies were
+utilized to urge the people to eat less wheat, meats, fats and sugar in
+order that more might be exported to the Allies. Millions of housewives
+hung cards in their windows to indicate that they were cooperating with
+the United States Food Administration. "Wheatless" and "meatless" days
+were set apart. These voluntary efforts were supplemented by government
+regulation, and dealers in food products were compelled to take out
+federal licenses which enabled the Administration to control their
+operations and to prevent prices from going to panic levels. The Food
+Administration established a Grain Corporation which bought and sold
+wheat; it placed an agency in Chicago to buy meat for ourselves and the
+Allies; it called a conference of the sugar refiners, who agreed to put
+in its hands the entire supply of that commodity. In a word, by
+stimulating voluntary efforts and by means of government regulations,
+the Food Administration increased production, decreased consumption, and
+coordinated the purchase of food for the army, the navy, the Allies, the
+Red Cross and Belgian relief. The Food Administration was hardly
+established before it became necessary to organize a Fuel Administration
+to teach economy in the use of coal, to stimulate production, adjust
+disputes between employers and employees, fix prices and control the
+apportioning of the supply among the several parts of the country.
+
+The vital relation of the transportation system of the country to the
+winning of the war was apparent at the start. As soon as war was
+declared, therefore, nearly 700 representatives of the railroads formed
+a Railroads' War Board to minimize the individual and competitive
+activities of the roads, coordinate their operation, and produce a
+maximum of transportation efficiency. The attempt of the railroad
+executives, however, quickly broke down. In the first place, as has been
+seen, our entire body of railroad legislation is based upon the idea of
+separating the several systems and compelling them to compete rather
+than cooperate. The habits and customs thus formed could hardly be done
+away with in an instant. In the second place the cost of labor and
+materials was constantly mounting, and the demand for more equipment was
+insistent. The railroads could meet these greater costs only by raising
+rates, a process which involved obtaining the assent of the Interstate
+Commerce Commission and required a considerable period for its
+accomplishment. The roads were also embarrassed by an unprecedented
+congestion of traffic on the eastern seaboard, from which men and
+cargoes must be shipped to Europe. Accordingly, on December 26, 1917,
+the President took possession of the railroad system for the government
+and appointed the Secretary of the Treasury, William G. McAdoo, as
+Director General. As rapidly as possible the railroads were merged into
+one great system. The entire country was divided into districts at the
+head of which were placed experienced railroad executives. Terminals,
+tunnels and equipment were used regardless of ownership in the effort to
+get the greatest possible service out of existing facilities. The
+passenger service was greatly reduced in order to free locomotives and
+crews for freight trains, duplication of effort was done away with where
+possible, officials who were not necessary under the new plan were
+dropped, and equipment was standardized. Existing legislation allowed
+the government to change freight and passenger rates, and on May 25,
+1918, these were considerably raised. The winter of 1917-1918 was
+memorable for its severity, and placed great difficulties in the way of
+the railroads; nevertheless, between January 1, 1918, and November 11 of
+the same year nearly six and a half million actual and prospective
+soldiers were carried for greater or smaller distances.
+
+An important part of American preparation for war was the attention paid
+to the "morale" organizations, which were designed to maintain the
+courage and spirit of the fighting man. As far as legislation could do
+it, the most flagrant vices were kept away from the camps. Moreover the
+Commissions on Training Camp Activities attempted to supply wholesome
+entertainment and associations. Under their direction, various
+organizations established and operated theatres, libraries and
+writing-rooms, encouraged athletics in the camps, and offered similar
+facilities for soldiers and sailors when on leave in towns and cities
+near by. The Red Cross conducted extensive relief work both in this
+country and abroad; surgical dressings were made, clothing and comfort
+kits supplied, and money contributed. In France, Belgium, Russia,
+Roumania, Italy and Serbia the Red Cross conducted a fight against the
+suffering incident to war.
+
+The legislation which established the system of allotments, allowances
+and War Risk Insurance was also designed in part to maintain the
+_morale_ of the army and navy. The pay of the "enlisted man" or private
+was $30.00 per month. In the case of men with dependents, an "allotment"
+of $15.00 was to be sent home and the government thereupon contributed
+an "allowance" which normally amounted to $15.00 or more, and was graded
+according to the number of the man's dependents and the closeness of
+their relationship to him. Provision was made also for compensation for
+officers and men injured or disabled in the line of duty, and for
+training injured men in a vocation. In addition, the War Risk Insurance
+plan provided means by which both officers and men could at low cost
+take out government insurance against death or total disability. In this
+way, it was hoped, some of the distresses of war would be alleviated so
+far as possible and a repetition of the pension abuses of the Civil War
+somewhat guarded against.
+
+The total direct money cost of the war from April, 1917, to April, 1919,
+was estimated by the War Department at $21,850,000,000, an average of
+over a million dollars an hour, and an amount sufficient to have carried
+on the Revolutionary War a thousand years. In addition, loans were
+extended to the Allies at the rate of nearly half a million dollars an
+hour. This huge amount was raised in part through increased taxes.
+Income taxes were heavily increased; levies were made on such profits of
+corporations as were in excess of profits made before the war, during
+the three years 1911-1913; additional taxes were laid upon spirits
+and tobacco, on amusements and luxuries; and the postage rates were
+raised. In part, also, the cost of the war was defrayed through loans. A
+portion of the amount borrowed was by the sale of War Savings This
+expedient was designed doubtless not merely to encourage persons of
+small means to aid in winning the war--a beginning could be made with
+twenty-five cents--but also to encourage thrift among all classes. Most
+of the borrowed money, however, was raised through the five "Liberty
+Loans," a series of popular subscriptions to the needs of the
+government. In each case the government called upon the people to
+purchase bonds, ranging from two billions at first to six billions at
+the time of the fourth loan. There were four and a half million
+subscribers for the first loan, but after a little experience the number
+was readily increased until 21,000,000 people responded to the fourth
+call. Popular campaigns such as never had been seen in America,
+campaigns of publicity, house-to-house canvassing and appeals to the
+win-the-war spirit resulted in unprecedented financial support. Isolated
+communities in the back country and people of slender means in the
+cities, no less than the great banks and wealthy corporations cooperated
+to make the Liberty loans of social and economic as well as financial
+importance.
+
+Evidence seems to be sufficient to indicate that the resources of the
+United States were thrown into the conflict none too soon. When it was
+determined to place armed guards on merchant ships, Rear Admiral W.S.
+Sims was sent to Great Britain to keep the Navy Department informed on
+problems connected with the possible entry of the United States into the
+conflict. After the American declaration of war the Admiral was placed
+in charge of the naval forces of the United States abroad and thereafter
+worked in close cooperation with our European associates. The German
+submarine policy had been put fully into effect; no solution of the
+submarine menace had been reached; and English officials were fearful
+that England could not last longer than November 1. In taking this view
+the British were probably in harmony with the Germans who expected to
+crush England before the weight of the United States could be felt.
+Although insufficient for so great a conflict, the American navy was
+thoroughly prepared for active service, and six destroyers were sent to
+European waters for a prolonged stay, within eighteen days of the
+declaration of war. This early force was quickly followed by others
+until, at the close of the war, 5,000 officers and 70,000 enlisted men
+were serving abroad. A three-year naval construction program which had
+been adopted in 1916 was pushed forward and somewhat expanded; new craft
+were commandeered wherever they could be found; private citizens loaned
+vessels or leased them at nominal sums; and German ships interned in
+American ports were taken over. Existing stations for the training of
+seamen were enlarged and new ones established, and schools were set up
+in colleges and at other points for radio operators, engineers and naval
+aviators. By such means the number of vessels in commission was
+increased from 197 to 2,003 and the personnel from 65,777 to 497,030.
+
+The most dreaded enemy of the navy, the submarine, was successfully met
+by two devices. When transports and merchant-vessels were being sent
+across the ocean, they were gathered into groups or convoys and were
+protected by war vessels, especially torpedo-boat destroyers. The depth
+charge was also used with telling effect. This consisted of a heavy
+charge of explosive which was placed in a container and dropped into the
+sea where the presence of a submarine was expected. The charge was
+exploded at a pre-determined depth by a simple device, and any
+under-seas craft within 100 feet was likely to be destroyed or to have
+leaks started that would compel it to come to the surface and surrender.
+
+Aside from combatting the submarine, the greatest activity of the navy
+was the transportation of men and supplies to France. First and last
+more than 2,000,000 troops were carried to Europe, and although Great
+Britain transported more than half the men, yet 924,578 made the passage
+through the danger zones under the escort of United States cruisers and
+destroyers. The cargo fleet was substantially all American. The
+transportation of supplies alone required the services of 5,000 officers
+and 29,000 enlisted men, and involved the accumulation of a vast fleet,
+the acquisition of docks, lighters, tugs, and coaling equipment, as well
+as the establishment of an administrative organization, at the precise
+time when the shipping facilities of the world were being strained to
+the breaking point by submarines.
+
+On the other side of the ocean naval bases were established in England,
+Ireland, Scotland, France and Italy; a considerable force operated from
+Gibraltar and others from Corfu, along the Bay of Biscay, in the North
+Sea and at Murmansk and Archangel. Besides cooperating with the navy of
+the Allies in keeping the Germans off the seas, the American navy laid
+about four-fifths of the great mine barrage which extended from the
+Orkney Islands to Norway, a distance of 230 miles. This astonishing
+enterprise--America alone laid 56,000 mines--together with a similar
+chain laid across the Strait of Dover was intended to pen the submarine
+within the North Sea.
+
+In the main the raising of an army for European service rested upon the
+act of May 18, 1917. It provided for the Increase of the regular army
+from approximately 200,000 to 488,000; for the expansion of the strength
+of the National Guard; and for the selection of a National Army by draft
+from men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty years inclusive. The
+determination to raise a draft army was based upon the belief that in
+this way successive and adequate supplies of men could be found without
+disproportionate calls on any section of the country and without undue
+disturbance of the industrial life of the nation. Although the plan ran
+counter to American practice during most of our history, the draft army
+became deservedly popular as a democratic and efficient method of
+finding men. Officers were supplied mainly through training camps, of
+which the best known was that at Plattsburg, New York. A novelty in the
+new army was a plan for the appointment and promotion of officers on a
+scientific rating system which took account of ability and experience,
+thereby doing away with some of the favoritism formerly connected with
+our military system. At a later time an organization was perfected by
+which enlisted men were grouped according to their ability and
+occupations, so that each division of the army might have assigned to it
+the number of mechanics, carpenters, clerks and the like that it might
+require. For the housing and training of the enlarged National Guard,
+sixteen tent-camps were established in the South; and for the National
+Army, sixteen cantonments, built of wood and capable of housing 40,000
+men each. A cantonment comprised 1,000 to 1,200 buildings, and was
+virtually a city with highways, sewers, water supply, laundries and
+hospitals.[4] The problem of obtaining supplies was as great as that of
+housing and training the army. An entire city was erected in West
+Virginia for the making of part of the smokeless powder required; the
+British Enfield rifle was modified to use American ammunition so that
+machinery already making arms for England could be utilized with a
+minimum of change; and European experience having indicated the value of
+the machine gun, a new and improved type was invented by John M.
+Browning. In many cases, however, it was impossible immediately to equip
+both the soldiers in training here, and those who could be sent abroad.
+Hence surplus equipment of certain kinds was supplied by France and
+England. Furthermore, actual combat had emphasized the vital importance
+of aviation and had developed warfare with poisonous gases and with
+tanks, so that it became necessary to establish new branches of the
+service to meet these needs.
+
+Shortly after the declaration of war, General John J. Pershing, who had
+already experienced active operations in the Philippines and on the
+Mexican border, was sent to France to act as Chief of the American
+Expeditionary Force--the A.E.F. as it was commonly called. General
+Pershing was followed by a division of regulars in June, 1917, and by
+the "Rainbow" division of the National Guard, a body composed of
+guardsmen from various states so as to distribute widely the honor of
+early participation in the war. In France the American troops were
+detailed either for the Service of Supply or for combat. The former,
+with headquarters at Tours, developed port facilities, constructed ship
+berths, built railroads and warehouses, and took care of the
+multifarious duties that have to be performed behind the lines.
+Divisions destined for combat were usually given one or two months of
+training in France before going to the front, and were then kept for
+another month in a quiet sector before engaging in more active service.
+
+[Illustration:
+The Western Front]
+
+Between April, 1917, when America declared war, and approximately a year
+later when her weight began to be felt, the Allies suffered reverses
+that were thoroughly disheartening and were almost disastrous. Russia,
+who had conducted a powerful offensive in 1916, began to retreat in the
+summer of 1917 and was thereafter no longer a military factor.[5] Italy
+had driven back the Austrians in the summer of 1916, but in the fall of
+1917 was compelled to conduct a retreat that became all but a disaster.
+Allied conferences were accordingly held in Paris in November and
+December, 1917, for the purpose of bringing about closer unity in the
+prosecution of the war. Nation after nation, on the other hand, had
+severed relations or declared war on the Teutonic powers until a great
+part of the world had ranged itself on the side of the Allies. In March,
+1918, the Germans precipitated a series of crises--the final ones as it
+turned out. In that month they began a terrific drive on a fifty-mile
+front against their opponents in the western theatre of the war. In
+order to meet this thrust the Allies decided to give over the supreme
+command of all their forces to Marshal Ferdinand Foch, chief in command
+of the French army, and General Pershing thereupon offered him all the
+American troops in France. American efforts were redoubled, in the face
+of the new danger, and forces were transported across the ocean in
+numbers which had not been anticipated and which soon began to give the
+Allies a substantial advantage. One vessel, the _Leviathan_, landed in
+France the equivalent of a German division each month. The enemy,
+nevertheless, continued to advance and on May 31 were at
+Chateau-Thierry, only forty miles from Paris, where the American Third
+Division assisted in preventing any further forward movement. The
+leading military experts in the United States, meanwhile, with the
+support of a large portion of the public were demanding a still larger
+army and the Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker, accordingly laid before
+Congress a plan which developed eventually into the "Man Power" act of
+August 31, 1918. It changed the draft ages and added more than
+13,000,000 registrants to the available supply of men. A clause of this
+law, designed in part to provide further supplies of officers, allowed
+the Secretary of War to send soldiers to educational institutions at the
+public expense, thus establishing the Students' Army Training Corps.[6]
+
+[Illustration:
+Strength of the American Expeditionary Force
+July 1, 1917-Nov. 1, 1918]
+
+At the time when General Pershing placed his forces at the disposal of
+Marshal Foch, the Americans numbered 343,000 and were used mainly to
+relieve the French and British at quiet parts or "sectors" on the
+western front. In April, 1918, however, the First Division was placed in
+a more active position, and on May 28 took Cantigny; the Second Division
+was on the Marne River early in June, and later in the month helped
+prevent a German advance at Belleau Wood. Other forces were sent to
+operate with the British, a regiment was sent to Italy, and a small
+force to northern Russia and Siberia. In mid-July the Germans renewed
+their attacks but were shortly turned back again at Chateau-Thierry, and
+Marshal Foch judged this to be the time for the Allies to make a general
+offensive movement. On the 18th the First and Second Divisions, with
+picked French troops, made a successful drive toward Soissons. On August
+30 the Americans were given a permanent portion of the front, and two
+weeks later came the first distinctly American action in the reduction
+of the St. Mihiel salient--a wedge driven by the Germans into the allied
+line. Infantry, artillery, aircraft, tanks and ambulances were
+gathered--about 600,000 men all told--mostly under cover of darkness.
+Preceding the drive a heavy artillery fire was directed upon the enemy
+for four hours, during which brief period thirty times as many rounds of
+ammunition were fired as were used by the Union forces at Gettysburg in
+three days. Then at five o'clock in the morning, on September 12, the
+troops fell upon an enemy which had been demoralized by the artillery,
+and routed them. The American losses were 7,000--injuries for the most
+part--and the gains, 16,000 prisoners, 443 guns and a great quantity of
+war materials, together with an advantageous position for further
+advance. The "American Army was an accomplished fact."
+
+The most important action in which the Americans participated was the
+Meuse-Argonne offensive. The goal of this attack was the
+Carignan-Sedan-Mézières railroad, which ran parallel to the front and
+comprised the main supply line of the enemy. The drive began late in
+September and continued with greater or less intensity and with
+increasing success until November 11, when it became evident that the
+Germans were in serious difficulties. Their line was cut, and only
+surrender or an armistice could prevent thorough-going disaster.[7]
+
+While the allied armies were first stemming the German advance and later
+making their counter-offensive, the statesmen were attempting to
+preserve the morale of the Allies and break down that of the enemy by
+means of a wide-spread peace offensive. Because of his position as
+President of the United States and his skill in the expression of the
+purposes of the Allies, Wilson became by common consent the spokesman of
+the enemies of Germany, much as he had earlier been the representative
+of the neutral nations. In August, 1917, the Pope proposed peace on the
+basis of "reciprocal condonation" for past offenses, and the reciprocal
+return of territories and colonies. In reply Wilson contended that the
+suggested settlement would not result in a lasting peace. Peace, he
+believed, must be between peoples, and not between peoples on the one
+hand and "an ambitious and intriguing government" on the other. "We
+cannot," he declared, "take the word of the present rulers of Germany as
+a guarantee of anything that is to endure unless explicitly supported by
+such conclusive evidence of the will and purpose of the German people
+themselves as the other peoples of the world would be justified in
+accepting." The reply continued, of course, the attempt made in the
+address to Congress calling for a declaration of war--the attempt to
+drive a wedge between the German people and their rulers, but for the
+moment the attempt was fruitless.
+
+On January 8, 1918, President Wilson again explained the attitude of the
+United States, in an address to Congress in which he gave expression to
+the famous "fourteen points." "The program of the world's peace," he
+stated, must include: the beginning of an era of "open diplomacy" and
+the end of secret international understandings; the freedom of the seas
+in peace and war; the removal of economic barriers between nations; the
+reduction of armaments; the impartial adjustment of colonial claims; the
+evacuation of territories occupied by Germany, such as Russia, Belgium,
+France and the Balkan states; the righting of the wrong done to
+Alsace-Lorraine, the provinces wrested from France by Germany in 1871;
+an opportunity for peoples subject to Austria and Turkey to develop
+along lines chosen by themselves; the establishment of a Polish state
+which should include territories inhabited by indisputably Polish
+populations; and an association of nations to guarantee the safety of
+large and small states alike. Both Austria and Germany replied to this
+address, but not in a manner to make possible a cessation of warfare. In
+setting these replies before Congress, as well as in later speeches both
+to that body and to public audiences, the President reiterated the peace
+program of the Allies.
+
+In the meanwhile conditions in the Teutonic countries were reaching a
+serious point. Germany, Austria, Bulgaria and Turkey were facing an
+enraged world. Their man power was almost exhausted, the numbers of
+killed and wounded in Germany alone being estimated at 6,000,000 men;
+famine, agitation and mutiny were at the door and revolution on the
+horizon; food was scarce and of poor quality; Austria was
+disintegrating; signs were evident of dissensions in the German
+government and suggestions were even made that the Kaiser abdicate.
+Allied pressure in the field together with insistent emphasis on the
+Allied distrust of the German government were at last having their
+combined effect; the Teutonic morale was breaking down. On October 4 the
+German chancellor requested President Wilson to take steps toward peace
+on the basis of the "fourteen points." An interchange of notes ensued
+which indicated that the Teutonic powers were humbled and that the
+Chancellor was speaking in behalf of the people of Germany. The
+Inter-allied Council then met at Versailles and drew up the terms of an
+armistice which were delivered to Germany on November 7. That nation was
+already in a tumult, in the midst of which demonstrations in favor of a
+republic were prominent, and while the German government was considering
+the terms of the armistice the Kaiser abdicated and fled to Holland, and
+a new cabinet was formed with a Socialist at the head. The end was
+evidently at hand and on November 11 the world was cheered with the news
+that Germany had signed the armistice and the war was over.[8]
+
+As far as the United States was concerned the questions of greatest
+public interest after the close of the conflict, fell into two
+categories: one connected with the complicated question of the exact
+terms of settlement between the Allies and the Teutonic powers,
+including modifications of the foreign policy of the United States; the
+other, that concerning the readjustments necessary in the internal
+affairs of the nation--economic, social and moral, as well as political.
+Any adequate discussion of these matters requires so much more
+information and perspective than can now be had, that only the barest
+outlines can be given.
+
+The conference for the determination of the settlements of the war was
+to meet in Paris. The American representatives were to include Robert
+Lansing, the Secretary of State, Henry White, who had represented the
+United States in many diplomatic matters, especially as ambassador to
+Italy and to France, Colonel Edward M. House, a trusted personal advisor
+of the President, and General Tasker H. Bliss, the American military
+representative on the Inter-allied Council. President Wilson himself was
+to head the delegation.
+
+In November, 1918, shortly before the departure of the President for
+Paris, occurred the Congressional elections, which were destined to have
+an important effect on the immediate future. Until late October the
+usual display of partisan politics had been, on the surface at least,
+uncommonly slight. On the 25th, however, the President urged the country
+to elect a Democratic Congress, declaring that the Republican leaders in
+Washington, although favorable to the war, had been hostile to the
+administration, and that the election of a Republican majority would
+enable them to obstruct a legislative program. The Republicans asserted
+that the request was a challenge to the motives and fidelity of their
+party, and a partisan and mendacious accusation. As a result of the
+ensuing contest the control of both Senate and House were won by the
+Republicans. It is impossible to judge whether the President's appeal
+recoiled seriously against his own party or whether the tendency to
+reaction against the administration at mid-term, which has been so
+common since the Civil War, was the decisive force. In any case,
+however, Wilson was compelled to go to Paris encumbered with the
+handicap of political defeat at home.
+
+Nevertheless he was received with unbounded enthusiasm by the French
+people and at once became one of the central figures among the leaders
+at Paris. Not only did the American delegates work in conjunction with
+the representatives of the Allies, but Wilson became a member of an
+inner council, the other participants in which were Premier Lloyd George
+of England, Premier Georges Clemenceau of France and Premier Orlando of
+Italy. The "Big Four," as the group was known, led the conference and
+made its most important decisions. The day of the aloofness of the
+United States from international affairs, which had been ended only
+temporarily by the war with Spain, was apparently brought to a final
+close.[9]
+
+At length the treaty with Germany was completed, President Wilson
+returned to America, and on July 10, 1919, he appeared before the Senate
+to outline the purposes and contents of the agreement and to offer his
+services to that body and to its Committee on Foreign Relations in order
+to enable them intelligently to exercise their advisory function as part
+of the treaty-making power. The Treaty was seen to contain two general
+features: a stern reckoning with Germany which commended itself to all
+except a small minority of the Senate; and a plan for a League of
+Nations which provided for concerted action on the part of the nations
+of the world to reduce armaments and to minimize the danger of war.
+President Wilson's interest in the League was intense and of long
+standing. He had hoped--and in this he was supported doubtless by the
+entire American people--that the European conflict might be a "war to
+end war," and to this conclusion he believed that a world association
+was essential. Public interest in the project was indicated by the
+efforts put forth in its behalf by Ex-President Taft, George W.
+Wickersham, who had been Attorney-General in the Taft cabinet, President
+Lowell of Harvard University, and other influential citizens.
+
+[Illustration:
+The Cost of Food
+Jan. 1913-Jan. 1920]
+
+Although interest in the Treaty and the League of Nations overshadowed
+all other issues, nevertheless many problems relating to internal
+reconstruction pressed forward for settlement. It was commonly, if not
+universally felt that somehow the United States would be different after
+the war, but in what ways and to what degree remained to be determined.
+Reconstruction in the world of industry was complicated by the
+demobilization of several millions of men from the army and navy, as
+well as the freeing of a still larger number of both men and women from
+various kinds of war work.[10] When the armistice was signed, the
+industries of the country were under contract with the War Department to
+provide supplies valued at six billion dollars, and these contracts had
+to be terminated with as little dislocation of industrial life as might
+be consistent with the necessity of stopping the production of materials
+which the government could not use. The laboring classes had loyally
+supported the war and had largely relinquished the use of the strike for
+the time being. In the meantime the cost of living had doubled, while
+wages in most industries had not responded equally. After the war,
+therefore, it was inevitable that the laboring classes should become
+restive under prevailing economic conditions. No more important question
+faced the country, a keen observer declared, than that concerning the
+wages of the laboring man: "How are the masses of men and women who
+labor with their hands to be secured out of the products of their toil
+what they will feel to be and will be in fact a fair return!"
+
+The huge purchases of war materials in the United States by European
+nations had transformed this country to a creditor nation to which the
+chief countries of the world owed large interest payments. The situation
+was a distinct contrast to the past, for the industrial development of
+the country especially since the Civil War, had been made possible in
+considerable measure by capital borrowed in European countries.
+Hitherto, therefore, the United States had been a debtor nation sending
+large yearly interest payments abroad. Moreover, America was being
+increasingly looked to for raw materials as well as manufactured
+articles, and was likely to become more than ever an exporting nation.
+
+The mobilization of the large armies required for the war proved the
+need of energetic reforms in fields that had earlier been too much
+neglected. The fact that so many as twenty-nine per cent. of the young
+men examined for the army between the ages of twenty-one and thirty had
+to be rejected because of physical defects was a cause of astonishment.
+The need of greater efforts in behalf of education was proved by the
+large number of illiterates discovered, and the necessity of training
+immigrants in the fundamentals of American government was so clearly
+demonstrated as to give rise to wide-spread plans for Americanization.
+
+More definite were the effects of the war on the prohibition movement.
+For many years a small but growing minority of reformers had urged the
+adoption of means for stopping the use of intoxicating liquors and they
+had been successful in procuring constitutional amendments in about half
+the states by the close of 1916. The war presented an opportunity for
+further progress. In September, 1918, they procured the passage of a
+resolution in Congress allowing the President to establish zones around
+places where war materials were manufactured; liquors were not to be
+sold within these areas. Soon afterward the manufacture of beer and wine
+was forbidden until the conclusion of the war, on the ground that the
+grains and fruits needed for the production of these beverages could
+better be used as foods. In the meantime a federal constitutional
+amendment establishing prohibition had been referred to the states for
+ratification. By January 16, 1919, it had received the necessary
+ratification by three-fourths of the states and took effect a year
+later.[11]
+
+The railroads constituted another difficult problem. Agreement seemed to
+be general that they could not be relinquished by the government to
+private control without significant changes in existing legislation, and
+several forces, especially the insistence of the President and of the
+opponents of government ownership, combined to spur Congress to act on
+the matter at an early date. The Esch-Cummins law of February 28, 1920,
+was an important addition to the body of interstate commerce
+legislation. It enlarged and increased the powers of the Interstate
+Commerce Commission; it authorized the Commission to recommend
+government loans to the railroads; established a Railroad Labor Board to
+settle disputes between the carriers and their employees; empowered the
+Commission to require the joint use of track and terminal facilities in
+emergencies; forbade the construction of new lines and the issuance of
+stocks and bonds without the consent of the Commission; directed the
+preparation and adoption of plans for the consolidation of the railway
+properties into a limited number of systems; permitted pooling under the
+authorization of the Commission; and provided for the accumulation of
+reserve funds and a fund for purchasing additions to railway equipment.
+Whether a final solution of the transportation problem or not, the new
+act embodied much of the experience gained since the passage of the law
+of 1887.
+
+In the field of politics and government an important part of
+reconstruction was the readjustment of relations between the federal
+executive and Congress. During the war it was inevitable that the
+President should provide most of the initiative in legislation; but it
+was likewise inevitable that the legislative branch should reassert
+itself as soon as possible. The fact that the consideration of the
+Treaty of Versailles necessarily concerned the Senate rather than the
+House of Representatives, gave the upper chamber an opportunity to
+attempt the repression of executive power to the proportions which had
+characterized it immediately before the war. Moreover if the members of
+the Senate should imitate the example of their predecessors in the
+conflict with President Johnson in 1867, that body might attempt to
+regain for itself the primacy in the federal government which had been
+partially lost under Cleveland's regime and completely superseded
+through Roosevelt's development of the presidential office.
+
+The course of the Treaty in the Senate was such as to stimulate any
+friction which might result from the difficult process of
+reconstruction. Despite the early sentiment favorable to prompt
+ratification, that part of the Treaty which related to a League of
+Nations met a variety of opposing forces. Some of them were based on
+personal, political and partisan considerations, and some of them
+founded upon a sincere hesitancy about adventuring into new and untried
+fields of international effort. In the main, party lines were somewhat
+strictly drawn in the Senate, the Democrats favoring and the Republicans
+opposing ratification of the treaty as it stood.[12] All debates in the
+Senate relating to the treaty were for the first time in our history
+open to the public, and popular interest was keen and sustained. Among
+people outside of Congress party lines were more commonly broken than in
+the Senate, and members of that body were deluged with petitions and
+correspondence for and against ratification. At length it appeared that
+a considerable fraction of the Senate desired ratification without any
+change whatever, a smaller number desired absolute rejection and a
+"middle group" wished ratification with certain reservations which would
+interpret or possibly amend portions of the plan for a League of
+Nations--portions which they felt were vague or dangerous to American
+interests. After long-continued discussion, the friends of the project
+were unable to muster the necessary two-thirds for ratification, and its
+enemies failed to obtain the majority required to make amendments, and
+the entire matter was accordingly postponed, pending the results of the
+presidential election of 1920.
+
+The United States, therefore, found itself after the close of the World
+War in much the same position that it had been in more than half a
+century earlier at the end of the Civil War. The unity of purpose and
+the devotion to ideals which had overcome all difficulties during the
+combat had seemingly, at least, given way to partisan diversity of
+endeavor, to strife for supremacy in government and to the avoidance of
+the great problems of reconstruction. Time, patience and controversy
+would be necessary to bring about a wise settlement. The United States
+was face to face with the greatest problems that had arisen since the
+Civil War.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The opposition to the Wilson foreign policy is best expressed in
+Theodore Roosevelt, _Fear God and Take Your Own Part_ (1916).
+Roosevelt's condonation of the invasion of Belgium is in _The Outlook_
+(Sept., 1914), "The World War." Wilson's changing attitude toward the
+war is explained in A.M. Low, _Woodrow Wilson, an Interpretation_
+(1918), but is best followed in his addresses and messages. The early
+stages of the war and American interest in it are described in Ogg; _The
+American Year Book_; J.B. McMaster, _The United States in the World War
+_(1918); J.W. Gerard, _My Four Years in Germany_ (1918), superficial but
+interesting and written by the American Ambassador; Brand Whitlock,
+_Belgium_ (2 vols., 1919), verbose, but well written by the United
+States minister to Belgium; Dodd, already mentioned; J.S. Bassett, _Our
+War with Germany_ (1919), written in excellent spirit. The President's
+address calling for a declaration of war is contained in the various
+editions of his addresses, and in _War Information Series_, No. 1, "The
+War Message and Pacts Behind It," published by the Committee on Public
+Information.
+
+The subject of federal agencies for the prosecution of the war is fully
+discussed in W.F. Willoughby, _Government Organization in War Time and
+After_ (1919); there is no adequate account of the Committee on Public
+Information. On the government and the railroads, consult F.H. Dixon in
+_Quarterly Journal of Economics_ (Aug., 1919), "Federal Operation of
+Railroads during the War." E.L. Bogart, _Direct and Indirect Costs of the
+Great World War_ (1918), is useful.
+
+Combat operations are described in the general histories of the war
+already mentioned, and in "Report of General Pershing" in War
+Department, _Annual Report_, 1918.
+
+Accounts of the Peace Conference, the Treaty and the League of Nations
+labor under the attempt to prove President Wilson right or wrong, in
+addition to such insurmountable difficulties as lack of information and
+perspective. J.S. Bassett, _Our War with Germany_ (1919), has some
+temperate chapters; Dodd is friendly to Wilson, but not offensively
+partisan; R.S. Baker, _What Wilson did at Paris_ (1919) is readable;
+J.M. Keynes, _The Economic Consequences of the Peace_ (1920), is
+interesting and designed to prove a point; see also C.H. Haskins and
+R.H. Lord, _Some Problems of the Peace Conference_ (1920); the account
+in the _American Year Book_ for 1919 lacks something of its usual
+non-partisan balance. On the League of Nations a thorough study is
+S.P.H. Duggan, _The League of Nations_ (1919). Material opposing the
+treaty may be found in _The New Republic_, _The Nation_, and the _North
+American Review_; favorable to it is the editorial page of the New York
+_Times_, whose columns contain the best day-to-day accounts of the
+debates in the Senate.
+
+A full bibliography is A.E. McKinley (ed.), _Collected Materials for the
+Study of the War_ (1918).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] As a result of this incident the Senate decided to limit somewhat
+its rule allowing unlimited debate. Under the "closure" rule adopted
+March 8, 1917, a two-thirds majority may limit discussion on any measure
+to one hour for each member.
+
+[2] War was declared against Austria on December 7, 1917. The United
+States was followed immediately by Cuba and Panama, and before the close
+of the year by Siam, Liberia, China and Brazil. Many other Central and
+South American states severed relations with Germany and before the
+close of the struggle several of them declared war.
+
+[3] The purpose and effect of Wilson's patient foreign policy were
+briefly expressed by Joseph H. Choate, a Republican advocate of early
+entry into the war, in a speech in New York on April 25, 1917. Choate
+declared that a declaration of war after the _sinking of the Lusitania_
+would have resulted in a divided country and remarked: "But we now see
+what the President was waiting for and how wisely he waited. He was
+waiting to see how fast and how far the American people would keep pace
+with him and stand up for any action that he proposed."
+
+[4] An official of the War Department estimated that the lumber used in
+the sixteen cantonments if made into sidewalks would go four times
+around the world.
+
+[5] Roumania had entered the conflict in August, 1916, but had been
+immediately overrun, her capital Bucharest taken in December, and that
+country rendered no longer important before the entrance of America.
+
+[6] The earlier draft law resulted in about 11,000,000 registrants. The
+draft ages were 21-30 years. Under the later law the ages were 18-45.
+
+The so-called Training Detachments had already been established,
+providing for the training of mechanics, carpenters, electricians,
+telegraphers, and other necessary skilled artisans at a number of
+colleges and scientific institutions.
+
+Almost coincidently with the expansion of the army came an epidemic of
+the Spanish influenza. Hitherto the health of the army had been
+extraordinarily good, but the epidemic was so widespread and so
+malignant in its attack that during eight weeks there were more than
+twice as many deaths as in the entire army for the year preceding.
+
+[7] By November 11, 26,059 prisoners and 847 guns had been captured and
+at one point near Sedan the American advance had covered twenty-five
+miles. 1,200,000 American troops had been engaged and the weight of the
+ammunition fired was greater than that used by the Union armies during
+the entire Civil War. In November the American army held twenty-two per
+cent. of the western front. The losses of the A.E.F. during the entire
+period of its activities up to November 18, 1918, were by death 53,160;
+the wounded numbered 179,625.
+
+[8] An armistice had been signed with Turkey on October 31, and with
+Austria on November 4.
+
+[9] Something little short of a revolution in American international
+relations was taking place when the President of the United States
+received in Paris lists of callers such as that mentioned in the
+newspapers of May 17, 1919:
+
+    Prince Charron of the Siamese delegation; Dr. Markoff, of the
+    Carpatho-Russian Committee; M. Ollivier, President of the French
+    National Union of Railwayman; M. Jacob, a representative of the
+    Celtic Circle of Paris; Messrs. Bureo and Jacob of the Uruguyan
+    delegation; Turkhan Pasha, the Albanian leader; Enrique Villegas,
+    former Foreign Minister of Chile; Foreign Minister Benez and M.
+    Kramer, of the Czecho-slovak delegation, to discuss the question
+    of Silesia and Teschen; Deputy Damour, concerning the American
+    commemorative statue to be erected in the Gironde River; a
+    delegation from the Parliament of Kuban, Northern Caucasus; the
+    Archbishop of Trebizond, Joseph Reinach, the French historian, and
+    Governor Richard L. Manning of South Carolina.
+
+[10] The Secretary of War estimated the total of all these groups at
+13,650.000
+
+[11] The Eighteenth Amendment is as follows: Section 1. After one
+year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or
+transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof
+into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all
+territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes
+is hereby prohibited.
+
+Section 2. The Congress and the several states shall have concurrent
+power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
+
+Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been
+ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the
+several states, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from
+the date of the submission hereof to the states by the Congress.
+
+[12] As the Congress that which had been elected in 1918, the Senate was
+controlled by the Republicans.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The United States Since The Civil War, by 
+Charles Ramsdell Lingley
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNITED STATES SINCE CIVIL WAR ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The United States Since The Civil War, by
+Charles Ramsdell Lingley
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The United States Since The Civil War
+
+Author: Charles Ramsdell Lingley
+
+Posting Date: November 12, 2011 [EBook #9868]
+Release Date: February, 2006
+First Posted: October 25, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNITED STATES SINCE CIVIL WAR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon, Beth Trapaga
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE UNITED STATES
+
+SINCE THE CIVIL WAR
+
+
+By
+
+CHARLES RAMSDELL LINGLEY
+Professor of History, Dartmouth College.
+
+
+TO MY WIFE
+
+
+1920.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+To write an account of the history of the United States since the
+Civil War without bias, without misstatements of fact and without the
+omission of matters that ought to be included, would be to perform a
+miracle. I have felt no wonder-working near me. I can claim only to
+have attempted to overcome the natural limitations of having been
+brought up in a particular region and with a traditional political,
+economic and social philosophy. I have tried to present as many sides
+of every question as the limitations of space permitted and to look
+sympathetically upon every section, every party and every individual,
+because the sympathetic critic seems to me most likely to discover the
+truth.
+
+It used to be believed that history could not be written until at
+least half a century had elapsed after the events which were to be
+chronicled. It is of course true that only after the lapse of time
+can students gain access to ample documentary material, rid themselves
+of partisan prejudice and attain the necessary perspective. Unhappily,
+however, the citizen who takes part in public affairs or who votes in
+a political campaign cannot wait for the labors of half a century. He
+must judge on the basis of whatever facts he can find near at hand.
+Next to a balanced intelligence, the greatest need of the citizen in
+the performance of his political duties is a substantial knowledge
+of the recent past of public problems. It is impossible to give a
+sensible opinion upon the transportation problem, the relation between
+government and industry, international relations, current politics, the
+leaders in public affairs, and other peculiarly American interests
+without some understanding of the United States since the Civil War. I
+have tried in a small way to make some of this information conveniently
+available without attempting to beguile myself or others into the
+belief that I have written with the accuracy that will characterize
+later work.
+
+Some day somebody will delineate the _spiritual_ history of America
+since the Civil War--the compound of tradition, discontent,
+aspiration, idealism, materialism, selfishness, and hope that mark the
+floundering progress of these United States through the last half
+century. He will read widely, ponder deeply, and tune his spirit with
+care to the task which he undertakes. I have not attempted this phase
+of our history, yet I believe that no account is complete without it.
+
+I have drawn heavily on others who have written in this field--Andrews,
+Beard, Paxson and Peck, and especially on the volumes written for the
+American Nation series by Professors Dunning, Sparks, Dewey, Latane
+and Ogg. Haworth's _United States in Our Own Time, 1865-1920_, was
+unfortunately printed too late to give me the benefit of the author's
+well-known scholarship. Many friends have generously assisted me. My
+colleagues, Professors F.A. Updyke, C.A. Phillips, G.R. Wicker, H.D.
+Dozier, and Malcolm Keir have read the manuscript of individual
+chapters. Professor E.E. Day of Harvard University gave me his counsel
+on several economic topics. Professor George H. Haynes of the Worcester
+Polytechnic Institute, Professor B.B. Kendrick of Columbia University,
+Professor W.T. Root of the University of Wisconsin, and Professors L.B.
+Richardson and F.M. Anderson of Dartmouth College have read the entire
+manuscript. Officials at the Dartmouth College Library, the Columbia
+University Library, and the Library of Congress gave me especial
+facilities for work. Two college generations of students at Dartmouth
+have suffered me to try out on them the arrangement of the chapters as
+well as the contents of the text. Harper and Bros. allowed me to use a
+map appearing in Ogg, _National Progress_, and D. Appleton and Co. have
+permitted the use of maps appearing in Johnson and Van Metre,
+_Principles of Railroad Transportation_; A.J. Nystrom and Co. and the
+McKinley Publishing Co. have allowed me to draw new maps on outlines
+copyrighted by them. At all points I have had the counsel of my wife
+and of Professor Max Farrand of Yale University.
+
+CHARLES R. LINGLEY.
+Dartmouth College, June 14, 1920.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+    I RECONSTRUCTION AND ITS AFTERMATH
+   II IN PRESIDENT GRANT'S TIME
+  III ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS OF THE NEW ERA
+   IV POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND OF THE NEW ISSUES
+    V THE NEW ISSUES
+   VI THE ADMINISTRATION OF RUTHERFORD B. HAYES
+  VII THE POLITICS OF THE EARLY EIGHTIES
+ VIII THE OVERTURN OF 1884
+   IX TRANSPORTATION AND ITS CONTROL
+    X EXTREME REPUBLICANISM
+   XI INDUSTRY AND _LAISSEZ FAIRE_
+  XII DEMOCRATIC DEMORALIZATION
+ XIII THE TREND OF DIPLOMACY
+  XIV THE RISE OF THE WAGE EARNER
+   XV MONETARY AND FINANCIAL PROBLEMS
+  XVI 1896
+ XVII REPUBLICAN DOMINATION AND WAR WITH SPAIN
+XVIII IMPERIALISM
+  XIX THE BEGINNING OF A NEW CENTURY
+   XX THEODORE ROOSEVELT
+  XXI POLITICS, 1908-1912
+ XXII ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL TENDENCIES SINCE 1896
+XXIII LATER INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
+ XXIV WOODROW WILSON
+  XXV THE UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD WAR
+
+INDEX
+
+
+
+
+MAPS AND DIAGRAMS
+
+The growth of the United States from 1776 to 1867
+
+Popular vote in presidential elections, 1868 to 1896
+
+Economic interests, 1890
+
+Relative prices, 1865 to 1890
+
+The New West
+
+Railroad mileage, 1860 to 1910, in thousands of miles
+
+Map of the United States showing railroads in 1870
+
+Map of the United States showing railroads in 1890 (The maps showing
+the railroads are from Johnson and Van Metre, Principles of Railroad
+Transportation, by courtesy of the publishers, D. Appleton & Co.)
+
+Financial operations, 1875 to 1897, in millions of dollars
+
+Total silver coinage, 1878 to 1894, in millions of dollars
+
+Net gold in the treasury, by months, January, 1893, to February,
+1896, in millions of dollars
+
+The presidential election of 1896
+
+The Philippines
+
+The Spanish-American War in the West Indies
+
+Campaign about Santiago
+
+The chief foreign elements in the population of the United States
+
+The cost of food, 1900 to 1912
+
+Morgan-Hill railroads as listed shortly after 1900
+
+Daily newspaper circulation, 1918
+
+Election of 1904 by counties
+
+Caribbean interests of the United States
+
+Election of 1916 by counties
+
+The Western Front
+
+Strength of the American Expeditionary Force, July 1, 1917, to
+November 1, 1918
+
+The United States--1920
+
+The cost of food, January, 1913, to January, 1920
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+RECONSTRUCTION AND ITS AFTERMATH
+
+Abraham Lincoln in the presidential chair was regarded by many of the
+politicians of his party as an "unutterable calamity"; and while the
+news of Lincoln's assassination was received with expressions of genuine
+grief, the accession of Vice-President Andrew Johnson was looked upon as
+a "Godsend to the country." As the Civil War came to a close, Lincoln
+opposed severe punishments for the leaders of the Confederacy; he urged
+respect for the rights of the southern people; he desired to recognize
+the existence of a Union element in the South, to restore the states to
+their usual relations with as little ill-feeling as possible, and in the
+restoration process to interfere but little with the normal powers of
+the states. Johnson, on the contrary, "breathed fire and hemp."
+"Treason," he asserted over and again, "should be made odious, and
+traitors must be punished and impoverished. Their great plantations must
+be seized, and divided into small farms and sold to honest, industrious
+men." For a time it seemed that the curtain would go down on the tragedy
+of Civil War only to rise immediately on the execution of the
+Confederate leaders and the confiscation of their property. A large and
+active group of Washington politicians believed in the necessity of a
+stern accounting with the "rebels." Lincoln's gentleness seemed to these
+bitter northerners like a calamity; Johnson's vindictiveness like a
+Godsend to the country. In the conflict between the policy of clemency
+and the policy of severity is to be found the beginning of the period of
+reconstruction.
+
+Andrew Johnson was a compact, sturdy figure, his eyes black, his
+complexion swarthy. In politics he had always been a Democrat. So
+diverse were his characteristics that one is tempted to ascribe two
+personalities to him. He was a tenacious man, possessed of a rude
+intellectual force, a rough-and-ready stump speaker, intensely loyal,
+industrious, sincere, self-reliant. His courage was put to the test
+again and again, and nobody ever said that it failed. His loyalty held
+him in the Union in 1861, although he was a senator from Tennessee and
+his state as well as his southern colleagues were withdrawing. His
+public and private integrity withstood a hostile investigation that
+included the testimony of all strata of society, from cabinet officers
+to felons in prison. Later, at the most critical moment of his whole
+career, when he had hardly a friend on whom to lean, he was unflurried,
+dignified, undismayed.
+
+Although Johnson was born in North Carolina, the greater part of his
+life was spent in eastern Tennessee. His education was of the slightest.
+His wife taught him to write, and while he plied his tailor's trade she
+read books to him that appealed to his eager intellect. When scarcely of
+voting age he became mayor of the town in which he lived and by sheer
+force of character made his way up into the state legislature, the
+federal House of Representatives and the Senate. President Lincoln made
+him military governor of Tennessee in 1862. In 1864 many Democrats and
+most Republicans joined to form a Union party, and in order to emphasize
+its non-sectional and non-partisan character they nominated Andrew
+Johnson as Lincoln's running mate. And now this unschooled, poor-white,
+slave-holding, Jeffersonian, states-rights Democrat had become President
+of the United States.
+
+It was scarcely to be expected that a man who had fought his way to the
+fore in eastern Tennessee during those controversial years would possess
+the characteristics of a diplomat. Even his friends found him
+uncommunicative, too often defiant and violent in controversy,
+irritating in manners, indiscreet, and lacking flexibility in the
+management of men. The messages which he wrote as President were
+dignified and judicious, and his addresses were not lacking in power,
+but he was prone to indulge in unseemly repartee with his hearers when
+speaking on the stump. He exchanged epithets with bystanders who were
+all too ready to spur him on with their "Give it to 'em, Andy!" and
+"Bully for you, Andy!" giving the presidency the "ill-savor of a corner
+grocery" and filling his supporters with amazement and chagrin. The
+North soon looked upon him as a vulgar boor and remembered that he had
+been intoxicated when inaugurated as Vice-President. Unhappily, too, he
+was distrustful by nature, giving his confidence reluctantly and with
+reserve, so that he was almost without friends or spokesmen in either
+house of Congress. His policies have commended themselves, on the whole,
+even after the scrutiny of half a century. The extent to which he was
+able to put them into effect is part of the history of reconstruction.
+
+The close of the Civil War found the nation as well as the several
+sections of the country facing a variety of complicated and pressing
+social, economic and political problems. Vast armies had to be
+demobilized and re-absorbed into the economic life of the nation.
+Production of the material of war had to give way to the production of
+machinery, the building of railroads and the tilling of the soil. The
+South faced economic demoralization. The federal government had to
+determine the basis on which the lately rebellious states should again
+become normal units in the nation, and the civil, social and economic
+status of the negro had to be readjusted in the light of the outcome of
+the war. Most of these problems, moreover, had to be solved through
+political agencies, such as party conventions and legislatures, with all
+the limitations of partisanship that these terms convey. And they had
+obviously to be solved through human beings possessed of all the
+prejudices and passions that the war had aroused: through Andrew Johnson
+with his force and tactlessness; through able, domineering and
+vindictive Thaddeus Stevens; through narrow and idealistic Charles
+Sumner and demagogic Benjamin F. Butler; as well as through finer
+spirits like William Pitt Fessenden and Lyman Trumbull.
+
+In their attitude toward the South, the people of the North, as well as
+the politicians, fell into two groups. The smaller or radical party
+desired a stern reckoning with all "rebels" and the imprisonment and
+execution of the leaders.[1] They hoped, also, to effect an immediate
+extension to the negroes of the right to vote. It was this faction that
+welcomed the accession of Johnson to the Presidency. The other group was
+much the larger and was inclined toward gentler measures and toward
+leaving the question of suffrage largely for the future. Lincoln and his
+Secretary of State, Seward, were representative of this party. The
+attitude of the South toward the North was more difficult to determine.
+To be sure the rebellious states were beaten, and recognized the fact.
+There was general admission that slavery was at an end. But careful
+observers differed as to whether the South accepted its defeat in good
+faith and would treat the blacks justly, or whether it was sullen,
+unrepentant and ready to adopt any measures short of actual slavery to
+repress the negro.
+
+In theory, the union of the states was still intact. The South had
+attempted to secede and had failed. Practically, however, the southern
+states were out of connection with the remainder of the nation and some
+method must be found of reconstructing the broken federation. President
+Lincoln had already outlined a plan in his proclamation of December 8,
+1863. Excluding the leaders of the Confederacy, he offered pardon to all
+others who had participated in the rebellion, if they would take an oath
+of loyalty to the Union and agree to accept the laws and proclamations
+concerning slavery. As soon as the number of citizens thus pardoned in
+each state reached ten per cent. of the number of votes cast in that
+state at the election of 1860, they might establish a government which
+he would recognize. It was his expectation that a loyal body of
+reconstructed voters would collect around this nucleus, so that in no
+great while the entire South would be restored to normal relations. At
+the same time he called attention to the fact that under the
+Constitution the admission into Congress of senators and representatives
+sent by these governments must rest exclusively with the houses of
+Congress themselves. In pursuance of his policy he had already appointed
+military governors in states where the federal army had secured a
+foothold, and they directed the re-establishment of civil government.
+The radicals opposed the plan because it left much power, including the
+question of negro suffrage, in the hands of the states. A contest
+between Congress and the executive was clearly imminent when the
+assassin's bullet removed the patient and conciliatory Lincoln.
+
+Lincoln's determination to leave control over their restoration as far
+as possible in the hands of the states was in line with Johnson's
+Democratic, states-rights theories. Moreover, the new executive retained
+his predecessor's cabinet, including Seward, whose influence was
+promptly thrown on the side of moderation. To the consternation of the
+radicals the President issued a proclamation announcing a reconstruction
+policy which substantially followed that of Lincoln. Like his
+predecessor he intended to confine the voting power to the whites,
+leaving to the states themselves the question whether the ballot should
+be extended to any of the blacks. Wherever Lincoln had not already
+acted, he appointed military governors who directed the establishment of
+state governments, the revival of the functions of county and municipal
+officials, the repeal of the acts of secession, the repudiation of the
+war debts, and the election of new state legislatures, governors,
+senators and representatives. The Thirteenth Amendment to the
+Constitution, abolishing slavery, was ratified by the new legislatures
+and declared in effect December 18, 1865.
+
+During the last half of the year, the President's policy met with wide
+approval among the people of the North, where both Republicans and
+Democrats expressed satisfaction with his conciliatory attitude. The
+South was not unpleased, as was indicated by the speed with which men
+presented themselves for pardon and assisted in setting up new state
+governments. Nevertheless there were disquieting possibilities of
+dissension. Northern radicals could be counted upon to oppose so
+moderate a policy. There was a reaction, too, against the great power
+which the executive arm of the government had exercised in war time.
+Congress felt that it had been thrust aside, its functions reduced and
+its prestige diminished. It could be looked to for an assertion of its
+desire to dominate reconstruction. Finally when ex-confederates began to
+be elected to office, many a northerner shook his head and wondered
+whether the South was attempting to get into the saddle once more.
+
+When Congress convened in December, 1865, its members held a wide
+variety of opinions in regard to the best method of restoring the
+confederate states to the Union. On one point, however, there was some
+agreement--that Congress ought to withhold approval of executive
+reconstruction until it could decide upon a program of its own. Led by
+Thaddeus Stevens, the radical leader of the House, a joint congressional
+committee of fifteen was appointed to report whether any of the southern
+state governments were entitled to representation in Congress. For the
+present, all of them, even the President's own state, were to be denied
+representation. With Stevens as chairman of the House Committee on
+Reconstruction and Johnson in the President's chair, a battle was
+inevitable, in which quarter would be neither asked nor given.
+
+Unhappily for themselves, the southern states played unwittingly into
+the hands of Stevens and his radical colleagues. The outcome of the war
+had placed upon the freedmen responsibilities which they could not be
+expected to carry. To many of them emancipation meant merely cessation
+from work. Vagabondage was common. Rumor was widespread that the
+government was going to give each negro forty acres of land and a mule,
+and the blacks loafed about, awaiting the division. The strict
+regulations which had surrounded the former slave were discarded and it
+was necessary to accustom him to a new regime. "The race was free, but
+without status, without leaders, without property, and without
+education." Fully alive to the dangers of giving unrestricted freedom
+to so large a body of ignorant negroes, the southern whites passed the
+"black codes," which placed numerous limitations on the civil liberty
+of "persons of color." In some cases they were forbidden to carry arms,
+to act as witnesses in court except in cases involving their own race,
+and to serve on juries or in the militia. Vagrancy laws enabled the
+magistrates to set unemployed blacks at work under arrangements that
+amounted almost to peonage. It is now evident that the South was
+actuated by what it considered the necessities of its situation and
+not merely by a spirit of defiance. Yet the fear on the part of the
+North that slavery was being restored under a disguise was not
+unnatural. Radical northern newspapers and leading extremists in Congress
+exaggerated the importance of the codes until they seemed like a
+systematic attempt to evade the results of the war. As Republican
+leaders in Congress saw the satisfaction created in the South by the
+President's policy, and discovered that northern Democrats were rallying
+to his support, the jealousies of partisanship caused them still further
+to increase their grip on the processes of reconstruction. A disquieting
+by-product of the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, also began
+to appear. Hitherto only three-fifths of the negroes had been counted in
+apportioning representation in the House of Representatives. As soon as
+the slaves became free, however, they were counted as if they were
+whites, and thereby the strength of the South in Congress would be
+increased. It was hardly to be expected that the North would view such a
+development with satisfaction.
+
+The first action of the leaders in Congress was the introduction of a
+bill to continue and extend the powers of the Freedmen's Bureau, a
+federal organization which supervised charitable relief given the
+negroes, protected them in making contracts for labor and assumed a sort
+of guardianship over the race in making its transition out of slavery.
+The new measure was intended to continue this federal tutelage of the
+blacks. The President's veto of the bill, February 19, 1866, served to
+widen the breach between him and Congress and thereby postponed still
+further the admission of the representatives of the southern state
+governments. Three days later Johnson addressed a crowd which collected
+before the White House. In the course of his speech he lost control of
+himself to such an extent as to indulge in undignified remarks and
+personalities, and even to charge leaders in Congress with seeking to
+destroy the fundamental principles of American government. Thoughtful
+men everywhere were dismayed. In the meantime a Civil Rights bill was
+pending in Congress, the purpose of which was to declare negroes to be
+citizens of the United States and to give them rights equal to those
+accorded other citizens, notwithstanding local or state laws and codes.
+The President objected to the bill as an unconstitutional invasion of
+the rights of the states, but it was promptly passed over the veto.
+Scarcely any members of Congress now supported him except the Democrats.
+The conservative or conciliatory Republicans were lost to him for good.
+Throughout the North it was felt that protection must be accorded the
+freedmen against the black codes, and when the President opposed it he
+lost ground outside of Congress as well as in it. "From that time
+Johnson was beaten."
+
+Stevens in the House and Sumner and others in the Senate were now in a
+position to press successfully a stern, congressional reconstruction
+policy to replace that of the executive. The first item in the radical
+program was the Fourteenth Amendment, which passed Congress in June,
+1866, although it did not become of force until 1868. It contained four
+sections: (1) making citizens of all persons born or naturalized in the
+United States and forbidding states to abridge their rights; (2)
+providing for the reduction of the representation in Congress of any
+state that denied the vote to any citizens except those guilty of
+crimes; (3) disabling confederate leaders from holding political office
+except with the permission of Congress; and (4) prohibiting the payment
+of confederate debts. The first section was, of course, designed to put
+the civil rights of the negro into the Constitution where they would be
+safe from hostile legislation. The second sought to get negro suffrage
+into the South by indirection at a time when a positive suffrage
+amendment could not be passed. The third was to take the pardoning
+power out of executive hands.
+
+At this point there came a halt in the controversy until the country
+could be heard from in the congressional elections of 1866. Both sides
+made unusual efforts to organize political sentiment. Both attempted to
+demonstrate their thoroughly national character by holding conventions
+attended by southern as well as northern delegates. Each angled for the
+soldier vote by encouraging conferences of veterans. Late in July
+occurred an incident which the radicals were able to use to advantage.
+A crowd of negroes attending a convention in New Orleans in behalf of
+suffrage for their race became engaged in a fight with white
+anti-suffragists and many of the blacks were killed. The riot was
+commonly referred to in the North as a "massacre," the moral of which
+was that the negroes must be protected against the unrepentant rebels.
+But it was Johnson himself who furnished greatest aid to his
+adversaries. Having been invited to speak in Chicago, he determined
+upon an electioneering trip, "swinging around the circle," he called
+it. Again he was guilty of gross indiscretions. He made personal
+allusions, held angry colloquies with the crowd and at one place met
+such opposition that he had to retire unheard. It mattered little that
+the greater part of his speeches were sound and substantial. His lapses
+were held up to public scorn and he returned to Washington amid the
+hoots of his enemies. It was commonly believed that he had been
+intoxicated. Probably no orator, _The Nation_ sarcastically remarked,
+ever accomplished so much by a fortnight's speaking. There could be
+little doubt as to the outcome of the elections. The Republicans
+carried almost every northern state and obtained a two-thirds majority
+in each house of Congress, with which to override vetoes.
+
+As if impelled by some perverse fate the southern whites during the fall
+and winter of 1866-67 did the thing for which the bitterest enemy of the
+South might have wished. Except in Tennessee, the legislature of every
+confederate state refused with almost complete unanimity to ratify the
+Fourteenth Amendment. Natural as the act was, it gave the North
+apparently overwhelming proof that the former "rebels" were still
+defiant. Encouraged by the results of the election and aroused by the
+attitude of the South toward the Amendment, Congress proceeded to
+encroach upon prerogatives that had hitherto been considered purely
+executive, and also to pass a most extreme plan of reconstruction.
+
+The first of these measures, the Tenure of Office Act, was passed over a
+veto on March 2, 1867. By it the President was forbidden to remove civil
+officers except with the consent of the Senate. Even the members of the
+Cabinet could not be dismissed without the permission of the upper
+house, a provision inserted for the protection of Edwin M. Stanton, the
+Secretary of War. Stanton was in sympathy with the radical leaders in
+Congress and it was essential to them that he be kept in this post of
+advantage. General Grant, who had charge of the military establishment,
+was made almost independent of the President by a law drafted secretly
+by Stanton. On the same day, and over a veto also, was passed the
+Reconstruction Act, the most important piece of legislation during the
+decade after the war. It represented the desires of Thaddeus Stevens and
+was passed mainly because of his masterful leadership. At the outset the
+new Act declared the existing southern state governments to be illegal
+and inadequate, and divided the South into five military districts. Over
+each was to be a commanding general who should preserve order, and
+continue civil officers and civil courts, or replace them with military
+tribunals as he wished. Under his direction each state was to frame and
+adopt a new constitution which must provide for negro suffrage. When
+Congress should approve the constitution and when a legislature elected
+under its provisions should adopt the Fourteenth Amendment, the state
+might be readmitted to the Union.
+
+The Reconstruction Act was remarkable in several features. The provision
+imposing negro suffrage was carried through the Senate with difficulty
+and only as the result of the tireless activity of Charles Sumner.
+Sumner and other radicals were determined that the blacks should be
+enfranchised in order that they might protect themselves from hostile
+local legislation and also in order that they might form part of a
+southern Republican party. Even more noteworthy was the military
+character of the Act. The President had already exercised his
+prerogative of declaring the country at peace on August 20, 1866, more
+than six months before the Act was passed. In the decision in the
+Milligan case, which preceded the Act by nearly three months, the
+Supreme Court had decided that military tribunals were illegal except
+where war made the operation of civil courts impossible. Military
+reconstruction was illogical, not to say unlawful, therefore, but
+Congress was more interested in a method that promised the speedy
+accomplishment of its purposes than it was in the opinions of the
+executive and judicial departments.
+
+Despite his dissent from its provisions, the President at once set
+military reconstruction in operation. When he mitigated its harshness,
+however, where latitude was allowed him, Congress passed additional
+acts, over the veto, of course, extending and defining the powers of
+the commanding generals. Armed with complete authority, the generals
+proceeded to remove many of the ordinary civil officers and to replace
+them with their own appointees, to compel order by means of the
+soldiery, to set aside court decrees and even to close the courts and
+to enact legislation. In the meanwhile a total of 703,000 black and
+627,000 white voters were registered, delegates to constitutional
+conventions were elected, constitutions were drawn up and adopted which
+permitted negro suffrage, and state officers and legislators elected.
+In conformity with the provisions of the Act, the newly chosen
+legislatures ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution,
+sent representatives and senators to Washington, where they were
+admitted to Congress, and by 1871 the last confederate state was
+reconstructed.
+
+The commanding generals were honest and efficient, in the main, even if
+their stern rule was distasteful to the South, but the regime of the
+newly elected state officers and legislators was a period of dishonesty
+and incapacity. Most of the experienced and influential whites had been
+excluded from participation in politics through the operation of the
+presidential proclamations and the reconstruction acts. In all the
+legislatures there were large numbers of blacks--sometimes, indeed, they
+were in the majority. Two parties appeared. The radical or Republican
+group included the negroes, a few southern whites, commonly called
+"scalawags," and various northerners known as "carpet-baggers." These
+last were in some cases mere adventurers and in others men of ability
+who were attracted to the South for one reason or another, and took
+a prominent part in political affairs. The old-time whites held both
+kinds in equal detestation. The other party was called conservative or
+Democratic, and was composed of the great mass of the whites. Many of
+them had been Whigs before the war, but in the face of negro-Republican
+domination, nearly all threw in their lot with the conservatives.
+
+Not all the activities of the legislatures were bad. Provisions were
+made for education, for example, that were in line with the needs of
+the states. Nevertheless, their conduct in the main was such as to
+drive the South almost into revolt. In the South Carolina legislature
+only twenty-two members out of 155 could read and write. The negroes
+were in the majority and although they paid only $143 in taxes
+altogether, they helped add $20,000,000 to the state debt in four
+years. In Arkansas the running expenses of the state increased 1500
+per cent.; in Louisiana the public debt mounted from $14,000,000 to
+$48,000,000 between 1868 and 1871. Only ignorance and dishonesty could
+explain such extravagance and waste. Submission, however, was not
+merely advisable; it presented the only prospect of peace. Open
+resentment was largely suppressed, but it was inevitable that the
+whites should become hostile to the blacks, and that they should
+dislike the Republican party for its ruthless imposition of a system
+which governed them without their consent and which placed them at the
+mercy of the incompetent and unscrupulous. A system which made a negro
+the successor of Jefferson Davis in the United States Senate could
+scarcely fail to throw the majority of southern whites into the ranks
+of the enemies of the Republican organization.[2]
+
+One step remained to ensure the continuance of negro suffrage--the
+adoption of a constitutional provision. In 1869 Congress referred to the
+states the Fifteenth Amendment, which was declared in force a year
+later. By its terms the United States and the states are forbidden to
+abridge the right of citizens to vote on account of race, color or
+previous condition of servitude.
+
+While radical reconstruction was being forced to its bitter conclusion,
+the opponents of the President were maturing plans for his impeachment
+and exclusion from office. By the terms of the Constitution, the chief
+executive may be impeached for "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes
+and Misdemeanors." Early in the struggle between President Johnson and
+Congress a few members of the House of Representatives urged an attempt
+to impeach him. Such extremists as James M. Ashley of Ohio, and Benjamin
+F. Butler of Massachusetts, believed that he had even been implicated in
+the plot to assassinate Lincoln. A thorough-going search through his
+private as well as his public career failed to produce any evidence that
+could be interpreted as sufficient to meet constitutional demands, and a
+motion to impeach was voted down in the House by a large majority. So
+indiscreet a man as the President, however, was likely at some time to
+furnish a reason for further effort. The occasion came in the removal of
+the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton.
+
+Stanton, although of a domineering and brusque personality, had ably
+administered the War Department under Lincoln and Johnson. During the
+controversy between the President and Congress, Stanton had remained in
+the Cabinet but was closely in touch with his chief's opponents and
+had even drafted one of the reconstruction acts. Johnson had tolerated
+the questionable conduct of his Secretary, despite the advice of many
+of his supporters, until August 5, 1867, when he requested Stanton's
+resignation. The latter took refuge behind the Tenure of Office Act,
+denying the right of the President to remove him, but yielding his
+office at Johnson's insistence. This episode had occurred during a
+recess of Congress and, in accord with the law, the removal of Stanton
+was reported when it convened in December. The Senate at once refused
+to concur and Stanton returned to his office. The President now found
+himself forced, by what he regarded as an unconstitutional law, into
+the unbearable position of including one of his enemies within his
+official family, and once more he ordered the Secretary to retire. But
+meanwhile the House of Representatives had been active and had on
+February 24, 1868, impeached the President for "high crimes and
+misdemeanors."
+
+The trial was conducted before the Senate, as the Constitution
+provides, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court acting as the
+presiding officer. The House chose a board of seven managers to conduct
+the prosecution, of whom Thaddeus Stevens and Benjamin F. Butler were
+best known. The President was defended by able counsel, including
+former Attorney-General Stanbery, Benjamin R. Curtis, who had earlier
+sat upon the Supreme Court, and William M. Evarts, an eminent lawyer
+and leader of the bar in New York. The charges, although eleven in
+number, centered about four accusations: (1) that the dismissal of
+Secretary Stanton was contrary to the Tenure of Office Act; (2) that
+the President had declared that part of a certain act of Congress was
+unconstitutional; (3) that he had attempted to bring Congress into
+disgrace in his speeches; and (4) that in general he had opposed the
+execution of several acts of Congress. The President's counsel asked
+for forty days in which to prepare their case. They were given ten,
+although members of the House had been preparing for more than a year
+to resort to impeachment. The trial lasted from early March to late
+May.
+
+As the trial wore on, it became increasingly evident that the House had
+but little substance on which to base an impeachment, and that the force
+back of it was intense hatred of the President. It was made clear to
+senators who were inclined to waver towards the side of acquittal that
+their political careers were at an end if they failed to vote guilty.
+The general conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church even appointed
+an hour of prayer that the Senate might be moved to convict. The lawyers
+for the defense so far outgeneraled the prosecutors that one who reads
+the records at the present day finds difficulty in thinking of them as
+more than the account of a pitiful farce. At length on May 16 the Senate
+was prepared to make its decision. The last charge was voted upon first.
+It was a very general accusation, drawn up by Stevens, and seemed most
+likely to secure the necessary two-thirds for conviction. Fifty-four
+members would vote. Twelve of them were Democrats and were known to be
+for acquittal. The majority of the Republicans were for conviction. A
+small group had given no indication of their position, and their votes
+would be the decisive ones. As the roll was called each senator replied
+"Guilty" or "Not guilty," while floor and galleries counted off the vote
+as the knitting women clicked off the day's toll of heads during the
+days when the guillotine made a reign of terror in France. The result
+was thirty-five votes for conviction and nineteen for acquittal. As
+thirty-six were necessary, Johnson had escaped. A recess of ten days was
+taken during which the prosecution sought some shred of evidence which
+might prove that some one of the nineteen had accepted a bribe for his
+vote, but to no avail. When the Senate convened again there was no
+change in the vote on the second and third articles, and the attempt to
+convict was abandoned.
+
+For the first time in many months Johnson enjoyed a respite from the
+attacks of his foes. Stanton relinquished his office, and the integrity
+of the executive power was preserved. The race of the dictator of the
+House had been run, for Stevens lived less than three months after the
+trial.
+
+The continuous controversies of the Johnson administration almost
+completely pressed into the background two diplomatic accomplishments of
+no little importance. The more dramatic of these related to the French
+invasion of Mexico. During 1861, naval vessels of England, France and
+Spain had entered Mexican ports in order to compel the payment of debts
+said to be due those countries, but England and Spain had soon withdrawn
+and had left France to proceed alone. French troops thereupon had
+invaded the country, captured Mexico City and established an empire with
+Archduke Maximilian of Austria as its head, despite the protests and
+opposition of the Mexicans under their leader Juarez. The United States
+had expressed dissent and alarm, meanwhile, but because of the war was
+in no position to take action.
+
+As soon as civil strife was finished, however, Johnson and Seward took
+vigorous steps. An army under General Sheridan was sent to the border,
+and diplomatic pressure was exerted to convince France of the
+desirability of withdrawal. The occupation of Mexico was, apparently,
+not popular in France, and in the face of American opposition the French
+government sought a means of dropping the project. Accordingly the
+invading forces were withdrawn early in 1867, leaving the hapless
+Maximilian to the Mexicans, by whom he was subsequently seized and
+executed.
+
+While the Mexican difficulty was being brought to a successful outcome,
+the government of Russia offered to sell to the United States her
+immense Alaskan possessions west and northwest of Canada. Secretary
+Seward was enthusiastically disposed to accept the offer and a treaty
+was accordingly drawn up on March 30, 1867, providing for the
+acquisition of the territory for $7,200,000. The Senate, however, was
+far less inclined to seize the opportunity. Little was known about
+Alaska, and the cost seemed almost prohibitive in view of the financial
+strains caused by the war. Nevertheless the inclination to acquire
+territory was strong and there was a widespread desire to accede to the
+wishes of Russia who was understood to have been well-disposed toward
+the United States during the war. Under the operation of these forces
+the Senate changed its attitude and ratified the treaty on April 9,
+1867. By this act the United States came into possession of an area
+measuring nearly 600,000 square miles, and stores of fish, furs, timber,
+coal and precious metals whose size is even yet little understood.
+
+It was not long before it became apparent that radical reconstruction
+had been founded too little upon the hard facts of social and political
+conditions in the South, and too much upon benevolent but mistaken
+theories, and upon prejudices, partisanship and emotion. It was
+inevitable that there should be an aftermath.
+
+At the close of reconstruction in 1871, the southern negro was a citizen
+of civil and political importance. As a voter, he was on an equality
+with the whites; he belonged to the Republican party and his party was a
+powerful factor in the politics of the South; his position was secured,
+or at least seemed to be secured, by amendments to the federal
+Constitution. Legally and constitutionally his position appeared to be
+impregnable. In the minds of the southern white, however, the amendments
+vied with military reconstruction in their injustice and unwisdom. To
+his mind they constituted an attempt to abolish the belief of the white
+man in the essential inferiority of the black, to make the pyramid of
+government stand on its apex, and to place the very issues of existence
+within the power of the congenitally unfit. To the discontent aroused by
+war were added political and racial antagonism, which blazed at times
+into fury. The southern whites began to invent methods for overcoming
+the power of the freedmen in politics and for insuring themselves
+against possible danger of violence at the hands of the blacks.
+
+The most famous device was the Ku Klux Klan or the Invisible Empire, a
+somewhat loosely organized secret society which originated in Tennessee
+during the turmoil immediately after the close of the war. In theory and
+practice its operations were simple and effective. Its chief officials
+were the Grand Wizard, the Grand Dragon, the Grand Titan. Local branches
+were Dens, each headed by a Grand Cyclops. The Den worked usually at
+night, when the members assembled clad in long white robes and white
+masks or hoods, discussed cases which needed attention, and then rode
+forth on horses whose bodies were covered and whose feet were muffled.
+The exploits of the Klan expanded, in the exaggerated stories common
+among the negroes, into the most amazing achievements. The members were
+thought to be able to take themselves to pieces, drink entire pailfuls
+of water, and devour "fried nigger meat." Usually the person about to be
+"visited" received a notice that the dreaded Klan was upon him. He was
+warned to cease his political activities or perhaps to leave the
+neighborhood. If the threat proved ineffective, whipping or some worse
+punishment was likely to follow.
+
+In 1872 Congress unintentionally aided in the process of overcoming
+negro domination by the passage of the Amnesty Act, which restored to
+all but a few hundreds of the former Confederates the political
+privileges which had been taken from them by the Fourteenth Amendment.
+Under the latter the great majority of former southern leaders had been
+deprived of the right to hold office. On the restoration of this right
+such men as Alexander H. Stephens, former Vice-President of the
+Confederate States, and Wade Hampton, one of the most influential South
+Carolinians, could again take an active part in politics. With their
+return, the cause of white supremacy received a powerful impetus.
+
+In taking this step, however, Congress did not intend to allow the legal
+and constitutional rights of the blacks to be waived without a contest.
+Reports reached the North concerning the activities of the southern
+whites--reports which in no way minimized the amount of intimidation and
+violence involved--and in response to this information Congress passed
+the enforcement laws of 1870-1871, generally known as the "Force
+Acts."[3] These laws laid heavy penalties upon individuals who should
+prevent citizens from exercising their constitutional political
+powers--primarily the right to vote. As offences under these acts were
+within the jurisdiction of the federal courts and as the federal
+officials manifested an inclination to carry out the law, the number of
+indictments was considerable. Convictions, however, were infrequent. The
+famous Ku Klux Act of 1871 amplified the law of 1870 and was aimed at
+combinations or conspiracies of persons who resorted to intimidation. It
+authorized the President to suspend the privilege of the writ of _habeas
+corpus_ and made it his duty to employ armed force to suppress
+opposition.
+
+Additional sting was given the enforcement laws by provision for the
+superintendence of federal elections, under specified conditions, by
+federal officials called "supervisors of election." The supervisors were
+given large powers over the registration of voters and the casting and
+counting of ballots, so as to ensure a fair vote and an honest count.
+Since here, again, federal troops stood behind the law, it was manifest
+that the central government would show some degree of determination in
+its handling of the southern situation. Nevertheless, the result was
+merely to delay the gradual elimination of the blacks from political
+activity, not to prevent it. In practice the Republican state
+governments in the South were continued in the seats of authority only
+through the presence of the federal soldiery. In one way or another the
+whites gained the upper hand, so that by 1877 only South Carolina and
+Louisiana had failed to achieve self-government unhampered by federal
+force.
+
+In the meantime the enforcement acts were being slowly weakened by the
+Supreme Court in several decisions bearing upon the Fourteenth
+Amendment. The significant portion of Section I of the Amendment is as
+follows:
+
+    No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge
+    the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;
+    nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
+    property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person
+    within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
+
+In several cases involving the enforcement acts, the Court found
+portions of the laws in conflict with the Constitution and finally, in
+1883, the decision in United States _v._ Harris completed their
+destruction. Here the court met a complaint that a group of white men
+had taken some negroes away from the officers of the law and ill-treated
+them. Such conduct seemed to be contrary to that part of the Ku Klux Act
+which forbade combinations designed to deprive citizens of their legal
+rights. The Court, however, called attention to the important words, "No
+_State_ shall make or enforce," and was of opinion that the
+constitutional power of Congress extends only to cases where _States_
+have acted in such a manner as to deprive citizens of their rights. If
+_individuals_, on the contrary, conspire to take away these rights,
+relief must be sought at the hands of the state government. As the great
+purpose of the Ku Klux Act had been to combat precisely such individual
+combinations, it appeared that the Court had, at a blow, demolished the
+law. Not long afterwards the Court declared unconstitutional the Civil
+Rights Act of 1875, which had been designed to insure equal rights to
+negroes in hotels, conveyances and theatres. Here again the Court was of
+opinion that the Fourteenth Amendment grants no power to the United
+States but forbids certain activities by the states.[4]
+
+Stuffing the ballot box was common in South Carolina and other states.
+In one election in this state the number of votes cast was almost double
+the number the names on the polling list. In some places the imposition
+of a poll tax peacefully eliminated the impecunious freedman. In
+Mississippi the state legislature laid out the "shoestring" election
+district, 300 miles long and about 20 miles wide, which included many of
+the sections where the negroes were most numerous, in order that their
+votes might have as little effect as possible. By hook or by crook,
+then, in simple and devious ways, the dangers of negro domination were
+averted. Nevertheless the provisions of the law for federal supervision
+of elections remained, becoming a bone of contention during a later
+administration.
+
+About 1890 there began a new era in the elimination of the negro from
+politics in the South. The people of that section disliked the methods
+which they felt the necessity of using, and searched about for a less
+crude device. Furthermore the rise of a new political movement in some
+parts of the South in the late eighties and early nineties was making
+divisions among the Democrats and was encouraging attempts by the two
+factions to control the negro vote. Suddenly, a relatively small number
+of negro voters became a powerful and purchasable make-weight. Both
+sides, perhaps, were a bit disturbed at this development. At any rate,
+additional impetus was given to the movement for the suppression of the
+negro. Eventually plans were originated, some of which were clearly
+constitutional and all of which carried a certain appearance of
+legality.
+
+The first steps were taken by Mississippi in 1890. The new state
+constitution of that year required as prerequisite to the voting
+privilege, the payment of all taxes which were legally demanded of the
+citizen during the two preceding years--a provision to which no
+constitutional exception could be taken, and which effectively debarred
+large numbers of colored voters. Further, it provided that after January
+1, 1892, every voter must be able to read any section of the state
+constitution or be able to give an interpretation of it _when read to
+him_. As the election officials who would judge the ability of the
+applicant properly to interpret the constitution would certainly be
+whites, it was clear that the ignorant black would have scant chance of
+passing the educational test. Several other states followed in the wake
+of Mississippi, until in 1898 Louisiana discovered a new barrier through
+which only whites might make their way to the voting lists. This was the
+famous "grandfather clause." In brief, it allowed citizens to vote who
+had that right before January 1, 1867, together with the descendants of
+such citizens, regardless of their educational and property
+qualifications. As no negroes had voted in the state before that date,
+they were effectively debarred. Under the influence of such pressure,
+the negro vote promptly dwindled away to negligible proportions. In
+Louisiana, to cite one case, there were 127,263 registered colored
+voters in 1896, and 5,354 in 1900. Between these two years the new state
+constitution had been passed. In 1915 the Supreme Court finally declared
+a grandfather clause unconstitutional on the ground that its only
+possible intention was to evade that provision of the Fifteenth
+Amendment which forbids the states to abridge, on account of color, the
+rights of citizens of the United States to vote.
+
+The history of the effects of the war and of reconstruction on the
+political status of the negro has been concisely summarized as falling
+into three periods. At the close of the war: (1) the negroes were
+more powerful in politics than their numbers, intelligence and
+property seemed to justify; (2) the Republican party was a power in
+the South; and (3) the negroes enjoyed political rights on a legal and
+constitutional equality with the whites. By 1877 the first of these
+generalizations was no longer a fact; by 1890 the Republican party had
+ceased to be of importance in the South; and by the opening of the
+twentieth century, the negro as a possible voter was not on a legal
+and constitutional equality with the white.
+
+In the sphere of government the war and reconstruction were of lasting
+importance. Preeminently it was definitely established that the federal
+government is supreme over the states. Although the Constitution had
+seemed to many to establish that supremacy in no uncertain terms, it can
+not be doubted that only as a result of the war and reconstruction did
+the theory receive a degree of popular assent that approached unanimity.
+Temporarily, at least, reconstruction added greatly to the prestige and
+self-confidence of Congress. During the war the powers of the President
+had necessarily expanded. The reaction, although hastened by the
+character and disposition of President Johnson, was inevitable. The
+depression of the executive elevated the legislature and not until the
+beginning of the twentieth century did the scales swing back again
+toward their former position.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+General. The best general account of the period 1865-1917 is to be found
+in the following volumes of _The American Nation: A History_: W.A.
+Dunning, _Reconstruction Political and Economic, 1865-1877_ (1907); E.E.
+Sparks, _National Development, 1877-1885_ (1907); D.R. Dewey, _National
+Problems, 1885-1897_ (1907); J.H. Latane, _America as a World Power,
+1897-1907_ (1907); F.A. Ogg, _National Progress, 1907-1917_ (1918). The
+volumes vary in excellence and interest, but set a high standard,
+especially in their recognition of the importance of economic facts, and
+contain excellent bibliographical material. The following single volumes
+are useful: E.B. Andrews, _United States in Our Own Time, 1870-1903_
+(1903); C.A. Beard, _Contemporary American History_ (1914); P.L.
+Haworth, _Reconstruction and Union, 1865-1912_ (1912); P.L. Haworth,
+_United States in Our Own Time, 1865-1920_; E.P. Oberholtzer, _History
+of the United States since the Civil War_ (to be in several volumes, of
+which one appeared in 1917, covering 1865-1868); F.L. Paxson, _The New
+Nation_ (1915); H.T. Peck, _Twenty Years of the Republic, 1885-1905_
+(1907), readable and especially valuable in its interpretation of the
+period which it covers; J.F. Rhodes, _History of the United States from
+Hayes to McKinley, 1877-1896_ (1919), lacks understanding of the period
+covered. J.S. Bassett, _Short History of the United States_ (1913),
+has excellent chapters on the years 1865-1912; F.J. Turner in the
+_Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (11th ed.), article "United States, History
+1865-1910," is brief but inclusive; the later chapters of Max Farrand,
+_Development of the United States_ (1918), present a new point of view.
+_The Chronicles of America Series_ (1919 and later), edited by Allen
+Johnson, contains valuable volumes on especial topics. For party
+platforms and election statistics consult Edward Stanwood, _A History
+of the Presidency_ (2 vols., 2nd ed., 1916).
+
+Reconstruction. The most valuable single volume on the reconstruction
+period is the volume by Dunning already referred to; W.L. Fleming,
+_Sequel of Appomattox_ (1919), is also excellent; J.F. Rhodes, _History
+of the United States since the Compromise of 1850_, vols. VI, VII
+(1906), is the best detailed account; James Schouler, _History of the
+United States_, vol. VII (1913), presents a new view of President
+Johnson. Valuable biographies are J.A. Woodburn, _The Life of Thaddeus
+Stevens_ (1913); G.H. Haynes, _Charles Sumner_ (1909); Horace White,
+_The Life of Lyman Trumbull_ (1913). On impeachment, D.W. Dewitt, _The
+Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson_ (1903), is best. W.A. Dunning,
+_Essays on Civil War and Reconstruction_ (ed. 1910), is strong on the
+constitutional changes. Studies on reconstruction in the several states
+have been published by W.W. Davis (Florida), (1913); W.L. Fleming
+(Alabama), (1905); J.W. Garner (Mississippi), (1901); J.G. deR.
+Hamilton (North Carolina), (1914); C.W. Ramsdell (Texas), (1910); and
+others. For documentary material, W.L. Fleming, _Documentary History of
+Reconstruction_ (2 vols., 1906-7), is essential. Edward Channing, A.B.
+Hart and F.J. Turner, _Guide to the Study and Reading of American
+History_ (1912), provides full references to a wide variety of works
+covering 1865-1911. Consult also Appleton's _Annual Cyclopaedia_,
+_1861-1902_. On foreign relations J.B. Moore, _Digest of International
+Law_, 8 vols., (1906).
+
+Periodical literature. The most useful periodicals are:
+
+_American Economic Review_ (1911-); _American Historical Review_
+(1895-); _American Political Science Review_ (1907-); _Atlantic
+Monthly_ (1857-); _Century Magazine_ (1870-); _Harper's Weekly_
+(1857-1916); _Harvard Law Review_; _History Teachers' Magazine_,
+continued as _Historical Outlook_ (1909-); _Journal of Political
+Economy_ (1892-); _Nation_ (1865-); _North American Review_ (1815-);
+_Political Science Quarterly_ (1886-); _Quarterly Journal of Economics_
+(1886-); _Scribner's Magazine_ (1887-); _Yale Review_ (1892-1911, _new
+series_, 1912-).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States, was held
+in prison until 1867 and then released. He died in 1889. Suggestions
+that General Lee, the most prominent military leader, be arrested and
+tried met with such opposition from General Grant, the Union leader,
+that the project was dropped. Lee died in 1870.
+
+[2] A number of these states later repudiated their debts.
+
+[3] The threats used to keep the negroes away from the polls are
+typified in the following, which was published in Mississippi:
+
+    "The Terry Terribles will be here Monday to see there is a fair
+    election."
+
+    "The Byram Bulldozers will be here Monday to see there is a fair
+    election.
+
+    "The Edwards Dragoons will be here Monday to see there is a fair
+    election.
+
+    "Who cares if the McGill men don't like it?
+
+    "The whole State of Mississippi is interested in the election.
+
+    "It _shall_ be a Democratic victory."
+
+[4] In regard to segregation of the races in railroad coaches, the
+Court decided, 1910, that constitutional rights are not interfered with
+when separate accommodations are provided, if the accommodations be
+equally good. Chiles _v._ Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Co., 218 U.S.,
+71.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+IN PRESIDENT GRANT'S TIME
+
+Aside from President Lincoln, the most prominent personality on the
+northern side during the latter part of the Civil War was General
+Ulysses S. Grant. His successes in the Mississippi Valley in the
+early days of the war, when success was none too common, his capture
+of Vicksburg at the turning point of the conflict, and his dogged
+drive toward Richmond had established his military reputation. When
+the drive toward Richmond resulted at last in the capture of Lee's
+army and its surrender at Appomattox, the victorious North turned
+with gratitude to Grant and made him a popular idol, while the
+politicians began to question whether his popularity might not be put
+to account in the field of politics.
+
+Grant himself had never paid any attention to matters of government.
+In only one presidential election had he so much as voted for a
+candidate, and then it was for a Democrat, James Buchanan. In 1860 he
+was prevented from voting for Senator Stephen A. Douglas and against
+Abraham Lincoln only by the fact that he had not fulfilled the
+residence requirement for suffrage in the town where he was living.
+Nevertheless in his capacity as general of the army his headquarters
+after the war were in Washington and his duties brought him into
+contact with the politicians and eventually entangled him in the
+controversy between the President and Congress. Circumstances at
+first threw him into close association with Johnson, but at the time
+of the Stanton episode late in 1867 a misunderstanding arose between
+them which developed into a question of veracity, and then into open
+hostility. The opponents of the President took up the General's case
+with alacrity and from then on the popular hero was looked upon as
+the inevitable choice for the next Republican nomination.
+
+The convention of the National Union Republican Party, as it was
+called at that time, was held in Chicago, May 20, 1868, during the
+interval between the votes on the eleventh and second charges of the
+impeachment of President Johnson. General Grant was unanimously
+nominated for the presidency and Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the
+House of Representatives, for the second place on the ticket. The
+platform portrayed the benefits of radical reconstruction and
+defended negro suffrage in the South. In the North at that time the
+black was commonly denied the vote--the Fifteenth Amendment having
+not yet been ratified--and the convention accordingly declared that
+the question of suffrage in all the "loyal" states properly belonged
+in the states themselves. Other planks asserted that the public debt
+ought to be paid in full, that pensions for the veterans were an
+obligation and that immigration ought to be encouraged. The
+administration of President Johnson was denounced and the thirty-five
+senators who voted for his conviction in the impeachment trial were
+commended.
+
+The Democrats met at Tammany Hall in New York on July 4. Their
+platform approved the pension laws, advocated the sale of public land
+to actual occupants, praised the administration of President Johnson,
+arraigned the radicals and declared the reconstruction acts
+"unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void." If the radical party
+should win in the election, the Democrats asserted, the result would
+be "a subjected and conquered people, amid the ruins of liberty and
+the scattered fragments of the Constitution." The regulation of the
+suffrage, one plank declared, had always been in the hands of the
+individual states. The most prominent place in the platform, however,
+was given to the question of the public debt. Part of the bonds
+issued during the war had, by acts of Congress, been made payable
+in "dollars," a word which might mean either paper dollars or gold
+dollars. Paper, however, was much less valuable than gold, times were
+hard, and many people held the opinion that the debt could properly
+be paid in paper. Such was the "Ohio idea," which was made part of
+the Democratic platform.
+
+The choice of a candidate required twenty-two ballots. Early trials
+indicated the strength of George H. Pendleton, popularly known as
+"Gentleman George" and the chief exponent of the "Ohio idea." Johnson
+also had support. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, having failed to
+obtain the Republican nomination, allowed it to be known that he was
+willing to become the Democratic candidate. At length, on the
+twenty-second ballot, a few votes were cast for Governor Horatio
+Seymour of New York, the chairman of the convention. The move met
+with enthusiastic approval, despite Seymour's insistence that he
+would not be a candidate, and he was unanimously chosen.
+
+[Illustration:
+Popular vote in presidential elections, 1868-1896]
+
+The developments of the campaign depended largely upon occurrences in
+the South. Military reconstruction had not been wholly completed in
+Virginia, Mississippi, Texas and Georgia. The last of these states
+had once been readmitted to the Union, but had immediately expelled
+the negro members of its legislature, and was thereupon placed again
+under military rule. The Ku Klux Klan was meanwhile in general
+operation throughout the South and its activities, both real and
+imaginary, received wide advertisement in the North. Public interest,
+therefore, in the underlying issues of the campaign centered upon the
+attitude of the candidates toward the southern question. General
+Grant was understood to be with the radicals and Seymour with the
+conservatives. The result of the election was the choice of the
+Republican leader by an apparently large majority. He carried
+twenty-six out of thirty-four states, with 214 out of 294 electoral
+votes, but he received a popular majority of only 300,000. Examination
+of the returns indicated a strong conservative minority in many of the
+solid Republican states. The strength of the radicals in the South,
+moreover, was due, in the main, to negro-carpetbag domination, and when
+these states should become conservative, as they were sure to do, the
+political parties would be almost evenly divided.[1]
+
+The man who was now entering upon his first experience as the holder
+of an elective office had risen from obscurity to public favor in the
+space of a few years. Although a graduate of West Point, with eleven
+years of military experience afterward, his career before 1861 had
+been hardly more than a failure. He had left the army in 1854 rather
+than stand trial on a charge of drunkenness; had grubbed a scanty
+living out of "Hard Scrabble," a farm in Missouri; had tried his hand
+at real estate, acted as clerk in a custom-house and worked in a
+leather store at $800 a year. Then came the war, and in less than
+three years Grant had received the title of Lieutenant-General, which
+only Washington had borne before him, and had become General-in-Chief
+of all the armies of the United States. Always an uncommunicative
+man, he kept his own counsel during the interval between his election
+and his inauguration. He saw few politicians, asked no advice about
+his cabinet, sought no assistance in preparing his inaugural address
+and made no suggestions to the leaders of his party concerning
+legislation that he would like to see passed. His first act, the
+appointment of his cabinet, caused a gasp of surprise and dismay.
+Most of the men named were but little known and some of them were not
+aware that they were being chosen until the list was made public. The
+Secretary of State, Elihu Washburne, was a close personal friend, and
+was appointed merely that he might hold the position long enough to
+enjoy the title and then retire. He was succeeded by Hamilton Fish,
+of New York, who proved to be a wise choice. The Secretary of the
+Treasury was A.T. Stewart, a rich merchant of New York, but he had to
+withdraw on account of a law forbidding any person "interested in
+carrying on the business of trade or commerce" to hold the office.
+The Secretary of the Navy, A.E. Borie, was a rich invalid of
+Philadelphia, who had almost no qualifications for his office and
+resigned at once. Better appointments were former Governor J.D. Cox,
+of Ohio, as Secretary of the Interior, and Judge E.R. Hoar, of
+Massachusetts, as Attorney-General.
+
+When the Congress elected with Grant assembled in 1869 its first act
+was a measure providing for the payment of the public debt in coin.
+Part of the Tenure of Office Act was repealed, the President having
+indicated his opposition to it. On the southern question General
+Grant had earlier inclined toward moderation, but radical counsels
+and the logic of events led him to join Congress in the passage of
+the enforcement act and the Ku Klux Act, both of which have already
+been mentioned.
+
+It was during this, the first year of Grant's administration, that
+there occurred the famous gold conspiracy of 1869. Jay Gould and
+James Fisk, Jr., two of the most unscrupulous stock gamblers of the
+time, determined to corner the supply of gold and then run its market
+price up to a high level, in order to further certain interests which
+they had recently purchased. The likelihood that the conspirators
+could carry out the plan depended largely on the Secretary of the
+Treasury, George S. Boutwell, who was accustomed to sell several
+millions of dollars' worth of gold each month. If the sales could be
+stopped Gould and Fisk might be successful. Accordingly, they got on
+friendly terms with the President through cultivating the acquaintance
+of his brother-in-law, were seen publicly with him at the theatre and
+other places, and subsequently he wrote to the Secretary expressing
+his opinion that the sales had better stop. Gould apparently was
+informed of this decision by the brother-in-law, even before the
+message reached the Secretary, and immediately bought up so much gold
+as to run the price to an unparalleled figure. This was on "Black
+Friday," September 24. The Secretary became alarmed, rumors were abroad
+that the administration was implicated in the conspiracy, and at noon,
+after consultation with the President, he decided to place four
+millions in gold on the market. At once the price dropped, brokers went
+bankrupt, and Gould and Fisk had to take refuge behind armed guards to
+save their lives. The President had not been a party to the plans of
+the speculators, but his blindness to their real purposes and his
+association with them during the period when their scheme was being
+perfected made him a target for all manner of accusations.
+
+Further astonishment was caused by the attitude of the President toward
+two of the three really able men in his cabinet. In June, 1870, he
+suddenly called for the resignation of Judge Hoar. It appeared that he
+was seeking votes in the Senate for a treaty in which he was interested
+and that certain southern members demanded the post of attorney-general
+for a southern man in return for their support. Secretary Cox's
+resignation came soon afterward. He had taken his department out of
+politics, had furthered the cause of civil service reform and had
+protected his employees from political party assessments. These acts
+brought him into collision with the politicians, who had the ear of the
+President, and Cox had to retire. Both Hoar and Cox were succeeded by
+mediocre men.
+
+The treaty which caused the removal of Secretary Hoar was one that the
+President had arranged providing for the annexation of San Domingo. The
+Senate was opposed to ratification, but General Grant was accustomed
+to overcoming difficulties and he urged his case with all the power at
+his command. One result was an unseemly wrangle between the President
+and Senator Charles Sumner over the latter's refusal to support
+ratification. General Grant, in resentment, procured the withdrawal
+of the Senator's friend, John Lothrop Motley from England, whither he
+had been sent as minister, and later the exclusion of Sumner from the
+chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations, a post in which he
+had displayed great ability for ten years. Eventually the President had
+to give way on San Domingo, as the Senate did not agree with him in his
+estimate of its probable value.
+
+In its conduct of our relations with England, on the other hand, the
+administration met with success and received popular approval. Ever
+since the war the people of the North had desired an opportunity to
+make Great Britain suffer for her attitude during that struggle.
+Senator Sumner struck a popular chord when he suggested that England
+should pay heavy damages on the ground that her encouragement of the
+South had prolonged the war. Specifically, however, the United States
+demanded reparation for destruction committed by the _Alabama_ and
+other vessels that had been built in English ports. In 1870 Europe
+was in a state of apprehension on account of the Franco-Prussian War,
+and Secretary Fish seized the opportunity to press our claims upon
+England. The latter, meanwhile, had abated somewhat her earlier
+attitude of unwillingness to arbitrate, and Fish placed little
+emphasis on Senator Sumner's suggestions of a claim for indirect
+damages. The Treaty of Washington, signed and ratified in May, 1871,
+provided for the arbitration of the _Alabama_ claims under such rules
+that a decision favorable to the American side of the case was made
+exceedingly probable. Each of five governments appointed a
+representative--the United States, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland
+and Brazil. The meeting took place in Geneva and resulted favorably
+to the American demands. England was declared to have failed to
+preserve the proper attitude for a neutral during the war and was
+ordered in 1872 to make compensation in the amount of $15,500,000.
+
+The United States had need of any feeling of national pride that
+might come as the result of the Geneva award, to offset the shame of
+domestic revelations, for one of the characteristics of the decade
+after the war was the wide-spread corruption in political and
+commercial life. One of the most flagrant examples was the Tweed Ring
+in New York. The government of that city was in the hands of a band
+of highwaymen, of whom William M. Tweed, the leader of Tammany Hall,
+was chief. Through the purchase of votes and the skilful distribution
+of the proceeds of their control, they managed to keep in power
+despite a growing suspicion that something was wrong. A favorite
+method of defrauding the city was to raise an account. One who had a
+bill against the city for $5,000 would be asked to present one for
+$55,000. When he did so, he would receive his $5,000 and the
+remainder would be divided among the members of the Ring. The
+plasterer, for example, who worked on the County Court House
+presented bills for nearly $3,000,000 in nine months. The New York
+_Times_ and the cartoons of Thomas Nast in _Harper's Weekly_ were the
+chief agents in arousing the people of the city to their situation.
+The former obtained and published proofs of the rascality of the
+Ring, mass meetings were held and an election in November, 1871,
+overturned Tweed and his associates. Some of them fled from the
+country, while Tweed himself died in jail.
+
+More important both because of its effect on national politics and
+because of its influence on railway legislation for many years
+afterward was the Credit Mobilier scandal. The Credit Mobilier was a
+construction company composed of a selected group of stockholders of
+the Union Pacific Railroad, the transcontinental line which was being
+built between 1865 and 1869. In their capacity of railroad
+stockholders they awarded themselves as stockholders of the
+construction company the contract to build and equip a large part of
+the railway. The terms which they gave themselves were so generous as
+to insure a handsome profit. Chief among the members of the Credit
+Mobilier was Oakes Ames, a member of Congress from Massachusetts.
+Late in 1867 Ames became fearful of railroad legislation that was
+being introduced in Washington and he therefore decided to take steps
+to protect the enterprise. He was given 343 shares of Credit Mobilier
+stock, which he placed among members of Congress where, as he said,
+they would "do most good." Rumors concerning the nature of the
+transaction resulted finally in accusations in the New York _Sun_
+during 1872, which involved the names of many prominent politicians.
+Congressional committees were at once appointed to investigate the
+charges, and their reports caused genuine sensations. Ames was found
+guilty of selling stock at lower than face value in order to
+influence votes in Congress and was censured by the House of
+Representatives. The Vice-President, Schuyler Colfax, and several
+others were so entangled in the affair as to lose their reputations
+and retire from public life for good. Still others such as James A.
+Garfield were suspected of complicity and were placed for many years
+on the defensive.
+
+Fear was wide-spread that political life in Washington was riddled
+with corruption. Corporations which were large and wealthy for that
+day were already getting a controlling grip on the legislatures of
+the states, and if the Credit Mobilier scandal were typical, had
+begun to reach out to Congress. Had the charges been made a little
+earlier they might have influenced the election of 1872, which turned
+largely on certain omissions and failings of the administration, and
+especially of General Grant himself.
+
+There is something intensely pathetic in General Grant as President
+of the United States--this short, slouchy, taciturn, unostentatious
+man who was more at ease with men who talked horses than with men who
+talked government or literature; this President who was unacquainted
+with either the theory or the practice of politics, who consulted
+nobody in choosing his cabinet or writing his inaugural address, who
+had scarcely visited a state capital except to capture it and had
+been elected to the executive chair in times that were to try men's
+souls. An indolent man, he called himself, but the world knew that he
+was tireless and irresistible on the field when necessity demanded,
+persistent, imperturbable, simple and direct in his language, and
+upright in his character. The tragedy of President Grant's career was
+his choice of friends and advisors. In Congress he followed the
+counsels of second-rate men who gave him second-rate advice; outside
+he associated too frequently with questionable characters who
+cleverly used him as a mask for schemes that were an insult to his
+integrity, but which his lack of experience and his utter inability
+to judge character kept hidden from his view. Honorable himself and
+loyal to a fault to his friends, he believed in the honesty of men
+who betrayed him, long after the rest of the world had discovered
+what they were. He could accept costly gifts from admirers and
+appoint these same men to offices, without dreaming that their
+generosity had sprung from any motive except gratitude for his
+services during the war.[2]
+
+It was inevitable, in view of these facts, that the presidential
+campaign of 1872 should be essentially an anti-Grant movement, but
+its particular characteristics had their origin before the General's
+first election. In 1865 a constitutional convention in Missouri had
+deprived southern sympathizers of the right to vote and hold office.
+A wing of the Republican party, led by Colonel B. Gratz Brown, had
+begun a counter-movement, intended to remove the restrictions on the
+southerners, and also to reform other abuses in the state. Colonel
+Brown had early received the assistance of General Carl Schurz, a man
+of ability with the temperament of a reformer. The Brown-Schurz
+faction had quickly increased in numbers, had become known as the
+Liberal Republican party and had attracted such interest throughout
+the country that a national conference was called for May, 1872, at
+Cincinnati. In adopting a conciliatory southern policy, the Liberal
+Republicans became opposed to the President, who had by this time
+become thoroughly committed to the radical program. Other critics of
+the administration, mainly Republicans, became interested in the
+Liberal revolt--those who deprecated the President's choice of
+associates and advisors, the civil service reformers who were aroused
+by the dismissal of Secretaries Hoar and Cox, and the tariff
+reformers who had vainly attempted to arouse enthusiasm for their
+plans.
+
+On account of the varied character of the elements which composed it
+and the independent spirit of its members, the Cincinnati assembly
+resembled a mass meeting rather than a well-organized political
+conference. It numbered among its members, nevertheless, many men of
+influence and repute. Some of the most powerful newspaper editors of
+the country, also, were friendly to its purpose, so that it seemed
+likely to be a decisive factor in the coming campaign. In most
+respects the platform reflected the anti-Grant character of the
+convention. It condemned the administration for keeping unworthy men
+in power, favored the removal of all disabilities imposed on
+southerners because of the rebellion, objected to interference by the
+federal government in local affairs--a reference to the use of troops
+to enforce the radical reconstruction policy--and advocated civil
+service reform. The convention found difficulty in stating its
+attitude toward the tariff question. It was deemed necessary to get
+the support of Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York _Tribune_,
+the most powerful northern newspaper of Civil War times, but Greeley
+was an avowed protectionist. The platform, therefore, evaded the
+issue by referring it to the people in their congressional districts,
+and to Congress. But the rock on which the movement met shipwreck was
+the nomination of a candidate. Many able men were available--Charles
+Francis Adams, who had been minister to England, Senator Lyman
+Trumbull, B. Gratz Brown and Judge David Davis of the Supreme Court.
+Any one of them would have made a strong candidate. The convention,
+however, passed over all of them and nominated Greeley, long known as
+being against tariff reform, against civil service reform and hostile
+to the Democrats, whose support must be obtained in order to achieve
+success. Although a journalist of great influence and capacity,
+Greeley was an erratic individual, whose appearance and manner were
+the joy of the cartoonist.
+
+The Republican convention met on June 5, and unanimously re-nominated
+Grant. The platform recited the achievements of the party since 1861,
+urged the reform of the civil service, advocated import duties and
+approved of the enforcement acts and amnesty.
+
+To the Democrats the greatest likelihood of success seemed to lie in
+the adoption of the Liberal Republican nominee and platform. Such a
+course, to be sure, would commit them to a candidate who had
+excoriated their party for years in his newspaper, and to the three
+war amendments to the Constitution, which the Liberal Republicans had
+accepted. Yet it promised the South relief from military enforcement
+of obnoxious laws, and that was worth much. Both Greeley and his
+platform were accordingly accepted.
+
+The enthusiasm for the Liberal movement which was observable at the
+opening of the campaign rapidly dwindled as the significance of the
+nomination became more clear. Greeley was open to attack from too
+many quarters. The cartoons of Nast in _Harper's Weekly_, especially,
+held him up to merciless ridicule. In the end he was defeated by
+750,000 votes in a total of six and a half million, a disaster which,
+together with the death of his wife and the overwork of the campaign
+resulted in his death shortly after the election. As for the
+Republicans they elected not only their candidate but also a
+sufficient majority in Congress to carry out any program that the
+party might desire.
+
+On March 3, 1873, as Grant's first term was drawing to a close,
+Congress passed a measure increasing the salary of public officials
+from the President to the members of the House of Representatives.
+The increase for Congressmen was made retroactive, so that each of
+them would receive $5,000 for the two years just past. To a country
+whose fears and suspicions had been aroused by the Credit Mobilier
+scandal, the "salary grab" and the "back pay steal" were fresh
+indications that corruption was entrenched in Washington. Senators
+and Representatives began at once to hear from their constituencies.
+Many of them returned the increase to the treasury and when the next
+session opened, the law was repealed except so far as it applied to
+the president and the justices of the Supreme Court.
+
+The congressional elections of 1874 indicated the extent of the
+popular distrust of the administration. In New York, where Samuel J.
+Tilden was chosen governor, and in such Republican strongholds as
+Massachusetts and Pennsylvania the Democrats were successful. In the
+House of Representatives the Republican two-thirds majority was wiped
+out and the Democrats given complete control. Even the redoubtable
+Benjamin F. Butler lost his seat.
+
+Further apprehensions were aroused by rumors concerning the
+operations of a "Whiskey Ring." For some years it had been suspected
+that a ring of revenue officials with accomplices in Washington were
+in collusion with the distillers to defraud the government of the
+lawful tax on whiskey. Part of the illegal gains were said to have
+gone into the campaign fund for Grant's re-election, although he was
+ignorant of the source of the revenue. Benjamin H. Bristow, who
+became Secretary of the Treasury in 1874, began the attempt to stop
+the frauds and capture the guilty parties. This was no simple task,
+because information of impending action was surreptitiously sent out
+by officials in Washington. Finally Secretary Bristow got the
+information which he sought, and then moved to capture the criminals.
+One of the most prominent members of the Ring was an internal revenue
+official in St. Louis who, it was recollected, had entertained
+President Grant, had presented him with a pair of horses and a wagon,
+and had given the General's private secretary a diamond shirt-stud
+valued at $2,400. Public opinion was yet further shocked, however,
+when the trail of indictments led to the President's private
+secretary, General Babcock. On first receiving the news of Bristow's
+discoveries, Grant had written "Let no guilty man escape"; but later
+he became secretly and then openly hostile to the investigation.
+During the trial of Babcock, the President asked to be a witness in
+his behalf. A verdict of acquittal was given, but afterwards the two
+men had a private conference, and when "Grant came out, his face was
+set in silence." Babcock never returned to the White House as
+Secretary, but was given the post of Superintendent of Public
+Buildings and Grounds. Several of the members of the Ring were
+imprisoned but were later pardoned by the President. In the meanwhile
+Grant seems to have been brought to believe that Bristow was
+persecuting Babcock with a view to getting the favor of the reform
+element in the party and eventually the presidential nomination.
+Relations between the two became strained and Bristow resigned.
+
+The last year of Grant's second administration was blackened by the
+case of W.W. Belknap, who was then Secretary of War. Investigation by
+a House committee uncovered the fact that since 1870 an employee in
+the Indian service had paid $12,000 and later $6,000 a year for the
+privilege of retaining his office. The money had been paid at first
+to Mrs. Belknap, who had made the arrangement, and after her death to
+the Secretary himself. The House unanimously voted to impeach him,
+but on the day when the vote was taken he resigned and the President
+accepted the resignation. Only the fact that he was out of office
+prevented the Senate from declaring him guilty, and critics of the
+administration noted that the President had saved another friend from
+deserved punishment.
+
+It would be easy to over-estimate the responsibility of General Grant
+for the political corruption of his administrations. For the most
+part the wrong-doing of the time began before his first election.
+Democrats as well as Republicans participated in many of the
+scandals. Politicians in the cities, the states and the nation seemed
+to be determined to have a share in the enormous wealth that was
+being created in America, and they got it by means that varied from
+the merely unethical and indiscreet, to the openly corrupt. As for
+the President, his own defence, given in his last message to
+Congress, may be taken as the best one: "Failures have been errors of
+judgment, not of intent."
+
+Under the circumstances, however, it was natural that the
+presidential campaign of 1876 should turn upon the failings of the
+administration. Popular interest in the southern issue was on the
+wane. Early in the election year, nevertheless, James G. Blaine,
+Republican leader in the House, made a forceful attack on Jefferson
+Davis, as the wilful author of the "gigantic murders and crimes at
+Andersonville," the southern prison in which federal captives had
+been held. Instantly the sectional hatred flared up and Blaine,
+already a well-known leader, became a prominent candidate for the
+nomination. Republican reformers generally favored Bristow. A
+third-term boom for Grant was effectively crushed by an adverse
+resolution in the House.
+
+The Republican nominating convention met on June 14. The virtues of
+Blaine were set forth in a famous speech by Robert G. Ingersoll in
+which he referred to the attack on Davis: "Like an armed warrior,
+like a plumed knight James G. Blaine marched down the halls of the
+American Congress and threw his shining lance full and fair against
+the brazen forehead of every traitor to his country." The "plumed
+knight," however, was open to attack concerning a scandal during the
+Grant regime, and the convention turned to Governor Rutherford B.
+Hayes, of Ohio, a man of quiet ability who had been unconnected with
+Washington politics, was relatively unknown and, therefore, not
+handicapped by the antagonisms of previous opponents. The platform
+emphasized the services of the party during the war, touched lightly
+on the events of the preceding eight years, advocated payment of the
+public debt, and favored import duties and the reform of the civil
+service.
+
+The Democrats met on June 27. There was little opposition to the
+nomination of Governor Samuel J. Tilden, of New York, a wealthy
+lawyer who had made a record as a reformer in opposition to "Boss"
+Tweed and a corrupt canal ring. The platform was distinctly a reform
+document. It demanded reform in the governments of states and nation,
+in the currency system, the tariff, the scale of public expense, and
+the civil service. An eloquent paragraph exhibited those corruptions
+of the administration which had caused such general dismay.
+
+There was little in the campaign that was distinctive, and on
+November 8, the morning after the election, it seemed clear that
+Tilden had been successful. He had carried the doubtful states of
+Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Indiana. When the figures were
+all gathered, it was found that his popular vote exceeded that of his
+rival by more than 250,000. But there were disputes in three states,
+Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina. Hayes would be elected only if
+the electoral votes of all these states could be obtained for him.
+If, however, Tilden received even one electoral vote from any of the
+states, the victory would be his. Hayes was conceded 166 electoral
+votes; Tilden 184. Nineteen were in dispute. The Republican leaders
+at once claimed the nineteen disputed votes, and asserted that their
+candidate was elected. The Democrats had no doubt of the victory of
+Tilden.[3] The capitals of the three doubtful states now became the
+centers of observation. Troops had long been stationed in South
+Carolina and Louisiana, and others were promptly sent to Florida.
+Prominent politicians from both parties also flocked thither, in
+order to uphold the party interests.
+
+In South Carolina it became evident that a majority of the popular
+vote was for Hayes, although both the Democratic and the Republican
+electors sent in returns to Washington. In Florida there was a board
+of canvassers which had power to exclude false or fraudulent votes.
+It was composed of two Republicans and one Democrat. When all ballots
+had been sent in, the Democrats claimed a majority of ninety; the
+Republicans a majority of forty-five. The board went over the returns
+and by a partisan vote threw out enough to make the Republican
+majority 924. Republican electoral votes were thereupon sent to
+Washington, but so also were Democratic votes. The situation in
+Louisiana was still more complicated. Political corruption and
+intimidation had been commonplaces in that state. On the face of the
+returns, Tilden's electors had received majorities varying from 6,000
+to 9,000. As in Florida there was a board of canvassers which was
+here composed of four Republicans, three of whom were men of low
+character. The vote of the state was offered to the Democrats, once
+for $1,000,000 and once for $200,000, but the offer was not taken.
+The board then threw out enough ballots to choose all the Hayes
+electors. As in the other cases, Democratic electors also sent
+ballots to Washington.
+
+There was no federal agency with power to determine which sets of
+electors were to be counted, and the fact that the federal Senate was
+Republican and the House Democratic seemed to preclude the
+possibility of legislation on the subject. No such critical situation
+had ever resulted from an election, and a means of settlement must
+quickly be discovered, for only three months would elapse after the
+electoral votes were sent to Washington, before the term of General
+Grant would expire. The means devised was the Electoral Commission.
+This body was to be composed of five senators, five representatives,
+and five justices of the Supreme Court. The Senate and the House were
+each to choose their five members, and four members of the Court were
+designated by the Act which established the Commission, with power to
+choose a fifth. It was understood that seven would be Republicans,
+seven Democrats and that the fifteenth member would be Justice David
+Davis, an Independent, who would be selected by his four colleagues.
+On him in all probability, the burden of the decision would fall. On
+the day when the Senate agreed to the plan, however, the Democrats
+and Independents in the Illinois legislature chose Justice Davis as
+United States Senator and under these circumstances he refused to
+serve on the Commission. It was too late to withdraw, and since all
+the remaining justices from whom a commissioner must be chosen were
+Republicans, the Democrats were compelled to accept a body on which
+they were outnumbered eight to seven.
+
+The Electoral Commission sat all through the month of February, 1877.
+Its decisions were uniformly in favor of Hayes electors by a vote of
+eight to seven, always along party lines, and on March 2, it was
+formally announced that Hayes had been elected. The disappointment of
+the Democrats was bitter and lasting, for their candidate had
+received over a quarter of a million popular votes more than his
+opponent, and yet had been declared defeated. For a time there was
+some fear of civil war. Tilden, however, accepted the decision of the
+Commission in good faith, and forbade his friends and his party to
+resist. Moreover, close friends of the Republican candidate assured
+southern Democratic politicians that Hayes if elected would adopt a
+conciliatory policy toward the South, and would allow the southern
+states to govern themselves unhampered by federal interference.
+Peaceful counsels prevailed, therefore, and the closing days of
+President Grant's administration were undisturbed by threats of
+strife.
+
+The question whether Hayes was fairly elected is a fascinating one.
+There is no doubt that there was fraud and intimidation on both
+sides, in the disputed states. In Louisiana, for example, the
+Democrats prevented many negroes from voting by outrageous
+intimidation, while the Republicans had many negroes fraudulently
+registered. Little is known, also, of the activities of the "visiting
+statesmen," as those politicians were called who went to the South to
+care for their party interests. It is known that they were well
+provided with money and that the boards of canvassers contained many
+unscrupulous men. Nor is it likely that politicians who lived in the
+days of the Credit Mobilier and the Whiskey King would falter at a
+bargain which would affect the election of a president. Republicans
+looked upon the Democrats as being so wicked that they were justified
+in "fighting the devil with fire." Democrats looked upon the election
+as so clearly theirs that no objection ought to be made to their
+taking what belonged to them. It seems certain, however, that Hayes
+had no hand in any bargains made by his supporters. As for Tilden,
+his wealth was such that he could have purchased votes if he had
+desired to do so, and the fact that all the votes went to his rival
+indicates that he did not yield to the temptation. Moreover, one of
+his closest associates, Henry Watterson, the journalist, tells of one
+occasion when the presidency was offered to Tilden and refused by
+him. Perhaps a definitive statement of the rights and wrongs of this
+famous election will never be made; for one after another the men
+most intimately associated with it have died leaving some account of
+their activities, but none of them has told much more than was
+already known.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+Dunning, Rhodes and Schouler, together with most of the works
+referred to at the close of Chapter 1, continue to be useful. L.A.
+Coolidge, _Ulysses S. Grant_ (1917), is not as partisan as most of
+the biographies of the time and is valuable despite a lack of a
+thorough understanding of the period. The following are valuable for
+especial topics: H. Adams, _Historical Essays_ (1891); C.F. Adams,
+Jr., and H. Adams, _Chapters of Erie_ (1886), (gold conspiracy); C.F.
+Adams, Jr., _Charles Francis Adams_ (Treaty of Washington); C.F.
+Adams, Jr., "The Treaty of Washington" in _Lee at Appomattox, and
+Other Papers_ (1902); James Bryce, _American Commonwealth_ (vol. II,
+various editions since 1888, contains famous chapter on the Tammany
+Tweed ring); A.B. Paine, _Thomas Nast, His Period and His Pictures_
+(1904), (Tweed ring). P.L. Haworth, _Hayes-Tilden Disputed
+Presidential Election of 1876_ (1906), is a thorough study; on this
+election, see also John Bigelow, _The Life of S.J. Tilden_ (2 vols.,
+1895), and C.R. Williams, _Life of Rutherford B. Hayes_ (2 vols.,
+1914).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The closing months of Johnson's administration found him almost in
+a state of isolation. The incoming President refused to have any
+social relations with him, or even to ride with him from the White
+House to the Capitol on inauguration day. After the installation of
+his successor, Johnson returned to Tennessee but was later chosen to
+the Senate, where he served but a short time before his death.
+
+[2] In 1884, a year before his death, the dishonesty of a trusted
+friend left him bankrupt, while a painful and malignant disease began
+slowly to eat away his life. Nevertheless, with characteristic courage
+he set himself to the task of dictating his _Memoirs_, or more often
+penciling sentences when he was unable to speak, in order that he
+might repay his debts with the proceeds.
+
+[3] There was also a technical question concerning one elector in
+Oregon, which was easily settled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS OF THE NEW ERA
+
+With the close of Grant's administration, the main immediate problems
+connected with political reconstruction came to an end. During the war,
+however, important economic and social developments had been taking
+place throughout the United States which were destined to take on
+greater and greater significance. The reconstruction problem looked
+backward to the war; the new developments looked forward to a new
+America. Reconstruction affected fewer and fewer people as time went
+on; the later changes ultimately transformed the daily life of every
+individual in the nation. Not only did they determine the means by
+which he earned his livelihood, but the comforts which he enjoyed, the
+conditions of rural or urban life which surrounded him, the ease with
+which he visited other portions of the country or obtained information
+concerning them, the number and variety of the foreign products that
+could be brought to him, the political problems upon which he thought
+and voted, and the attitude of the government toward his class in
+society. Most of these changes were distinguishable during the
+twenty-five years following the war and could be stated in brief and
+definite terms.
+
+From the standpoint of population, the growth of the country before
+1890, although not so rapid as it had been before the war, was both
+constant and important. Between 1870 and 1890 the numbers of people
+increased from nearly thirty-nine millions to nearly sixty-three
+millions, the rate each decade being not far from twenty-five per cent.
+Six states added more than a million each to their population--New York
+and Pennsylvania in the Northeast; Ohio, Illinois and Kansas in the
+Middle West; and Texas in the South. No fewer than seventeen others
+expanded by half a million or more--ten of the seventeen being in the
+valley drained by the Mississippi River system.
+
+Detailed study of particular sections of the country discloses a
+continuous shifting of population which indicates changes in the
+economic life of the people. In northern New England, the numbers
+increased slowly. Both Maine and New Hampshire lost from 1860 to 1870;
+nearly half of Maine's counties and nearly two-thirds of Vermont's lost
+population between 1880 and 1890; the people were abandoning the rural
+districts to flock to the cities or migrate to the West. Shipbuilding
+fell off in Maine; the dairy interests languished in Vermont, less
+wheat was being planted and the farmers, no longer growing wool, were
+selling their flocks. Most of the growth was to be found in the
+industrial counties. The traditional New England thrift, however, was
+not lost with the migration of the people, for savings bank deposits
+were increasing, and the state of Vermont was free from debt in 1880,
+and all its counties in 1890. The South, between 1870 and 1890,
+increased in numbers a little less rapidly than the country as a whole.
+On the Atlantic Coast the greatest relative expansion was in Florida;
+in the western South, in Texas. The increase was almost wholly native,
+as immigration did not flow into that section.
+
+The great expansion of the Middle West, from Ohio to Kansas, was based
+upon the public land policy of the federal government. Substantially
+all this region had once been in the possession of the United States,
+which had early adopted the system of laying out townships six miles
+on a side, with subdivisions one mile square, (containing 640 acres),
+called sections. An important feature of the policy had been the
+encouragement of education and of transportation through the gift
+of large grants of the public land. Moreover, settlement had been
+stimulated by the disposal of land to purchasers at extremely liberal
+figures. In 1862 the famous Homestead Act had inaugurated a still
+more generous policy. Under this law the citizen might settle upon a
+quarter-section and receive a title after five years of actual
+occupation, with no charge other than a slight fee. Millions of acres
+were taken up in this way both by natives and by immigrants. 1,300,000
+people poured into Illinois between 1870 and 1890; over 1,000,000 into
+Kansas, and nearly that number into Nebraska; in the Dakotas a young
+man of college age in 1890 might have remembered almost the entire
+significant portion of the history of his state and have been one of
+the oldest inhabitants. The frontier of settlement advanced from the
+western edge of Missouri into mid-Kansas, and almost met the growing
+population of the Far West, whose economic possibilities had already
+attracted attention.
+
+The discovery of gold-dust in a mill-race in California had drawn the
+"Forty-niners" to
+
+    ... lands of gold
+    That lay toward the sun.
+
+For a few years fabulous sums of the precious metal had been extracted
+from the ground by the hordes of treasure-seekers who had come from
+all over the world by boat, pack-animal or "prairie schooner," around
+Cape Horn, across the Isthmus of Panama or over the western mountains.
+When the yield of the mines had slackened, some of the population had
+filtered off to newer fields, but more had settled down to exploit the
+agricultural and lumber resources of California. In Nevada a rich vein
+of silver called the "Comstock Lode" had been discovered; in 1873 a
+group operating the "Virginia Consolidated" mine struck the great
+"bonanza," and the output reached unheard of proportions. The success
+of the mines, however, was essential to Nevada, which had few other
+resources to develop, and when the yield slowed down the population
+growth of the state noticeably slackened. In Colorado during the late
+fifties some prospectors had struck gold, and another rush had made
+"Pike's Peak or Bust" its slogan. Some had returned, "Busted by
+Thunder," but others had better fortune, discovered gold, silver or
+lead, and helped lay the foundations of Denver and Leadville. In Idaho
+and Montana, in Wyoming and South Dakota and other states, prospectors
+found gold, silver, copper and lead, and thus attracted much of the
+population that later settled down to occupations which were less
+feverish and more reliable than mining. In general, the advance of
+population into the Middle West was more or less regular, as wave on
+wave made its way into the Mississippi Basin; in the Far West,
+however, population extended in long arms up the fertile valleys of
+Washington, Oregon and California, or was found in scattered islands
+where mineral wealth had been discovered in the Rocky Mountain region.
+
+From the standpoint of absolute growth, the expansion of most of the
+far western states was not imposing, but the relative increase was
+suggestive of the future. Colorado nearly quadrupled in a decade,
+(1870-1880), and Washington equalled the record in the following ten
+years. California grew faster from 1870 to 1890 than it had done in
+the gold days, indicating that its development was based on something
+more lasting than a fickle vein of ore. Meanwhile politicians were
+fanning the desire of the growing territories to become states, and in
+1889 Montana and Washington were admitted, and in the following year
+Idaho and Wyoming. Of these, Washington alone had a population
+equivalent to the federal ratio for representation in the House.[1]
+
+Utah was kept outside for a few years longer, until the Mormon Church
+gave satisfactory indication that anti-polygamy laws were being
+enforced.
+
+The migration westward, which has been a constant factor in American
+development since early times, continued unabated after the Civil War;
+indeed the restless spirit aroused by the four years of conflict
+undoubtedly tended to increase this steady shift toward the West. By
+1890 approximately a fifth of the native Americans were to be found in
+states other than those in which they had been born. 95,000 natives of
+Maine, for example, were to be found in Massachusetts; 17,000 were in
+California; and considerable numbers in every state between the two.
+The North Carolinians were equally well distributed. 43,000 were in
+South Carolina, 18,000 in Texas, and 5,500 in Washington. Every state
+had contributed to populate every other, although in general the
+migration tended to take place on east and west lines, and
+predominantly westward.
+
+Within the westward-moving tide of population were swirling
+eddies--cities--which tended to attract to themselves larger and larger
+proportions of the surrounding people. In 1870 two men in every ten
+lived in cities whose population was 8,000 or more; by 1890 another man
+in every ten had forsaken rural life. Large cities like Boston and New
+York sucked in surrounding districts, and so constituted metropolitan
+centers with problems new to American life. Such cities as Birmingham,
+Kansas City, and Seattle were just appearing in 1880, but their growth
+was very rapid; Los Angeles increased ten fold and Minneapolis
+thirteen, between 1870 and 1890; Denver, having received ten newcomers
+between 1860 and 1870, added 102,000 in the following twenty years.
+In the country as a whole the concentration in cities was most marked
+in the area north of the Potomac and Ohio rivers and east of the
+Mississippi; the South remained rural, as before the war. With the
+growth of urban population came questions of lighting and water supply,
+street railway transportation and municipal government, industry,
+education, health and morals.[2]
+
+Immigration, another constant factor in American development,
+underwent important changes during the twenty-five years from 1865
+to 1890. Greater in prosperous years and smaller during years of
+depression, the inward tide reached its climax in 1882, when 789,000
+aliens reached the new world. That year, in several respects, was a
+turning point in the history of immigration into the United States.
+It was in this year that the Chinese were excluded; that immigration
+from Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia became of sufficient size to be
+impressive; and that the first inclusive federal immigration act was
+passed. The immigration law of 1882 defined, in general, the policy
+which the nation has pursued ever since. It placed a tax of fifty
+cents on all incomers to be paid by the ship companies; it forbade the
+landing of objectionable persons, such as convicts and lunatics; and
+it placed on the owners of vessels the expense of returning immigrants
+not permitted to land. All these provisions were amended or developed
+in later laws, like that of 1885 forbidding persons or corporations to
+prepay the transportation of laborers or to encourage immigration
+under contract to perform work. The greater part of the foreign
+population settled in the manufacturing and urban North. Put into
+simplest terms, the census of 1890 showed that of every hundred aliens
+who had come to the United States between 1870 and 1890, thirty-seven
+were to be found in the states from Maine to Pennsylvania, four from
+Delaware to Texas, forty-seven from Ohio to Kansas and twelve in the
+Far West (for the most part Chinese).
+
+Of the great economic interests of the United States, the most
+widespread was agriculture. In the Northeast, to be sure, the amount
+of improved farm land had been growing steadily less since 1850 and
+the people had been turning their energies into other activities. In
+the South, on the other hand, agriculture formed the main economic
+resource and the twenty-five years following the war were, for the
+most part, consumed in recovering from that struggle. Although
+conditions varied from place to place, the situation in many portions
+of the South was little short of pitiable. Not only were factories,
+public buildings and railroads, houses and barns, tools and seeds
+destroyed, capital and credit gone, mining at a standstill and banks
+ruined, but bands of thieves infested many districts, federal officers
+were frequently dishonest and defrauded the people, and the entire
+labor system was wiped out at a stroke. The negroes had not been ideal
+workmen as slaves; now, as freedmen, they found difficulty in
+adjusting themselves to the economic obligations of their new status,
+and evinced a tendency to rove about restlessly, instead of settling
+down to the stern task of helping to rebuild the shattered South.
+
+It was manifest that the first problem was to revive the agricultural
+activities of the old days, and that the main resource must be cotton,
+the demand for which in the markets of the North and of Europe was
+such as to make it the best "money crop." A labor system was
+introduced known as share-farming or cropping. Under this system the
+plantation owner who had more property than he could cultivate under
+the new conditions let parts of his land to tenants, supplying them
+with buildings, tools, seed and perhaps credit at the village store
+for the supplies necessary for the year. The tenant, who had neither
+money nor credit with which to buy land, furnished the labor, and at
+the harvest each received a specified share of the product, commonly a
+half. The system had its disadvantages; it kept the farmer always in
+debt, and since the only valuable security which the plantation owner
+had was the crop--the land being almost unsalable--he insisted on
+the cultivation of cotton, which was a safe crop, and avoided
+experimentation and diversification. On the other hand, the system
+enabled the land owner to take advantage of the labor supply and to
+supervise the untutored negro,--and it kept the South alive. In
+addition to the large plantations, cultivated by several tenant
+farmers, the number of small farms tilled by independent owners or
+renters increased. Due to this tendency and to the opening of many
+small holdings in the Southwest, the size of the average farm
+diminished, so that the small farmer began to replace the plantation
+owner as the typical southerner.
+
+Owing to the insistence of land owners upon cotton culture, the South
+first caught up with its _ante-bellum_ production in the cultivation
+of this staple, for shortly before 1880 the crop exceeded that of
+1860. The production of tobacco, the second great southern crop,
+sharply shifted after the war from the Atlantic Coast states, except
+North Carolina, to the Mississippi region, especially to Kentucky.
+Maryland, indeed, never again produced much more than half as great a
+crop as she did in 1860, while Virginia did not equal her former
+record until the opening of the twentieth century, although the South
+as a whole recovered in the late eighties. Rice culture, likewise, did
+not recover readily for South Carolina alone produced almost as much
+in 1860 as the entire South in 1890, and not until the development of
+production in Louisiana after 1890 did the crop assume its former
+importance. The production of sugar in Louisiana in 1890 was but
+little greater than it had been in 1860, and in the production of
+cereals the South did not keep pace with the upper Mississippi Valley
+before 1890. On the other hand the rapid growth of Texas was one of
+the outstanding features of southern development during the period,
+for that state improved an amount of farm land between 1870 and 1890,
+roughly equivalent to the combined areas of New Hampshire, Vermont,
+and Massachusetts. There was observable, moreover, a certain
+hopefulness, a certain resiliency of purpose, a pride in the
+achievements of the past and in the possibilities of the future. In
+these respects the South was a new South by 1890.
+
+Greater than the South as a food-producing area, was the belt of
+states from Ohio and Michigan to Kansas and the Dakotas:
+
+    Where there's more of reaping and less of sowing,
+    That's where the West begins.
+
+The increased occupation of the public lands, the growth of population,
+improvements in transportation and the greater use of agricultural
+machinery, which could be employed to advantage on the large and
+relatively level farms, led to developments that were destined to have
+an important effect on the history of the nation. Agricultural
+machinery, such as the reaper, had been known long before the war, but
+the reduction of the labor supply from 1861 to 1865 had compelled
+farmers to replace men with machines. A reaper that merely cut the
+grain and tossed it aside, gave way at last to one which not only cut
+the grain, but gathered it into sheaves and bound the sheaves with
+twine. So great was the effect of the harvester upon western
+agriculture that William H. Seward declared that it "pushed the
+frontier westward at the rate of thirty miles a year."
+
+Due to the facts already mentioned, the number of mid-western farms
+increased nearly a million from 1870 to 1890, and the acreage in
+improved farm land grew by an amount equivalent to the combined areas
+of the British Isles, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark, with a
+generous margin to spare. The production of corn, wheat, oats and other
+cereals became so great as to demand an outlet to the East and to the
+markets of the world. Elevators for the storage of grain were
+constructed with a capacity of 300,000 to 1,000,000 bushels, and
+improvements were made in the methods of loading and unloading the
+product. Despite the growth of the agricultural interests of the Middle
+West, however, the farmer did not reach prosperity. For twenty years
+after 1873 prices fell steadily both in the United States and in other
+countries of the world, and the agricultural classes found themselves
+receiving a smaller and smaller return for their products. Unrest grew
+to distress, and distress to acute depression, while the demands of the
+farmers for relief frequently determined the trend of mid-western
+politics.[3]
+
+[Illustration:
+Relative Prices--1865-1890]
+
+Less general than agriculture, but more characteristic of the period
+after the war, was the development of manufacturing. The census of 1870
+was faulty and inadequate, but it was sufficiently accurate to indicate
+that the manufacturing region was preeminently that north of the
+Potomac-Ohio river line and east of the Mississippi. By 1890 it was
+apparent that the industrial interests were shifting slightly toward
+the West; nevertheless the leading states were those of southern New
+England, and New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In these states no
+fewer than four hundred and forty-seven industries employed more than a
+million dollars of capital each. The manufacturing of cotton, woolen
+and silk for the rest of the country was done here; foundry products,
+iron and steel manufactures, silver and brass goods, refined petroleum,
+boots and shoes, paper and books, with a host of other articles, were
+sent from this section to every part of the world. All along the line,
+from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania, capital engaged in manufacturing
+doubled between 1880 and 1890, and the number of employees greatly
+increased.
+
+Although the industrial life of the South belongs, for the most part,
+to the years since 1890, the coal and iron deposits of Alabama were
+known and utilized before that year, the number of cotton mill spindles
+in North Carolina tripled between 1880 and 1890, and cotton expositions
+were held in Atlanta in 1881 and New Orleans in 1884. It was in the
+eighties, also, that the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and the Norfolk
+and Western led to the exploitation of the coal deposits of Virginia
+and West Virginia, especially the famous Pocahontas field.
+
+Some aspects of the growth of manufacturing in the North are well
+illustrated in the development of the mineral resources around Lake
+Superior. The presence of copper and iron in this region had long been
+known, but they had not been utilized until a decade before the Civil
+War, and even then the output had been greatly restricted by
+insufficient transportation facilities. By the close of the war,
+however, a canal had been constructed which allowed the passage of
+barges from Lake Superior to Lake Huron, and railroads had been laid to
+a few important mining centers. The Marquette iron range in northern
+Michigan, the Gogebic in Wisconsin and Michigan, the Menominee near
+Marquette, the Vermilion Lake and Mesabec ore-beds near Duluth,--all
+these combined to yield millions of tons of ore, caused the development
+of numerous mining towns and laid the foundations of a gigantic
+expansion in the production of steel. As the iron and steel industry
+with its furnaces, machinery and skilled labor was already established
+at points in Illinois, Ohio and western Pennsylvania, it was cheaper to
+transport the ore to these places than to transfer the industry to the
+mines. Ore vessels were constructed capable of carrying mammoth
+cargoes; docks, railroads and canals were built; and the products of
+the mines taken to lake and inland cities. Improvements, meanwhile,
+were being continually made in the steel industry, such as the Bessemer
+process, by which the impurities were burned out of the iron ore, and
+exactly enough carbon introduced into the molten metal to transform it
+into steel.
+
+Although the steel industry was established in many places, its most
+dramatic growth occurred in those parts of eastern Ohio and western
+Pennsylvania that center about the city of Pittsburg. Placed
+strategically at the point where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers
+join to form the Ohio, in the midst of an area rich in coal, petroleum
+and natural gas, Pittsburg rapidly became the center of a region in
+which the development of manufacturing and the construction of
+railroads dwarfed other interests. A large portion of the ore mined in
+the Lake Superior fields was carried to the Pittsburg district to be
+transformed into steel products of all kinds. Moreover, the fortunes
+made by private individuals in the region, and the inflow of alien
+laborers to work in the factories and on the railroads raised weighty
+social and industrial problems.
+
+Manifestly the extension of agriculture and industry in so large a
+country as the United States was dependent upon the corresponding
+growth of the means of transportation, both by water and by rail. A
+detailed account of the expansion of the railway net, with the
+accompanying' implications in the fields of finance and politics, is a
+matter for later consideration. Certain of its general features may be
+mentioned, however, because they are intimately interwoven with the
+economic developments which have just been explained. The concentration
+of the population in the cities, of which New York and Chicago were
+outstanding examples, was one of these features. From the time of the
+first census, the city of New York continued to maintain its position
+as the most populous city of the nation. Between 1850 and 1890 it added
+a round million to its numbers, containing 1,515,000 persons at the
+later date. Moreover it was the center of a thriving and thickly
+settled region extending from New Haven on the one side to Philadelphia
+on the other--the most densely populated area in America. The
+uninterrupted expansion of the city indicated that the reasons for its
+growth were constant in their operation. And, in fact, the reasons were
+not difficult to find. It was blessed with one of the world's finest
+harbors and had access to the interior of the state by way of the
+Hudson and Mohawk rivers. These natural advantages had long since been
+recognized and had been increased by the construction of the Erie Canal
+in 1825 which, with the Great Lakes and the several canals connecting
+the Lakes with the Ohio Valley, had given New York an early hold and
+almost a monopoly on the trade between the upper Mississippi, the Lakes
+and the coast. The city, therefore, became an importing and exporting
+center; its shipping interests grew, immigration flowed in, and its
+manufacturing establishments soon outstripped those of any other
+industrial center; the great printing and publishing, banking and
+commercial firms were drawn irresistibly to the most populous city, and
+Wall Street became the synonym for the financial center of the nation.
+
+In 1840 Chicago had been an unimportant settlement of 4500 persons, but
+by the opening of the war it had grown to twenty-five times that size,
+and added 800,000 between 1870 and 1890. It had early become evident
+that the city was the natural outlet toward the East for the grain
+trade and the slaughtering and meatpacking industry of the upper
+Mississippi Valley. Before the late sixties, however, railway
+connection was defective, being composed of many short lines rather
+than of one continuous road, so that freight had to be loaded and
+unloaded many times during its passage to the seaboard. This situation,
+which had been merely inconvenient before the war, had become little
+short of intolerable during the struggle, because the closing of the
+Mississippi had cut off from the Middle West its water outlet toward
+the South and had diverted more freight to the railroads. After the
+war, Cornelius Vanderbilt, president of the Hudson River Railroad,
+combined a number of the shorter roads so as to give uninterrupted
+communication between Chicago and New York, to tap the trade of the
+Mississippi Valley, and to compete with water traffic by way of the
+Great Lakes and the Erie Canal. Other railroads saw the possibilities
+in the western trade, and the Baltimore and Ohio, the Grand Trunk, and
+the Erie followed the lead of Vanderbilt. A similar development,
+although on a smaller scale, accompanied the growth of other northern
+cities. The retroactive effects of the roads on the distribution of the
+population are too detailed for discussion, but a single example may
+typify many. In 1870 the Maine farmer supplied much of the meat
+consumed in Boston; by 1895, he was getting his own meat from the West.
+He must, therefore, adapt himself to the new conditions if he could,
+move to the manufacturing cities as so many of his neighbors did, or
+migrate to the West.
+
+Like the growth of New York and Chicago, the development of California
+had an important effect on the history of American railway
+transportation. Although it had been agitated for many years, the
+project for a railroad from the Mississippi to the Pacific Coast had
+not reached the construction stage until the congressional acts of 1862
+and 1864 provided for a line to be built from Omaha to San Francisco.
+The Union Pacific Railroad had been incorporated to build the eastern
+end, while the western end was to be constructed by the Central Pacific
+Railroad Company, a California corporation. The latter act, that of
+1864, had given the roads substantial financial assistance and half the
+public land on a strip forty miles wide along the line of the track.
+Many difficulties had stood in the way--lack of funds, problems of
+construction and inadequate labor supply. Eventually they had all been
+overcome by the energy and skill of such men as Stanford, Crocker and
+Huntington. Imported Chinese coolies had met the labor demand and
+construction was speeded up. Actual building had begun in 1863 and six
+years later the two roads met at Promontory Point near Ogden in Utah,
+where the last spike was driven, the engines
+
+    Facing on the single track,
+      Half a world behind each back.
+
+During the four years following the completion of the transcontinental
+line, 24,000 miles of new railroad were constructed, much of which was
+built into the wilderness ahead of settlement. So great an expansion,
+coming at a time when immense stretches of new land were being opened
+and industry being developed on a large scale, could hardly fail to
+result in over-speculation. The results appeared in 1873. Jay Cooke and
+Company, the most important financial concern in the country had been
+back of the Northern Pacific Railroad, marketing large quantities of
+its bonds and so providing capital for construction, the purchase of
+equipment, the payment of wages and so on. Obviously a large amount of
+money was thus being put into an enterprise from which returns would
+come only after a considerable period; and yet construction had to be
+continued, or what was already invested would be lost. What Cooke was
+doing for the Northern Pacific was being done for the Chesapeake and
+Ohio by Fisk and Hatch, and by other firms for speculative enterprises
+in every corner of the land.
+
+The process of putting capital into fixed form could hardly go on
+forever, and several events led to a final crash. In 1871 and 1872
+great fires in Chicago and Boston destroyed millions of dollars' worth
+of property. Early in 1873 the government investigation of the Credit
+Mobilier Company led to widespread distrust of the roads and made
+investors conservative about buying bonds. On September 18, 1873, Jay
+Cooke and Company found itself unable to continue business and closed
+its doors. The failure was a thunderbolt to the financial world.
+Indeed, so unbelievable was the news that an energetic policeman
+arrested a small newsboy who shouted his "Extra--All about the failure
+of Jay Cooke."
+
+If Jay Cooke and Company fell, the sky might fall. People rushed to
+withdraw their funds from the banks. Fisk and Hatch opened their doors
+for fifteen minutes and received calls for $1,500,000. They closed at
+once. The smaller financial institutions followed the bigger ones.
+Stocks fell, the Exchange was closed, there was a money famine.
+Industrial concerns, dependent on the banks, failed by scores.
+Industrial paralysis, with railroad receiverships, laborers out of
+employment, riots and their accompaniments, showed how deep-seated had
+been the trouble. Not until late in the decade did business recover its
+former prosperity.
+
+With the return of more stable conditions the construction of railroads
+continued unabated. The Northern Pacific ran near the Canadian line and
+connected the upper Mississippi Valley with the coast, carrying in its
+trail the manners and customs of the East. Two lines in the South were
+extended to the Pacific, so that by the middle eighties four great main
+avenues gave passage through a region over which, so recently, the
+miner and the trapper had forced a dangerous path.
+
+The fact that it was often necessary, in building the railroads across
+the plains, to detail half the working force to protect the remainder
+against the Indians, calls attention to one unmistakable result of the
+conquest of the Far West. The construction of the railroads spelled the
+doom of the wild Indian. Far back in 1834 the government had adopted
+the policy of setting aside large tracts of land west of the
+Mississippi for the use of the Indian tribes. Most of the savages had
+been stationed in an immense area between southern Minnesota and Texas,
+while other smaller reservations had been scattered over most of the
+states west of the river. On the whole, the government had dealt with
+the Indians in tribes, not as individuals. The rapid inflow of
+population to the fertile lands, together with the rush of prospectors
+to newly discovered supplies of gold and silver, caused increasing
+demands from the Indians for protection, and from the whites for the
+extinguishment of Indian land titles.
+
+The classical illustration of this tendency is found in the case of the
+Sioux Indians in South Dakota. The discovery of gold in the region of
+the Black Hills, on the Sioux reservation, aroused agitation for the
+removal of the tribe to make way for settlers and miners. But the
+execution of the scheme was not so simple as its conception. The
+removal of the Sioux necessitated the transfer of the Poncas, a
+peaceful tribe which lay immediately east. The latter, not unnaturally,
+objected, quarrels arose and eventually the Poncas were practically
+broken to pieces. The Sioux, not satisfied, attempted to regain the
+Black Hills, fought the famous Sioux War of 1876, led by Sitting Bull,
+but were crushed and forced to give up the unequal contest.
+
+It would not be worth while to enter into the details of the numerous
+Indian conflicts after the Civil War. It is enough to notice that
+stirring accounts of them may be read in the memoirs of such soldiers
+as Custer, Sheridan and Miles, and that they cost millions of dollars
+and hundreds of lives. Finally it became evident that the attempt to
+deal with the Indians in tribes was a failure and it was determined to
+break up the tribal holdings of land so as to give each individual a
+small piece for his private property, and to open the remainder to
+settlement by the whites. In pursuance of such a policy, the Dawes Act
+of 1887 provided for the allotment of a quarter-section to each head of
+a family, with the proviso that the owner should not sell the land
+within twenty-five years. This was intended to protect the Indian from
+shrewd "land-sharks." Citizenship was given with the ownership of the
+land, in the hope that a sort of assimilation might gradually take
+place, and earnest attempts were made to provide education for the
+red-man. Not all these hopes were realized, however, and the later
+Burke Act, 1906, attempted further protection.
+
+While the Indian was being restricted to a small part of the great
+region west of the Mississippi, there was being enacted on the plains
+one of the most picturesque of all American dramas. Beyond the settled
+parts of the states just west of the "Father of Waters," bounded north
+and south by Canada and the Rio Grande, and extending west to the Rocky
+Mountain foot-hills, lay a huge empire of rolling territory. It was
+grass-covered, but lacked sufficient rainfall to make it fertile, so
+that it was considered, as part of it had early been called, "the great
+American desert."
+
+Cattle turned loose long before by Spanish ranchers down in the
+Southwest had multiplied, spread out over the plains, and run
+wild--wild as Texas steers. A combination of circumstances disclosed
+the fact that these cattle could be improved by breeding, corraled and
+driven north over the "Long Trail," to be slaughtered in Omaha, Kansas
+City, St. Louis and Chicago for the people of eastern cities. The
+round-up, when the cattle were collected; the drive, under command of
+the boss and his cow-boys,
+
+    loose in the unfenced blue riding the sunset rounds;
+
+the great ranches in the North, where the herds were fattened for the
+market;--all this formed the background of an attractive romance.
+Obviously, however, the drive was dependent on great stretches of open
+country, with free grazing and free access to water, and it is also
+manifest that these conditions could not long endure in the face of
+constant westward migration. Homesteaders followed the railroads out
+across the plains, and the cheapening of wire fence led to the
+enclosure of great farms including the best grazing lands and the water
+supply. By 1890, therefore, the great drives were a tale that is told.
+The less romantic packing business remained, however; ranches supplied
+the cattle, the railroads transported them, and improvements in
+refrigerating and canning made possible another development in domestic
+and foreign trade.
+
+In addition to the expansion of the several economic interests of the
+various sections of the country, inventions and improvements were
+taking place which affected the general problems of production and
+distribution. Improvements in machinery saved forty to eighty per cent.
+of the time and labor demanded in the production of important
+manufactured goods. Cheapened steel affected all kinds of industry. The
+development of steam-power and the beginnings of the practical use of
+electricity for power and light multiplied the effectiveness of human
+hands or added to human comfort. Cheaper and quicker transportation
+almost revolutionized the distribution of economic goods. The increased
+use of the telegraph and cable shortened distances and brought together
+producers and consumers that had in earlier times been weeks of travel
+apart.
+
+The necessarily statistical character of an account of economic
+development should not obscure the meaning of its details. Increased
+population, with its horde of incoming aliens, created a demand for
+standing room, necessitated westward expansion, and made the West more
+than ever a new country with new problems. The growth of agriculture
+enlarged a class that had not hitherto been as influential as it was
+destined to be, and brought into politics the economic needs of the
+farmer. Manufacturing brought great wealth into the hands of a few,
+created an increasing demand for protective tariffs and gave rise to
+strikes and other industrial problems. The concentration of especial
+interests in especial sections made likely the emergence of sectional
+antagonisms. Back of tariff and finance, therefore, back of
+transportation and labor, of new political parties and revolts in the
+old ones, of the great strikes and the increasing importance of some of
+the sections, lay the economic foundations of the new era.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+No thorough study of the economic history of the United States after
+the Civil War has yet been made. E.L. Bogart, _Economic History of the
+United States_ (1907), and various later editions, is the best single
+volume; E.E. Sparks, _National Development_ (1907), is useful. On the
+South, consult articles by St. G.L. Sioussat, in _History Teachers'
+Magazine_ (Sept., Oct., 1916); P.A. Bruce, _Rise of the New South_
+(1905); J.C. Ballagh (ed.), _South in the Building of the Nation_
+(1909), vol. VI; M.B. Hammond, _Cotton Industry_ (1897). R.P. Porter,
+_West from the Census of 1880_ (1882), is a useful compendium. The
+Plains in the day of the cowboy are well described in Emerson Hough,
+_Passing of the Frontier_ (1918); Emerson Hough, _Story of the Cowboy_
+(1898); F.L. Paxson, _Last American Frontier_ (1910); and F.L. Paxson,
+"The Cow Country," in _American Historical Review_, Oct., 1916. N.A.
+Miles, _Serving the Republic_ (1911), contains reminiscences of Indian
+conflicts. On the Far West, in addition to Porter, Hough and Paxson,
+Katharine Coman, _Economic Beginnings of the Far West_ (2 vols., 1912);
+H.K. White, _Union Pacific Railway_ (1898); L.H. Haney, _Congressional
+History of Railways_ (2 vols., 1908-1910); S.E. White, _The
+Forty-Niners_ (1918).
+
+There is also an abundance of useful illustrative fiction, such as:
+Bret Harte, _Luck of Roaring Camp_, and other stories (Far West);
+Edward Eggleston, _Hoosier Schoolmaster_ (Indiana); W.D. Howells,
+_Rise of Silas Lapham_ (New England); G.W. Cable, _Old Creole Days_
+(New Orleans); C.E. Craddock, _In the Tennessee Mountains_; F.H.
+Smith, _Colonel Carter_ (Virginia); Hamlin Garland, _Main Travelled
+Roads_ and _Son of the Middle Border_ (Middle West); P.L. Ford, _Hon.
+Peter Sterling_ (New York); S.E. White, _Gold_ (California); and
+_Riverman_ (Lake Superior lumber); John Hay, _Breadwinners_ (industrial).
+
+For other references to economic aspects of the period, see chapters
+IX, XI, XIV.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The ratio was 151,912 but, by a provision of the Constitution,
+states are given a representative even if they do not contain the
+requisite number.
+
+[2] The most important advances in municipal street railway
+transportation were made between 1875 and 1890. In 1876 New York began
+the construction of an overhead or elevated railway on which trains
+were drawn by small locomotives. The first electric street railways
+were operated in Richmond, Va., and in Baltimore. Electric street
+lighting was introduced in San Francisco in 1879.
+
+[3] Hamlin Garland, _Main Travelled Roads_, portrays the hardships of
+western farm life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND OF THE NEW ISSUES
+
+Powerful as economic forces were from 1865 to 1890, they did not alone
+determine the direction of American progress during those years.
+Different individuals and different sections of the country reacted
+differently to the same economic facts; a formula that explained a
+phenomenon satisfactorily to one group, carried no conviction to
+another; political parties built up their platforms on economic
+self-interest, and yet they sometimes had their ideals; theories that
+seemed to explain economic development were found to be inadequate and
+were replaced by others; and practices that had earlier been regarded
+with indifference began to offend the public sense of good taste or
+morals or justice, and gave way to more enlightened standards. Some
+understanding is necessary, therefore, of the more common theories,
+ideals, creeds and practices, because they supplemented the economic
+foundations that underlay American progress for a quarter century after
+the war.
+
+Since the Republican party was almost continuously in power during this
+period, its composition, spirit and ideals were fundamental in
+political history. Throughout the North, and especially in the
+Northeast, the intellectual and prosperous classes, the capitalists and
+manufacturers, were more likely to be found in the Republican party
+than among the Democrats. In fact such party leaders as Senator George
+F. Hoar went so far as to assert that the organization comprised the
+manufacturers and skilled laborers of the East, the soldiers, the
+church members, the clergymen, the school-teachers, the reformers and
+the men who were doing the great work of temperance, education and
+philanthropy. The history of the party, also, was no small factor in
+its successes. Many northerners had cast their first ballot in the
+fifties, with all the zeal of crusaders; they looked back upon the
+beginnings of Republicanism as they might have remembered the origin of
+a sacred faith; they thought of their party as the body which had
+abolished slavery and restored the Union; and they treasured the names
+of its Lincoln, its Seward, its Sumner and Grant and Sherman. The
+Republican party, wrote Edward MacPherson in 1888, in a history of the
+organization, is
+
+    both in the purity of its doctrines, the beneficent sweep of its
+    measures, in its courage, its steadfastness, its fidelity, in its
+    achievements and in its example, the most resplendent political
+    organization the world has ever seen.
+
+Senator Hoar declared that no party in history, not even that which
+inaugurated the Constitution, had ever accomplished so much in so short
+a time. It had been formed, he said, to prevent the extension of
+slavery into the territories, but the "providence of God imposed upon
+it far larger duties." The Republican party gave "honest, wise, safe,
+liberal, progressive American counsel" and the Democrats "unwise,
+unsafe, illiberal, obstructive, un-American counsel." He remembered the
+Republican nominating convention of 1880 as a scene of "indescribable
+sublimity," comparable in "grandeur and impressiveness to the mighty
+torrent of Niagara."
+
+During the generation after the war the recollection of the struggle
+was fresh in men's minds and its influence was a force in party
+councils. The Democrats were looked upon as having sympathized with the
+"rebellion" and having been the party of disunion. In campaign after
+campaign the people were warned not to admit to power the party which
+had been "traitor" to the Union. Roscoe Conkling, the most influential
+politician in New York, declared in 1877 that the Democrats wished to
+regain power in order to use the funds in the United States Treasury to
+repay Confederate war debts and to provide pensions for southern
+soldiers. As late even as 1888 the nation was urged to recollect that
+the Democratic party had been the "mainstay and support of the
+Rebellion," while the Republicans were the "party that served the
+Nation."
+
+At a later time it was pointed out that the party had not been founded
+solely on idealism; that the adherence of Pennsylvania to the party,
+for example, was due at least in a measure to Republican advocacy of a
+protective tariff; that Salmon P. Chase and Edwin M. Stanton, two of
+the leading members of Lincoln's cabinet had been Democrats; and that
+Lincoln's second election and the successful outcome of the war had
+been due partly to the support of his political opponents. As time went
+on, also, some of the leaders of the Republican party declared that its
+original ideals had become obscured in more practical considerations.
+They felt that abuses had grown up which had been little noticed
+because of the necessity of keeping in power that party which they
+regarded as the only patriotic one. They asserted that many of the
+managers had become arrogant and corrupt. All this helped to explain
+the strength of such revolts as that of the Liberal Republican movement
+of 1872. Nevertheless, during the greater part of the twenty-five years
+after the war, hosts of Republicans cherished such a picture as that
+drawn by Senator Hoar and Edward MacPherson, and it was that picture
+which held them within the party and made patriotism and Republicanism
+synonymous terms.
+
+These Republicans, however, who took the more critical attitude toward
+their party formed the core of the "Mugwump" or Independent movement.
+Their philosophy was simple. They believed that there ought to be a
+political element which was not rigidly controlled by the discipline of
+party organization, which would act upon its own judgment for the
+public interest, and which should be a reminder to both parties that
+neither could venture upon mischievous policies without endangering its
+control over the machinery of government. Theoretically, at least, the
+Independent believed that it was more important that government be well
+administered than that it be administered by one set of men or another.
+The weakness of this group, aside from its small size, was its
+impatience and impracticability. By nature the Independent was an
+individualist, forming his own opinion and holding it with tenacity. In
+such a body there could not be long-continued cooperation or singleness
+of purpose; each new problem caused new decisions resulting in the
+break-up of the group and the formation of new alignments. The
+Independent group, therefore, varied in strength from campaign to
+campaign. To the typical party worker, who looked upon politics as a
+warfare for the spoils of office, the Independent was variously
+denounced as a deserter, a traitor, an apostate and a guerilla
+deploying between the lines and foraging now on one side and now on the
+other. To the party wheel-horse, independent voting seemed
+impracticable, and the atmosphere of reform too "highly scented."
+
+The Democrats, laboring under the disadvantage of a reputation for
+disloyalty during the war, and kept out of power for most of the time
+during the period, were forced into a defensive position where they
+could complain or criticize, but not present a program of constructive
+achievement. They denounced the election of 1876 as a great "fraud";
+they looked upon the Republicans as the organ of those who demanded
+class advantages; they condemned the party as wasteful, corrupt and
+extravagant in administration, careless of the distress of the masses,
+and desirous of increasing the authority of the federal government at
+the expense of the powers of the states. Their own mission they felt to
+be the constant assertion of the opposite principles of government and
+administration. They felt that they in particular represented
+government by the people for the equal good of all classes. In
+conformity to what they believed to be the principles of Jefferson and
+Jackson they professed faith in the capacity of the plain people. They
+advocated frugality and economy in government expenditure and looked
+with alarm on any extension of federal power that invaded the
+traditional domain of local activity.
+
+The intensification of party spirit and party loyalty, which was so
+typical of the times, "delivered the citizen more effectually, bound
+hand and foot, into the power of the party embodied in its
+Organization." The organization, meanwhile, was being improved and
+strengthened. Its permanent National Committee which had existed from
+_ante-bellum_ days, was supplemented in both parties immediately after
+the war by the congressional committee, whose mission it was to carry
+the elections for the House of Representatives. Increased attention was
+paid to state and local organizations. Party conventions in states and
+counties chose delegates to national conventions and nominated
+candidates for office. State, county and town committees raised money,
+employed speakers, distributed literature, formed torch-light companies
+to march in party processions and, most important of all, got out the
+voters on election day. By such means the National Committee was
+enabled to keep in close touch with the rank and file of the party, and
+so complete did the organization become that it deserved and won the
+name, "the machine."
+
+The master-spirit of the machine was usually the "Boss," a professional
+politician who generally did not himself hold elective office or show
+concern in constructive programs of legislation or in the public
+welfare. Instead, his interests lay in winning elections; dividing the
+offices among the party workers; distributing profitable contracts for
+public work; procuring the passage of legislation desired by industrial
+or railroad companies, or blocking measures objected to by them. A
+vivid picture of the activities of the boss in New York, drawn by Elihu
+Root, will serve to portray conditions in many states and cities from
+1865 to 1890:
+
+    From the days of Fenton, and Conkling, and Arthur, and Cornell,
+    and Platt, from the days of David B. Hill, down to the present
+    time, the government of the state has presented two different lines
+    of activity, one of the constitutional and statutory officers of
+    the state, and the other of the party leaders,--they call them
+    party bosses. They call the system--I do not coin the phrase, I
+    adopt it because it carries its own meaning--the system they call
+    "invisible government." For I do not remember how many years, Mr.
+    Conkling was the supreme ruler in this state; the governor did not
+    count, the legislatures did not count; comptrollers and secretaries
+    of state and what not, did not count. It was what Mr. Conkling
+    said; and in a great outburst of public rage he was pulled down.
+
+    Then Mr. Platt ruled the state; for nigh upon twenty years he ruled
+    it. It was not the governor; it was not the legislature; it was not
+    any elected officers; it was Mr. Platt. And the capitol was not
+    here (in Albany); it was at 49 Broadway; with Mr. Platt and his
+    lieutenants. It makes no difference what name you give, whether you
+    call it Fenton or Conkling or Cornell or Arthur or Platt, or by the
+    names of men now living. The ruler of the state during the greater
+    part of the forty years of my acquaintance with the state
+    government has not been any man authorized by the constitution or
+    by the law.[1]
+
+Under such conditions, corruption was naturally a commonplace in
+politics. In the campaigns, the party managers were too often men to
+whom "nothing was dreadful but defeat." At every Presidential election,
+immense sums of money were poured into the most important doubtful
+states--Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Indiana. Twenty to
+seventy-five dollars was said to have been the price of a vote in
+Indiana in 1880; and ten to fifteen per cent. of the vote in
+Connecticut was thought to be purchasable. In New York ballot-box
+stuffing and repeating were the rule in sections of the city. Employers
+exerted a less crude but equally efficacious pressure upon their
+employees to vote "right." Municipal government also was often
+characterized by that extreme of corruption which called out the scorn
+of writers on public affairs. The New York _Times_ complained in 1877
+that the government of the city was no more a popular government than
+Turkish rule in Bulgaria, and that if the Tammany leaders did not
+collect revenue with the horse-whip and sabre, it was because the forms
+of law afforded a means that was pleasanter, easier and quite as
+effective.
+
+Federal officials, it must be admitted, did not set a high standard for
+local officers to follow. During Grant's administration five judges of
+a United States Court were driven from office by threats of
+impeachment; members of the Committee on Military Affairs in the House
+of Representatives sold their privilege of selecting young men to be
+educated at West Point; and candidates for even the highest offices in
+the gift of the nation were sometimes men whose political past would
+not bear the light of day. More difficult to overcome was the lack of a
+decent sense of propriety among many public officers. Members of the
+Senate practiced before the Supreme Court, the justices of which they
+had an important share in appointing; senators and representatives
+traded in the securities of railroads which were seeking favors at the
+hands of Congress; and even in the most critical circles, corrupt
+practices were condoned on the ground that all the most reputable
+people were more or less engaged in similar activities. Most difficult
+of all to understand was the unfaltering support accorded by men of the
+utmost integrity to party leaders whose evil character was known on all
+sides. Men who would not themselves be guilty of dishonest acts and who
+vehemently condemned such deeds among their political opponents, failed
+to make any energetic protest within their own ranks for fear that they
+might bring about a party split and thus give the "enemy" a victory.
+
+The political practices which prevailed after 1865 for at least a
+quarter of a century were notoriously bad. Yet the student of the
+period must be sensitive to higher aspirations and better practices
+among many of the politicians, and among the rank and file of the
+people. George F. Hoar, John Sherman, Rutherford B. Hayes, Grover
+Cleveland and many others were incorruptible. The exposure of
+scandalous actions on the part of certain high officials blasted their
+careers, indicating that the body of the people would not condone
+dishonesty, and the parties found it advisable to accept the
+resignations of some of their more notorious campaign managers.
+Moreover, the American people of all classes were a political people,
+with a capacity for political organization and activity, and with a
+passion for change. The cruder forms of corruption were successfully
+combated, and the popular, as well as the official sense of good taste
+and propriety gradually reached higher levels.
+
+Another fundamental political consideration after the Civil War was the
+gradual reduction of the power of the executive department. During the
+war the authority exercised by President Lincoln had risen to great
+heights, partly because of his personal characteristics and partly
+because the exigencies of the times demanded quick executive action.
+After the conflict was past, however, the legislative body naturally
+reasserted itself. Moreover, the quarrel between President Johnson and
+Congress, as has been shown, took the form of a contest for control
+over appointments to office and especially over appointments to the
+cabinet. The resulting impeachment, although it did not result in
+conviction, brought about a distinct shrinkage in executive prestige.
+Grant was so inexperienced in politics and so naive in his judgments of
+his associates that he fell completely into the power of the machine
+and failed to revive the former importance and independence of his
+office.
+
+The ascendancy which thus slipped out of the hands of the executive was
+seized by the Senate, where it remained for a long period, despite
+efforts on the part of the president and the House of Representatives
+to prevent it. So remarkable and continuous a domination is not to be
+explained by a single formula. The long term of the members of the
+Senate, the traditional high reputation of the body and the undoubted
+ability of many of its members assisted in upholding its prestige. Its
+small size as compared with the House of Representatives gave it
+greater flexibility. Furthermore, certain Senate practices were
+instrumental in giving that body its primacy. Under the provisions of
+the Constitution the Senate has power to ratify or reject the
+nominations of the executive to many important positions within his
+gift, and by the close of reconstruction it had acquired a firm control
+over such appointments. "Senatorial courtesy" bade every member,
+regardless of party, to concur with the decision of the senators from
+any state with regard to the appointments in which they were
+interested. When, therefore, the executive wished to change conditions
+in a given office he must have the acquiescence of the senators from
+the state in which the change was to occur. If he did not, the entire
+body would rally to the support of their colleagues and refuse to
+confirm the objectionable nominations. With such a weapon the Senate
+was usually able to force the executive into submission, or at least to
+make reforms extremely difficult. In Senator Hoar's suggestive words,
+senators went to the White House to give advice, not to receive it.
+
+In connection with revenue legislation the Senate seized the leadership
+by means of an evasion of the Constitution. According to the terms of
+that document, all bills for raising revenue must originate in the
+House of Representatives, but the Senate may propose amendments.
+Relying upon this power the Senate constantly revised measures to the
+extent of changing their character completely and even of grafting part
+or all of one proposal upon the title of another. In one case, early in
+the period, the Senate "amended" a House bill of four lines which
+repealed the tariff on tea and coffee; the "amendment" consisted of
+twenty pages, containing a general revision of customs duties and
+internal revenue taxes. At a later time the Senate Finance Committee
+drew up a tariff bill even before Congress had assembled.
+
+The primacy of the Senate quickly led to recognition of the value of
+seats in it. Influential state politicians sought election in order to
+control the patronage. Competent judges in the early nineties declared,
+for example, that the senators from New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland
+were all of this type. Another considerable fraction was composed of
+powerful business men, directors in large corporations, who found it to
+their advantage to be in this most influential law-making body and who
+were known as oil or silver or lumber senators. So was laid the
+foundation of the complaint that the Senate was a millionaires' club.
+And so, too, it came about that much of state politics revolved about
+the choice of members for the upper house, for senators were elected by
+the state legislatures until long after 1890. The power of the House of
+Representatives, in contrast with the Senate, was relatively small
+except during the single session 1889-1891, when Thomas B. Reed was in
+control, although individual members sometimes wielded considerable
+influence.
+
+Somewhat comparable to the shift in the center of power from one
+federal authority to another, was the change which took place in the
+relative strength of the state and national governments. This transfer
+was most clearly seen in the decisions of the Supreme Court in cases
+involving the Fourteenth Amendment.
+
+Previous to 1868, when the Amendment became part of the Constitution,
+comparatively little state legislation relating to private property had
+been reviewed by the Court. Ever since the establishment of the federal
+government, cases involving the constitutionality of state legislation
+had been appealed to United States Courts when they had been objected
+to as running counter to the clauses of the Constitution forbidding
+states to enact bills of attainder, _ex post facto_ laws, or laws
+impairing the obligation of contracts. Their number, however, had been
+relatively small, and normally the acts of state legislatures had not
+been reviewed by federal courts; or in other words the tendency had
+been to preserve the individuality and strength of the several states.
+After the war, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments placed
+additional prohibitions on the states, and the decisions of the Supreme
+Court determined the meaning and extent of the added provisions. The
+interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment was especially important.
+Most significant was the interpretation of Section 1, which reads as
+follows:
+
+    All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject
+    to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States
+    and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or
+    enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities
+    of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any
+    person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
+    nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection
+    of the laws.
+
+So vague and inclusive were these phrases that many important questions
+immediately sprang from them. What were the privileges and immunities
+of the citizen? Did those of the citizen of the United States differ
+from those of the citizen of a state? Was a corporation a person? What
+was liberty? What was due process of law? Hitherto the protection of
+life, liberty and property had rested, in the main, upon the individual
+states, and cases involving these subjects had been decided by state
+courts. Were the state courts to be superseded, in relation to these
+vital subjects, by the United States Supreme Court?
+
+It has already been shown that the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment
+was the protection of the recently freed negro. The Thirteenth
+Amendment had forbidden slavery, but the southern states had passed
+apprentice and vagrancy laws which reduced the negro to a condition
+closely resembling slavery in certain of its aspects. The Fourteenth
+Amendment was designed to remedy such a condition by forbidding the
+states to abridge the privileges of citizens, or to deprive persons of
+life, liberty or property. Were the very vague phrases of the Amendment
+merely in keeping with the vagueness of many of the other grants of
+power in the Constitution, or were they designedly expressed in such a
+way as to accomplish something more than the protection of the
+freedman?
+
+The first decision of the Supreme Court involving the Amendment was
+that given in the Slaughter House Cases in 1873, which did not concern
+the negro in any way. In 1869 the legislature of Louisiana had given a
+corporation in that state the exclusive right to slaughter cattle
+within a large area, and had forbidden other persons to construct
+slaughter-houses within the limits of this region, but the corporation
+was to allow any other persons to use its buildings and equipment,
+charging fixed fees for the privilege. Cases were brought before the
+courts to determine whether the law violated that part of the
+Fourteenth Amendment which forbids a state to pass laws abridging the
+privileges of citizens and taking away their property without due
+process of law. By a vote of five to four the Court upheld the
+constitutionality of the statute.
+
+The majority held that the purpose of the Amendment was primarily the
+protection of the negro. This purpose, the Court thought, lay at the
+foundation of all three of the war amendments and without it no one of
+them would ever have been suggested. The majority did not believe that
+the Congress which passed the amendments or the state legislatures
+which ratified them intended to transfer the protection of the great
+body of civil rights from the states to the federal government. Neither
+did they think that due process of law had been interfered with by the
+Louisiana legislation. In reply to the objection that the
+slaughter-house law violated the clause, "nor shall any State deny to
+any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,"
+the majority declared:
+
+    We doubt very much whether any action of a State not directed by
+    way of discrimination against the negroes as a class, or on account
+    of their race, will ever be held to come within the purview of this
+    provision.
+
+In brief, then, the majority was inclined to preserve the balance
+between the states and the national government very much as it had
+been. It believed that the amendments should be applied mainly if not
+wholly to the fortunes of the freedman and that judicial review of such
+legislation as that in Louisiana concerning the slaughter of cattle
+should end in the state courts.
+
+For a time the interpretation of the Court remained that given by the
+majority in this decision. When western state legislatures passed laws
+regulating the rates which railroads and certain other corporations
+might legally charge for their services, the Court at first showed an
+inclination to allow the states a free hand. Regulation of this sort,
+it was held, did not deprive the citizen or the corporation of property
+without due process of law.
+
+There were indications, nevertheless, that the opinion of the Court was
+undergoing a change as time elapsed. An interesting prelude to the
+change was an argument by Roscoe Conkling in San Mateo County _v._
+Southern Pacific Railroad Company in 1882. Conkling was acting as
+attorney for the railroad and was attempting to show that the roads
+were protected, by the Fourteenth Amendment, from state laws which
+taxed their property unduly. Conkling argued that the Amendment had not
+been designed merely for the protection of the freedman, and in order
+to substantiate his contention, he produced a manuscript copy of the
+journal of the Congressional committee that had drawn up the proposals
+which later became the Fourteenth Amendment. He had himself been a
+member of the committee. The journal, it should be noticed, had never
+hitherto been utilized in public.
+
+Conkling stated that at the time when the Amendment was being drafted,
+individuals and companies were appealing for congressional protection
+against state taxation laws, and that it had been the purpose of the
+committee to frame an amendment which should protect whites as well as
+blacks and operate in behalf of corporations as well as individuals. In
+other words, Conkling was making the interesting contention that his
+committee had had a far wider and deeper purpose in mind in phrasing
+the Amendment than had been commonly understood and that the demand for
+the protection of the negro from harsh southern legislation had been
+utilized to answer the request of business for federal assistance. The
+safety of the negro was put to the fore; the purpose of the committee
+to strengthen the legal position of the corporations was kept behind
+the doors of the committee-room; and the phrases of the Amendment had
+been designedly made general in order to accomplish both purposes. The
+sequel appeared four years later, in 1886, when the case Santa Clara
+County _v._ Southern Pacific Railroad brought the question before the
+Court. At this time Mr. Chief Justice Waite announced the opinion of
+himself and his colleagues that a corporation was a "person" within the
+meaning of the Amendment and thus entitled to its protection.
+
+Later decisions, such as that of 1889 in Chicago, Milwaukee and St.
+Paul Railway Company _v._ Minnesota, left no doubt of the fact that the
+Court had come to look upon the Fourteenth Amendment as much more than
+a protective device for the negro. The full meaning of the change,
+however, did not appear until after 1890, and is a matter for later
+consideration. In brief, then, before 1890, the Supreme Court was
+content in the main to avoid the review of state legislation concerning
+the ownership and control of private property, a practice which lodged
+great powers in the state courts and legislatures. By that year,
+however, it was manifest that the Court had undergone a complete change
+and that it had adopted a theory which would greatly enlarge the
+functions of the federal courts, at the expense of the states. The
+medium through which the change came was the Fourteenth Amendment.
+
+The demand on the part of business men for protection from state
+legislation, which Roscoe Conkling described in the San Mateo case,
+arose from their belief in the economic doctrine of _laissez faire_.
+Believers in this theory looked upon legislation which regulated
+business as a species of meddling or interference. The individual, they
+thought, should be allowed to do very much as he pleased, entering into
+whatever business he wished, and buying and selling where and how and
+at what prices suited his interests, stimulated and controlled by
+competition, but without direction or restriction by the government. It
+was believed that the amazing success of the American business pioneer
+was proof of the wisdom of the _laissez faire_ philosophy. The economic
+giant and hero was the self-made man.
+
+Economic abuses, according to the _laissez faire_ philosophy, would
+normally be corrected by economic law, chiefly through competition. If,
+for illustration, any industry demanded greater returns for its
+products than proved to be just in the long run, unattached capital
+would be attracted into that line of production, competition would
+ensue, prices would be again lowered and justice would result. Every
+business man would exert himself to discover that employment which
+would bring greatest return for the capital which he had at his
+command. He would therefore choose such an industry and so direct it as
+to make his product of the greatest value possible. Hence although he
+sought his own interests, he would in fact promote the interest of the
+public.
+
+Indeed the philosopher of _laissez faire_ was sincerely convinced that
+his system ultimately benefited society as a whole. Andrew Carnegie, an
+iron and steel manufacturer, presented this thesis in an article in the
+_North American Review_ in 1889. The reign of individualism, he held,
+was the order of the day, was inevitable and desirable. Under it the
+poorer classes were better off than they had ever been in the world's
+history. "We start then," he said, "with a condition of affairs under
+which the best interests of the race are promoted, but which inevitably
+gives wealth to the few. Thus far, accepting conditions as they exist,
+the situation can be surveyed and pronounced good." Let the man of
+ability, he advised, accumulate a large fortune and then discharge his
+duty to the public through philanthropic enterprises, such as the
+foundation of libraries. Society would be more highly benefited in this
+way than by allowing the millions to circulate in small sums through
+the hands of the masses. Statistical studies of the distribution of
+wealth seemed to justify Carnegie's judgment that the existing tendency
+was for wealth to settle into the hands of the few. In 1893 it was
+estimated that three one-hundredths of one per cent. of the people
+owned twenty per cent. of the nation's wealth.
+
+Although the _laissez faire_ theory was dominant later even than 1890,
+it was apparent before that time that its sway was being challenged.
+The adherents of _laissez faire_ themselves did not desire to have the
+doctrine applied fully and evenly. They demanded government protection
+for their enterprises through the medium of high protective import
+tariffs, and they sought subsidies and grants of public land for the
+railroads. Naturally it was not long before the classes whose desires
+conflicted with the manufacturing and railroad interests began in their
+turn to seek aid from the government. The people of the Middle West,
+for example, were not content to allow the railroad companies to
+control their affairs and establish their rates without let or
+hindrance from the state legislatures. The factory system in the
+Northeast, likewise, raised questions which were directed toward the
+foundations of _laissez faire_. Under the factory regime employers
+found it advantageous to open their doors to women and children and to
+keep them at machines for long, hard days which unfitted the women for
+domestic duties and for raising families, and which stunted the
+children in body and mind. Out of these circumstances arose a demand
+for restrictions on the freedom of employers to fix the conditions
+under which their employees worked.
+
+Opposition to an industrial system based upon _laissez faire_ would
+have been even greater during the seventies and eighties if it had not
+been for two sources of national wealth--the public lands and the
+supplies of lumber, ore, coal and similar gifts of nature. When the
+supply of land in the West was substantially unlimited, a sufficient
+part of the population could relieve its economic distresses by
+migrating, as multitudes did. Such huge stores of natural wealth were
+being discovered that there seemed to be no end to them. But in the
+late eighties when the best public lands were nearly exhausted and the
+need of more careful husbanding of the national resources became
+apparent to far-sighted men, advanced thinkers began to question the
+validity of an economic theory which allowed quite so much freedom to
+individuals. For the time, however, such questions did not arise in the
+minds of the masses.
+
+As the _laissez faire_ doctrine underlay the problem of the relation
+between government and industry, so the quantity theory of money was
+fundamental in the monetary question. According to the quantity theory,
+money is like any other commodity in that its value rises and falls
+with variations in the supply and demand for it. Suppose, for example,
+that a given community is entirely isolated from the rest of the world.
+It possesses precisely enough pieces of money to satisfy the needs of
+its people. Suddenly the number of pieces is doubled. The supply is
+twice as great as business requires. If no new elements enter into the
+situation, the value of each piece becomes half as great as before, its
+purchasing power is cut in two and prices double.[2]
+
+A bushel of potatoes that formerly sold for a dollar now sells at two
+dollars. A farmer who has mortgaged his farm for $1,000 and who relies
+upon his sales of potatoes to pay off his debt is highly benefited by
+the change, while the creditor is correspondingly harmed. The debtor is
+obliged to raise only half as many potatoes; the creditor receives
+money that buys half the commodities that could have been purchased
+with his money at the time of the loan.
+
+On the other hand, suppose the number of pieces of money is instantly
+halved and all other factors continue unchanged. There is now twice as
+great a demand for each piece, it becomes more desirable and will
+purchase more goods. Prices, that is to say, go down. Dollar potatoes
+now sell for fifty cents. The debtor farmer must grow twice as many
+potatoes as he had contemplated; the creditor finds that he receives
+money that has doubled in purchasing power.
+
+It has already been said that the quarter century after the war was, in
+the main, a period of falling prices. The farmer found the size of his
+mortgage, as measured in bushels of wheat and potatoes, growing
+steadily and relentlessly greater. The creditor received a return which
+purchased larger and larger quantities of commodities. The debtor class
+was mainly in the West; the creditors, mainly in the East. The
+westerners desired a larger quantity of money which would, as they
+believed, send prices upward; the East, depending upon similar
+reasoning, desired a contraction in supply. The former were called
+inflationists; the latter, contractionists. Much of the monetary
+history of the country after the Civil War was concerned with the
+attempt of the inflationists to expand the supply of currency, and the
+contractionists to prevent inflation.
+
+The intellectual background of the twenty-five years after the war, so
+far as it can be considered at this point, was to be found mainly in
+the development of education and the growth of the newspaper and
+periodical. Before the Civil War, except in the South, the old-time
+district school had given way, in most states, to graded elementary
+schools, supported by taxation. After the war the southern states made
+heroic efforts to revive education, in which they were aided by such
+northern benefactions as the Peabody Educational Fund of $2,000,000
+established in 1867. In the northern states the schools were greatly
+improved, free text-books became the rule, the free public high-schools
+replaced the former private academies, and normal schools for the
+training of teachers were established. The period was also marked by
+the foundation of scores of colleges and especially of the great state
+universities. The Morrill Act of July 2, 1862, had provided for a grant
+to each state of 30,000 acres of public land for every senator and
+representative in Congress to which the state was entitled. The land
+was to be used to promote education in the agricultural and mechanic
+arts, and in the natural sciences. The advantages of the law were
+quickly seen, and between 1865 and 1890 seventeen state universities
+were started, most of them in the Middle and Far West. Many of these
+underwent a phenomenal growth and had a great influence on the states
+in which they were established.
+
+The newspaper press was also undergoing a transformation in the quarter
+century after the war. The great expansion of the numbers and influence
+of American newspapers before and during that struggle had been due to
+the ability of individuals. James Gordon Bennett had founded the New
+York _Herald_, for example, in 1835, and from then on the _Herald_ had
+been "Bennett's paper." Similarly the _Tribune_ had represented Horace
+Greeley and the _Times_, Henry J. Raymond. The effect of the war was to
+develop technical resources in gathering news, to necessitate a larger
+scale of expenditure and a wider range of information, and to make a
+given issue the work of many men instead of one. Raymond died in 1869,
+Greeley and Bennett in 1872; and although the _Sun_ was the embodiment
+of Charles A. Dana until his death in 1897, the _Nation_ and the
+_Evening Post_ of Edwin L. Godkin until 1899, nevertheless the tendency
+was away from the newspaper which reflected an individual and toward
+that which represented a group; away from the editorial which expressed
+the views of a well-known writer, to the editorial page which combined
+the labors of many anonymous contributors. The financial basis of the
+newspaper also underwent a transition. As advertising became more and
+more general, the revenues of newspapers tended to depend more on the
+favor of the advertiser than upon the subscriber, giving the former a
+powerful although indirect influence on editorial policies.
+
+The influence of the press in politics was rapidly growing. A larger
+number of newspapers became sufficiently independent to attack abuses
+in both parties. The New York _Times_ and Thomas Nast's cartoons in
+_Harper's Weekly_ were most important factors in the overthrow of the
+Tweed Ring in New York City, and in the elections of 1884 and later,
+newspapers exerted an unusual power. Press associations in New York and
+the West led the way to the Associated Press, with its wide-spread
+cooperative resources for gathering news.
+
+As important as the character of the press, was the amount and
+distribution of its circulation. Between 1870 and 1890 the number of
+newspapers published and the aggregate circulation increased almost
+exactly threefold--about five times as fast as the population was
+growing. In the latter year the entire circulation for the country was
+over four and a half billion copies, of which about sixty per cent.
+were dailies. So great had been the growth of the press during the
+seventies that the census authorities in 1880 made a careful study of
+the statistical aspects of the subject. It appeared from this search
+that newspapers were published in 2,073 of the 2,605 counties in the
+Union. Without some such means of spreading information, it would have
+been impossible to conduct the great presidential campaigns, in which
+the entire country was educated in the tariff and other important
+issues.
+
+The expansion of the press is well exemplified by the use of the
+telegraph in the spread of information. When Lincoln was nominated for
+the presidency in 1860, a single telegraph operator was able to send
+out all the press matter supplied to him. In 1892 at the Democratic
+convention, the Western Union Telegraph Company had one hundred
+operators in the hall. Mechanical invention, meanwhile, was able to
+keep pace with the demand for news. The first Hoe press of 1847 had
+been so improved by 1871 that it printed ten to twelve thousand
+eight-page papers in an hour, and twenty-five years later the capacity
+had been increased between six and sevenfold.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+Nearly all material on party history is so partisan that it should be
+read with critical scepticism: Francis Curtis, _The Republican Party,
+1854-1904_ (2 vols., 1904); J.D. Long, _Republican Party_ (1888); for
+the Independent attitude, consult _Harper's Weekly_ during the campaign
+of 1884. As the Republicans were in power most of the time from
+1865-1913, there is more biographical and autobiographical material
+about Republicans than about Democratic leaders. Local studies of
+political conditions and the social structure of the parties are almost
+entirely lacking. On the personal side, the following are essential:
+G.F. Parker, _Writings and Speeches of Grover Cleveland_ (1892); T.E.
+Burton, _John Sherman_ (1906); J.B. Foraker, _Notes of a Busy Life_ (2
+vols., 1916), throws light on the ideals and practices of a politician;
+G.F. Hoar, _Autobiography of Seventy Years_ (2 vols., 1903), gives the
+New England Republican point of view; Rollo Ogden, _Life and Letters of
+E.L. Godkin_ (2 vols., 1907); G.F. Parker, _Recollections of Grover
+Cleveland_ (1909), is useful, but sketchy, there being as yet no
+thorough biography of Cleveland; T.C. Platt, _Autobiography_ (1910),
+interestingly portrays the philosophy of a machine politician, but
+should be read with care; John Sherman, _Recollections of Forty Years
+in House, Senate and Cabinet_ (2 vols., 1895); Edward Stanwood, _James
+G. Blaine_ (1905), is highly favorable to Blaine; W.M. Stewart,
+_Reminiscences_ (1908), is interesting, partisan and unreliable. For a
+general estimate of the autobiographical material of the period,
+consult _History Teachers' Magazine_ (later the _Historical Outlook_),
+"Recent American History Through the Actors' Eyes," March, 1916.
+
+Jesse Macy, _Party Organisation and Machinery_ (1904); M.G.
+Ostrogorski, _Democracy and Political Parties_ (2 vols., 1902), gives a
+keen and pessimistic account of American political practices in vol.
+II; J.A. Woodburn, _Political Parties and Party Problems in the United
+States_ (1903, and later editions) gives a succinct account in good
+temper.
+
+For the Fourteenth Amendment: C.G. Haines, _American Doctrine of
+Judicial Supremacy_ (1914); C.W. Collins, _The Fourteenth Amendment and
+the States_ (1912), is a careful study, which is critical of the
+prevailing later interpretation of the Amendment. The Slaughter House
+case, giving the earlier interpretation is in J.W. Wallace, _Cases
+argued and adjudged in the Supreme Court_ (Supreme Court Reports), XVI,
+36.
+
+L.H. Haney, _History of Economic Thought_ (1911), on _laissez faire_;
+J.L. Laughlin, _Principles of Money_ (1903); and Irving Fisher, _Why is
+the Dollar Shrinking_ (1914), present two sides of the quantity theory
+of money.
+
+Most useful on the development of education are F.P. Graves, _A History
+of Education in Modern Times_ (1913); and E.G. Dexter, _History of
+Education in the United States_ (1904).
+
+The growth of newspapers is described in _The Bookman_, XIV, 567-584,
+XV, 26-44; see also Rollo Ogden, _Life and Letters of Godkin_, already
+mentioned; G.H. Payne, _History of Journalism in the United States_
+(1920); J.M. Lee, _History of American Journalism_ (1917). The effects
+of education and the press on American social, economic and political
+life have not been subjected to thorough study.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] _Addresses on Government and Citizenship_, 202.
+
+[2] In practice, new elements do enter into the situation so that the
+theory requires much qualification. Cf. Taussig, _Principles of
+Economics_ (1915), I, ch. 18.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+THE NEW ISSUES
+
+Out of the economic and political circumstances which have just been
+described, there were emerging between 1865 and 1875 a wide variety of
+national problems. Such questions were those concerning the proper
+relation between the government and the railroads and industrial
+enterprises; the welfare of the agricultural and wage-earning classes;
+the assimilation of the hordes of immigrants; the conservation of the
+resources of the nation in lumber, minerals and oil; the tariff, the
+financial obligations of the government, the reform of the civil
+service, and a host of lesser matters. The animosities aroused by the
+war, however, and the insistent nature of the reconstruction question
+almost completely distracted attention from most of these problems.
+Only upon the tariff, finance and the civil service did the public
+interest focus long enough to effect results.
+
+The tariff problem has periodically been settled and unsettled since
+the establishment of the federal government. Just previous to the war
+a low protective tariff had been adopted, but the outbreak of the
+conflict had necessitated a larger income; and the passage of an
+internal revenue act, together with a higher protective tariff, had
+been the chief means adopted to meet the demand. By 1864 the country
+had found itself in need of still greater revenues, and again the
+internal and tariff taxes had been increased. These acts were in force
+at the close of the war. The internal revenue act levied taxes upon
+products, trades, and professions, upon liquors and tobacco, upon
+manufactures, auctions, slaughtered cattle, railroads, advertisements
+and a large number of smaller sources of income.
+
+The circumstances that had surrounded the framing and passage of the
+tariff act of 1864 had been somewhat peculiar. The need of the nation
+for revenue had been supreme and there had been no desire to stint
+the administration if funds could bring the struggle to a successful
+conclusion. Congress had been willing to levy almost any rates that
+anybody desired. The combination of a willingness among the legislators
+to raise rates to any height necessary for obtaining revenue, and a
+conviction on their part that high rates were for the good of the
+country brought about a situation eminently satisfactory to the
+protectionist element. There had been no time to spend in long
+discussions of the wisdom of the act and no desire to do so; and
+moreover the act had been looked upon as merely a temporary expedient.
+It is not possible to describe accurately the personal influences which
+surrounded the passage of the law. It is possible, however, to note
+that many industries had highly prospered under the war revenue
+legislation. Sugar refining had increased; whiskey distilling had fared
+well under the operation of the internal revenue laws; the demands of
+the army had given stimulus to the woolen mills, which had worked to
+capacity night and day; and the manufacture and use of sewing machines,
+agricultural implements and the like had been part of the industrial
+expansion of the times. Large fortunes had been made in the production
+of rifles, woolen clothing, cotton cloth and other commodities,
+especially when government contracts could be obtained. Naturally the
+tax-levying activities of Congress had tended to draw the business
+interests together to oppose or influence particular rates. The
+brewers, the cap and hat manufacturers, and others had objected to the
+taxes on their products; the National Association of Wool Manufacturers
+and the American Iron and Steel Association had been formed partly with
+the idea of influencing congressional tariff action.
+
+After the close of the war, the tariff, among other things, seemed to
+many to require an overhauling. Justin S. Morrill, a member of the
+House Committee on Ways and Means, and one of the framers of the act of
+1864, argued in favor of the protective system although he warned his
+colleagues:
+
+    At the same time it is a mistake of the friends of a sound tariff to
+    insist upon the extreme rates imposed during the war, if less will
+    raise the necessary revenue.... Whatever percentage of duties were
+    imposed upon foreign goods to cover internal taxes upon home
+    manufactures, should not now be claimed as the lawful prize of
+    protection where such taxes have been repealed.... The small
+    increase of the tariff for this reason on iron, salt, woolen, and
+    cottons can not be maintained except on the principle of obtaining a
+    proper amount of revenue.
+
+Sentiment was strong against the tariff in the agricultural parts of
+the West and especially in those sections not committed to
+wool-growing. Great personal influence was exerted on the side of
+"tariff-reform" by David A. Wells, a painstaking and able student of
+economic conditions who was appointed special commissioner of the
+revenue in 1866. As a result of his investigations he became converted
+from a believer in protection to the leader of the opposition, and his
+reports had a considerable influence in the formation of opinion in
+favor of revision. The American Free Trade League was formed and
+included such influential figures as Carl Schurz, Jacob D. Cox, Horace
+White, Edward Atkinson, E.L. Godkin, editor of _The Nation_, and many
+others. William B. Allison and James A. Garfield, both prominent
+Republican members of the House, were in favor of downward revision.
+
+In 1867 a bill providing for many reductions passed the Senate as an
+amendment to a House bill which proposed to raise rates. Far more than
+a majority in the House were ready to accept the Senate measure, but
+according to the rules it was necessary to obtain a two-thirds vote in
+order to get the amended bill before the House for action. This it was
+impossible to do. Nevertheless, the wool growers and manufacturers were
+able "through their large influence, persistent pressure and adroit
+management" to procure an act in the same session which increased the
+duties on wool and woolens far above the war rate. In 1869 the duties
+on copper were raised, as were those on steel rails, marble, flax and
+some other commodities in 1870.
+
+The growth of the Liberal Republican movement in 1872, with its
+advocacy of downward revision, frightened somewhat the protectionist
+leaders of the Republican organization. It was believed that a slight
+concession might prevent a more radical action, and just before the
+campaign a ten per cent reduction was brought about. In 1873 the
+industrial depression so lowered the revenues as to present a plausible
+opportunity for restoring duties to their former level in 1875, where
+they remained for nearly a decade.
+
+The lack of effective action on the part of the tariff reformers of
+both parties was due to a variety of causes. In the years immediately
+following the war, the Republicans in Congress were more interested in
+their quarrel with President Johnson than in tariff reform.
+Furthermore, the unpopular internal revenues were being quickly reduced
+between 1867 and 1872, and it was argued that a simultaneous reduction
+of import taxes would decrease the revenue too greatly. Moreover there
+was no solidarity among the Democrats, the South was discredited, and
+at first not fully represented. Wells was driven out of office in 1870,
+the Liberal Republican movement was a failure, the protected
+manufacturers knew precisely what they wanted, they knew how to achieve
+results and some of them were willing to employ methods that the
+reformers were above using. As time went on and the country was, in the
+main, rather prosperous, many people and especially the business men
+made up their minds that the war tariffs were a positive benefit to the
+country. For these reasons a war policy which had generally been
+considered a temporary expedient became a permanent political issue and
+a national problem.
+
+The positions of the two political parties on the tariff were not sharply
+defined during the ten years immediately following the war. The Democrats
+seemed naturally destined for the role of revisionists because of their
+party traditions, their support in the South--ordinarily a strong,
+low-tariff section--and because they were out of power when high tariffs
+were enacted. Yet the party was far from united on the subject. Some
+prominent leaders were frankly protectionists, such as Samuel J. Randall
+of Pennsylvania, who was Speaker of the House for two terms and part of
+another. The party platform ordinarily was silent or non-committal. In
+1868, for example, the Democratic tariff plank was wide and generous
+enough for a complete platform. The party stood for
+
+    a tariff for revenue upon foreign imports, and such equal taxation
+    under the internal revenue laws as will afford incidental
+    protection to domestic manufacturers, and as will, without
+    impairing the revenue, impose the least burden upon, and best
+    promote and encourage, the great industrial interests of the
+    country.
+
+In 1872 the "straight" Democrats, that is those who refused to support
+Greeley, were for a "judicious" revenue tariff; but in 1876 the party
+denounced the existing system as "a masterpiece of injustice, inequality
+and false pretence." Democratic state platforms were even less firm; in
+fact, the eastern states seemed committed to protection. In Congress,
+however, most of the opposition to the passage of tariff acts was
+supplied by the Democrats.
+
+The attitude of the Republicans was more important, because theirs was
+the party in power. There was, as has been shown, a strong tariff-reform
+element, and in some of the conventions care seems to have been taken
+to avoid any definite statement of principles--doubtless on account of
+the well-known differences in the party--and for many years there was
+no clearly defined statement of the attitude of the organization. Yet
+it must be emphasized that Republicans were usually protectionists in
+the practical business of voting in Congress. Skillful Republican leaders
+gave way a little in the face of opposition but regained the lost ground
+and a little more, after the opposition retreated. Since the war-tariffs
+had been passed under Republican rule, it was easy to clothe them with
+the sanctity of party accomplishments.
+
+Fully as technical as the tariff problem, and presenting a wider range
+for the legislative activities of Congress, was the financial situation
+in which the country found itself in 1865. The total expenditures from
+June 30, 1861 to June 30, 1865 had been somewhat more than three and
+one-third billions of dollars, an amount almost double the aggregate
+disbursements from 1789 to 1861. Officers accustomed to a modest budget
+and used to working with machinery and precedents which were adapted to
+the day of small things, had been suddenly called upon to work under
+revolutionized conditions. Prom the point of view of expense, merely,
+one year's operations during the war had been equivalent to thirty-six
+times the average outlay of the years hitherto. As has been shown, the
+major part of the income necessary for meeting the increased expenses
+had been obtained by means of the tariff and internal revenue taxes.
+
+The tariff worked to the advantage of many people, and its retention
+was insistently demanded by them; the internal revenue taxes were
+disliked, and few things were more popular after the war than their
+reduction. In 1866 an act was passed which lowered the internal revenue
+by an amount estimated at forty-five to sixty millions of dollars. In
+succeeding years further reductions were made, so that by 1870 the
+scale was low enough to withstand attacks until 1883.
+
+The national debt was the source of more complicated questions. It was
+composed, on June 30, 1866, of a variety of loans carrying five
+different rates of interest and maturing in nineteen different periods
+of time. Parts of it had been borrowed in times of distress at high
+rates; but after the struggle was successfully ended, the credit of the
+government was good, and enough money could be obtained at low interest
+charges to cancel the old debt and establish a new one with the interest
+account correspondingly reduced. Hugh McCulloch and John Sherman as
+secretaries of the treasury were most influential in accomplishing this
+transition, and by 1879 the process was completed and a yearly saving of
+fourteen million dollars effected.
+
+Differences of opinion concerning the kind of money with which the
+principal of the debt should be paid brought this matter into the
+field of politics. When the earliest loans had been contracted, no
+stipulation had been made in regard to the medium of payment. Later
+loans had been made redeemable in "coin," without specifying either
+gold or silver; while still later bonds had been sold under condition
+that the interest be paid in coin, although nothing had been said about
+the principal. There was considerable demand for redemption of the
+bonds in paper money, except where there was agreement to the contrary,
+although the previous custom of the government had been to pay in coin.
+The proposal to repay the debt in paper currency, the "Ohio idea,"
+gained considerable ground in the Middle West, as has already been
+explained. In the campaign of 1868 the Democratic platform advocated
+the Ohio plan. Some of the Republicans, like Thaddeus Stevens, agreed
+with this policy; some of the Democrats opposed it--Horatio Seymour,
+the presidential candidate, among them. Nevertheless the Democratic
+platform committed the party to payments in greenbacks unless express
+contract prevented, while the Republicans denounced this policy as
+"repudiation" and promised the payment of the debt in "good faith"
+according to the "spirit" and "letter" of the laws. The credit of the
+government was highly benefited by the payment of the debt in gold, yet
+the bonds had been purchased during the war with depreciated paper, and
+gold redemption greatly enriched the purchasers at the expense of the
+remainder of the population. It is hardly surprising that the debtor
+classes were not enthusiastic over this outcome. The Republicans on
+being successful in the election and coming into power, carried out
+their campaign promises and pledged the faith of the country to the
+payment of the debt in coin or its equivalent.
+
+The income tax was a method of raising revenue which did not produce
+any considerable returns until after the war was over. Acts passed
+during the war had levied a tax on all incomes over six hundred dollars
+and had introduced progressively increasing rates on higher amounts.
+Incomes above $5,000, for example, were taxed ten per cent. The
+greatest number of people were reached and the largest returns obtained
+in 1866 when nearly half a million persons paid an aggregate of about
+seventy-three million dollars. The entire system was abolished in 1872.
+
+Aside from the tariff, the "legal-tender" notes gave rise to the
+greatest number of political and constitutional tangles. By acts of
+February 25, 1862 and later, Congress had provided for the issue of four
+hundred and fifty million dollars of United States paper notes, which
+were commonly known as greenbacks or legal-tenders. The latter name
+came from the fact that, under the law, the United States notes were
+legal tender for all debts, public or private, except customs duties
+and interest on the public debt. In other words, the law compelled
+creditors to receive the greenbacks in payment of all debts, with the
+two exceptions mentioned. Three main questions arose in connection with
+these issues of paper: whether Congress had power under the
+Constitution to make them legal tender; whether their volume should be
+allowed to remain at war magnitude, be somewhat contracted or entirely
+done away with; and whether the government should resume specie
+payments--that is, exchange gold for paper on the demand of holders of
+the latter.
+
+The first of these questions was twice decided in the Supreme Court. In
+1870, in Hepburn _v._ Griswold, the point at issue was whether the
+greenbacks could lawfully be offered to satisfy a debt contracted
+before the legal-tender act had been passed. As it happened, Salmon P.
+Chase, who had been Secretary of the Treasury during the war, was now
+Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and delivered its opinion. By a vote
+of four to three it decided that the greenbacks were not legal tender
+for contracts made previous to the passage of the law. At the time when
+the case was decided, however, there were two vacancies on the bench
+which were immediately filled, and shortly thereafter two new cases
+involving the legal-tender act were brought before the Court (Knox _v._
+Lee, and Parker _v._ Davis). The decision, which was announced in 1871,
+over-ruled the judgment in Hepburn _v._ Griswold and held by a vote of
+five to four that the legal-tender act was constitutional as applied to
+contracts made either before or after its passage.
+
+The second question relating to the greenbacks was that in regard to
+their volume. At first Congress adopted the policy of contraction and
+when greenbacks came into the treasury they were destroyed. As continued
+contraction tended to make the volume of currency smaller and to make
+money harder to get, and therefore, to raise its value, the debtor
+classes began to object. As early as 1865 there was strong sentiment
+against contraction and in favor of paying the public debt in paper.
+Economic distress in the West furthered the movement and some of the
+Republican leaders were doubtful of the wisdom of reducing the outstanding
+stock of paper. Contraction was stopped, therefore, in 1868, and only
+President Grant's veto in 1874 prevented an increase in the amount.
+Eventually, in 1878, the amount then in circulation--$346,681,000--was
+fixed by a law forbidding further contraction.[1]
+
+The western farmers, meanwhile, were feeling the pinch of falling
+prices. Believing that their ills were due to the scarcity of money,
+they opposed the policy of contraction and even launched the Greenback
+party to carry out their principles. In 1876 it polled 80,000 votes,
+and in 1878 at the time of the congressional elections over 1,000,000,
+but thereafter its strength rapidly declined. Neither the East nor the
+West understood the motives of the other in this controversy. Eastern
+congressmen considered western insistence upon a large volume of
+currency as a dishonest movement to reduce bond values by legislation.
+Such an action, they asserted, would do away with the national
+integrity. The people of the West thought of the eastern bondholders as
+"fat bullionists" who dined at costly restaurants on terrapin and
+Burgundy and paid for their luxuries with bonds whose values were
+raised by a contracted currency.
+
+The third question relating to the greenbacks was that of the
+resumption of specie payments. At the close of the war practically all
+the money in circulation was paper, which passed at a depreciated value
+because it was not redeemable in coin. The obvious thing was to resume
+the exchange of specie for paper and thus restore the latter to par
+value, but serious obstacles stood in the way. A money crisis in 1873
+aroused a clamor for larger supplies of paper; gold was hard to
+procure, as France and Germany were both accumulating a redemption fund
+and specie was actually flowing out of the country. Outside of the
+treasury there was little gold in the United States, the amount being
+less than one hundred million dollars as late as 1877. The friends of
+resumption could not be sure of the feasibility of their project, and
+the opponents were aggressive and numerous.
+
+In the elections of 1874 the Republicans were severely defeated, and it
+was seen that the Democrats would have a clear majority in the next
+House of Representatives. Hence the Republicans hurried through a
+resumption bill on January 14, 1875--a sort of deathbed act. It
+authorized the secretary of the treasury to raise gold for redemption
+purposes, and set January 1, 1879, as the date when resumption should
+take place. As in the case of the tariff, the political parties found
+difficulty in determining which side of the resumption question they
+desired to take. Although the Democratic platform of 1868 contained a
+greenback plank, yet some of its leaders opposed, and the state
+platforms of 1875 and 1876 demanded resumption. The national platform
+of the latter year both denounced the Republicans for not making
+progress toward resumption and demanded the repeal of the act of 1875,
+without disclosing whether the party was prepared to offer any
+improvements. In November, 1877, a bill practically repealing the
+resumption act passed the House--the western and southern Democrats
+furnishing most of the affirmative votes, assisted by twenty-seven
+Republicans. A resolution declaring it to be the opinion of Congress
+that United States bonds were payable in silver was introduced and
+advocated by many Republicans. On the other hand, eastern state
+Democratic and Republican platforms were much alike. Apparently,
+therefore, differences of opinion in regard to the greenbacks and
+resumption were caused as much by sectional as by party considerations.
+
+More lasting than finance as a political issue but less enduring than
+the tariff, was the reform of the civil service. In its widest sense,
+the term civil service included all non-military government officers
+from cabinet officials and supreme court judges to the humblest
+employee in the postal or naval service. The reform, however, was
+directed mainly toward the appointment and tenure of the lower
+officers. Before the Civil War the "spoils system" had been in full
+swing; appointments to positions had been frankly used as rewards for
+party activity; office-holders had been openly assessed a fraction of
+their salaries in order to fill the treasure chest at campaign times;
+rotation in office had been the rule. During the war, President Lincoln
+had found his ante-room filled with wrangling, importunate office-seekers
+who consumed time which he needed for the problems of the conflict. As
+he himself had expressed the situation, he was like a man who was
+letting offices in one end of his house while the other end was burning
+down. During the war, also, the patronage at the disposal of the
+government had vastly increased. Not only had the number of laborers,
+clerks and officials become greater, but numerous contracts had been
+let for the production of war materials, and manufacturers and merchants
+intrigued for a share of federal business. "Influence" and position had
+been more powerful than merit in procuring the favor of government
+officers.
+
+After the war many abuses that had earlier been overlooked began to
+attract the attention of a few thoughtful men. It was estimated that
+not more than one-half to three-fourths of the legitimate internal
+revenue was collected during Johnson's presidency, so corrupt and
+inefficient were the revenue collectors. Endless Indian troubles and
+countless losses of money resulted from the corruption of the federal
+Indian agents. Conditions were even worse during the Grant regime. The
+President's appointments were wretched; he placed his relatives in
+official positions; revenue frauds amounting to $75,000,000 were
+discovered during his second administration. In certain departments, it
+was customary, when vacancies occurred, to allow the salaries to
+"lapse"--that is, accumulate--so as to provide a fund to satisfy
+patronage seekers. In one case, thirty-five persons were put on the
+"lapse fund" for eight days at the end of a fiscal year, in order to
+"sop up" a little surplus which was in danger of being saved and
+returned to the treasury. One customs collector at the port of New York
+removed employees at an average rate of one every three days; another,
+three every four days; and another, three every five days, in order to
+provide places for party workers. One secretary in an important
+department of the government had seventeen clerks for whom he had no
+employment. The party assessments on officeholders became little short
+of outrageous. Two or three per cent. of the salary of the lower
+officers was called for, while the more important officials were
+expected to contribute much larger sums. In New York--for the system
+held in the states and cities--candidates for the mayoralty were
+reputed to pay $25,000 to $30,000; judges, $10,000 to $15,000; and
+representatives in Congress, $10,000. While these conditions were by no
+means wholly due to the spoils system, the method of appointment in the
+civil service made a bad matter worse.
+
+Conditions such as these could hardly fail to produce a reform
+movement. In fact, as far back as 1853 some elementary and ineffective
+legislation had attempted a partial remedy. The war gave added impetus
+to the movement and attention turned to the reform systems of Great
+Britain and other countries, where problems similar to ours had already
+been met and solved. The first American who really grasped civil
+service reform was Thomas A. Jenckes, a member of Congress from Rhode
+Island. He introduced reform bills in 1865 and later, based on studies
+of English practice and on correspondence with the leaders of reform
+there; but no legislation resulted. In brief, his plan provided for the
+appointment of employees in the public service on the basis of ability,
+determined by competitive examinations. After a time Jenckes and his
+associates achieved considerable success and finally interested
+President Grant in their project. In 1871 they got a rider attached to
+an appropriation bill which authorized the chief executive to prescribe
+rules for the admission of persons into the civil service and allowed
+him to appoint a commission to put the act into effect. George William
+Curtis, a well-known reformer, was made chairman, and rules were
+formulated which were applied to the departments at Washington and to
+federal offices in New York. Grant, although favorable to the reform,
+was not enthusiastic about it, and soon made an appointment which was
+so offensive that Curtis resigned. Congress, nothing loath, refused to
+continue the necessary appropriations and the reform project continued
+in a state of suspended animation until the inauguration of President
+Hayes.
+
+The human elements in the struggle for civil service reform, both
+during the decade after the war and for many years later, are necessary
+for an understanding of the course of the controversy and its outcome.
+These elements included the advocates of the patronage system, the
+reformers and the president.
+
+Sometimes the advocates of the patronage system viewed the reform with
+contempt. Roscoe Conkling, for example, expressed his sentiments in the
+remark, "When Dr. Johnson said that patriotism was the last refuge of
+the scoundrel he ignored the enormous possibilities of the word
+reform!" Sometimes they attempted to discredit the project by an
+exaggeration of its effects, as when John A. Logan declared that he saw
+in it a life-tenure and an aristocratic caste. "It will not be apparent
+how great is its enormity," he declared in Congress, "how vicious are
+its practices and how poisonous are its influences until we are too far
+encircled by its coils to shake them off." The strength of the
+exponents of the patronage system, however, lay not in their capacity
+for contempt and ridicule, but in a theory of government that was
+founded upon certain very definite human characteristics. The theory
+may be clearly seen in the _Autobiography_ of Thomas C. Platt, a
+colleague of Conkling in the Senate and for many years the boss of New
+York state. It may be expressed somewhat as follows.
+
+In the field of actual politics, parties are a necessity and
+organization is essential. It is the duty of the citizen, therefore, to
+support the party that stands for right policies and to adhere closely
+to its official organization. Loyalty should be rewarded by appointment
+to positions within the gift of the party; and disloyalty should be
+looked upon as political treason. One who votes for anybody except the
+organization candidate feels himself superior to his party, is
+faithless to the great ideal and is only a little less despicable than
+he who, having been elected to an office through the energy and
+devotion of the party workers, is then so ungrateful as to refuse to
+appoint the workers to positions within his gift. Positions constitute
+the cohesive force that holds the organization intact.
+
+The second of the human elements, the reform group, was led by such men
+as George William Curtis, Dorman B. Eaton and Carl Schurz, with the
+support of periodicals like _Harper's Weekly_ and _The Nation_. The
+career and character of Curtis is typical at once of the strength and
+the weakness of the group. As a young man Curtis had intended to enter
+a business career, but finding it unsuited to his tastes he had
+abandoned his ambition, spent some years in European travel and then
+devoted himself to literary work, first on _Harper's Magazine_ and
+afterwards, for many years, as editor of _Harper's Weekly_. He had
+early interested himself in politics, had been in the convention which
+nominated Lincoln, had taken part in numerous state and national
+political conferences and conventions, was president of the
+Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and chancellor of the University
+of the State of New York. For many years, during the period when civil
+service reform was making its fight for recognition, Curtis was the
+president and one of the moving spirits of the National Civil Service
+Reform League. In politics he was an independent Republican. Although
+of the intellectual class, like the other prominent leaders of the
+reform movement, he was a man of practical political ability, not a
+mere observer of politics, so that he and his associates made up in
+capacity and influence what they lacked in breadth of appeal. Some of
+the leaders were patient men who expected that results would come
+slowly and who were ready to accept half a loaf of reform rather than
+no loaf at all, but there were also such impatient critics as E.L.
+Godkin who put so much emphasis on the failures of the reformers as to
+overshadow their positive achievements. Moreover, there were the
+well-meaning but impracticable people who constituted what Theodore
+Roosevelt once called the "lunatic fringe" of reform movements.
+
+The attitude of the exponents of the patronage system toward the
+reformers was one of undisguised contempt. In a famous speech delivered
+at a New York state convention in Rochester in September, 1877,
+Conkling poured his scorn on the reform element in general and on
+Curtis in particular, as "man-milliners," "carpet-knights of politics,"
+"grasshoppers in the corner of a fence," and disciples of ladies'
+magazines with their "rancid, canting self-righteousness."
+
+The third personal element in the reform controversy was the chief
+executive. Beginning with Grant, if not with Lincoln, the presidents
+were favorable to the progress of reform, but they were surrounded by
+circumstances that made vigorous action a difficult matter. The task of
+distributing the patronage was a burden from which they would have been
+glad to be relieved, yet the demands of the party organization were
+insistent,--and to turn a constantly deaf ear to them would have been
+to court political disaster. The executive was always in the position
+of desiring to further an ideal and being obliged to face the hard
+facts of politics. The progress which he made, therefore, depended on
+how resolutely he could press forward his ideal in the face of
+continued opposition. A great difficulty lay in getting subordinates-in
+the cabinet, for example-who were in sympathy with progress, and
+sometimes even the vice-presidential nomination was given to the
+patronage element in the party in order to placate that faction, while
+the presidential nominee was disposed to reform.
+
+Public opinion was slow in forming and was lacking in the means of
+definite expression. For many years after the war there was widespread
+fear that the installation of a Democratic president would result in
+the wholesale debauch of the offices, and sober northerners believed,
+or thought they believed, that "rebels" would again be in power if a
+Democrat were elected. Under such conditions and because the offices
+were already filled with Republicans, the Republican North was willing
+to leave things as they were.
+
+The party pronouncements on civil service reform were as evasive as
+they were on finance and the tariff. To be surer the Liberal
+Republicans in 1872 sincerely desired reform and made it the subject of
+a definite plank in their platform, but the wing of the Democratic
+party that refused to ally with them was silent on the civil service,
+and the "straight" Republicans advocated reform in doubtful and
+unconvincing terms. In 1876 both party platforms were even more vague,
+although Hayes himself was openly committed to the improvement of the
+service.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The best work on the tariff is F.W. Taussig, _Tariff History of the
+United States_ (6th ed., 1914), a scholarly and non-partisan account,
+although giving slight attention to legislative history; Ida M.
+Tarbell, _Tariff in Our Times_ (1911), emphasizes the personal and
+social sides of tariff history and is hostile to protection; Edward
+Stanwood, _American Tariff Controversies_ (2 vols., 1903), devotes
+considerable attention to the historical setting and legislative
+history of tariff acts, and is distinctly friendly to protection.
+
+The most useful single volume on financial history is D.R. Dewey,
+_Financial History of the United States_ (5th ed., 1915), which is
+concise, accurate and equipped with full bibliographies; A.B. Hepburn,
+_History of Currency in the United States_ (1915), is by an expert;
+A.D. Noyes, _Forty Years of American Finance_ (1909), continues the
+same author's _Thirty Years_ and is reliable; T.B. Burton, _John
+Sherman_ (1906), is useful here. The legal-tender decisions are in J.W.
+Wallace, _Cases argued and adjudged in the Supreme Court_, VIII, 603,
+and XII, 457.
+
+The standard work on the civil service is C.R. Fish, _The Civil Service
+and the Patronage_ (1905); the reports of the Civil Service Commission,
+especially the Fourth Report, are essential; the articles by D.B. Eaton
+in J.J. Lalor, _Cyclopaedia of Political Science_ (3 vols., 1893), are
+justly well-known; G.W. Curtis, _Orations and Addresses_ (2 vols.,
+1894), and Edward Cary, _George William Curtis_ (1894), are excellent.
+The politician's side may be found in A.R. Conkling, _Life and Letters
+of Roscoe Conkling_ (1889), and T.C. Platt, _Autobiography_ (1910).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] This is the amount still outstanding.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+THE ADMINISTRATION OF RUTHERFORD B. HAYES
+
+The conditions which confronted President Hayes when the final decision
+of the Electoral Commission placed him in the executive chair did not
+make it probable that he could carry out a program of positive
+achievement. The withdrawal of troops from the South had been almost
+completed, but the process of reconstruction had been so dominated by
+suspicion, ignorance and vindictiveness that sectional hostility was
+still acute. As has been seen, the economic problems which faced the
+country were for the most part unsolved; on the subjects of tariff,
+finance and the civil service, neither party was prepared to present a
+united front; and the lack of foresight and statesmanlike leadership in
+the parties had given selfish interests an opportunity to seize control.
+Nor did the circumstances surrounding the election of Hayes tend to
+simplify his task, for the disappointment of the Democrats was extreme,
+and they found a natural difficulty in adjusting themselves to the
+decision against Tilden. Democratic newspapers dubbed Hayes "His
+Fraudulency" and "The Boss Thief," printed his picture with "Fraud"
+printed across his brow and referred to his election as the "steal" and
+a "political crime."
+
+The man who was to essay leadership under such conditions had back of
+him a useful even if not brilliant career. He had been born in Ohio in
+1822, had graduated from Kenyon College as valedictorian of his class,
+attended Harvard Law School and served on the Union side during the war,
+retiring with the rank of a brevet Major General. He had been twice
+elected to Congress, but had resigned after his second election to
+become governor of his native state, a position which he had filled for
+three terms.
+
+Hayes was a man of the substantial, conscientious and hard-working type.
+He was not brilliant or magnetic, he originated no innovations, burst
+into no flights of imaginative oratory. His state papers were planned
+with painstaking care--first, frequently, jotted down in his diary and
+then elaborated, revised, recopied and revised again. The vivid
+imagination and high-strung emotions that made Clay and Blaine great
+campaigners were lacking in Hayes. He was gentle, dignified, simple,
+systematic, thoughtful, serene, correct. In making his judgments on
+public questions he was sensitive to moral forces. The emancipation of
+the slaves was not merely wise and just to him--it was "Providential."
+He favored a single six-year term for the President because it would
+safeguard him from selfish scheming for another period of power. Partly
+because of the lack of dash and compelling force in Hayes, but more
+because of the low standards of political action which were common at
+the time, his scruples seemed puritanical and were held up to ridicule
+as the milk-and-water and "old-Woman" policies of "Granny Hayes." His
+public, as well as-his private life, was unimpeached in a time when
+lofty principles were not common and when scandal attached itself to
+public officers of every grade. To his probity and the "safe" character
+of his views, as well as to his record as governor of an important
+state, was due his elevation to the presidency.[1] In his habit of
+self-analysis, Hayes was reminiscent of John Quincy Adams. Like Adams he
+kept a diary from his early youth, the serious and mature entries in
+which cause the reader to wonder whether Hayes ever had a childhood.
+When he had just passed his twentieth birthday he confided to his diary
+that he found himself unsatisfied with his progress in Blackstone, that
+he must curb his "propensity" to read newspapers to the exclusion of
+more substantial matter, and in general that he was "greatly deficient
+in many particulars." Then and in later years he noted hostile
+criticisms of himself and combated them, recorded remarks that he had
+heard, propounded questions for future thought, expressed a modest
+ambition or admitted a curbed elation over success.
+
+In the field of politics Hayes was looked upon as a reliable party man,
+a reputation which was justified by his rigid adherence to his party and
+by his attitude toward the opposition. In both these respects he was the
+ordinary partisan. Nevertheless he thought out his views with unusual
+care, made them a matter of conscience and measured policies by ethical
+standards that were more exacting than the usual politician of the time
+was accustomed to exercise. The only remark of his that gained wide
+circulation reflects his type of partisanship: "he serves his party best
+who serves his country best." In these latter respects--his
+thoughtfulness, conscientiousness, exacting standards of conduct and
+less narrowly partisan spirit--he formed a contrast to the most
+influential leaders of his party organization. Altogether it seemed
+likely at the start that Hayes might have friction with the Republican
+chiefs.
+
+The opening of the administration found public interest centered on the
+inaugural address and the Cabinet.[2] The inaugural set forth with
+clearness and dignity the problems which the administration desired to
+solve: the removal of the barriers between the sections on the basis of
+the acceptance of the war amendments, southern self-government and the
+material development of the South; reform in the civil service,
+thorough, radical and complete; and the resumption of specie payments.
+To the choice of a cabinet, Hayes devoted much painstaking care. For
+Secretary of State, he nominated William M. Evarts of New York, an
+eminent lawyer who had aided Charles Francis Adams in his diplomatic
+battle with England during the Civil War and later in the Geneva
+Arbitration, had shown wit and finesse in the defence of Andrew Johnson
+in the impeachment trial, and had valiantly assisted the Republican
+cause before the Electoral Commission. In addition, Evarts was a man of
+the world who knew how to make the most of social occasions and was an
+orator of reputation. The Secretary of the Treasury was John Sherman of
+Ohio, who had been for years chairman of the finance committee of the
+Senate, and was an example of the more statesmanlike type of senator of
+war and reconstruction times.
+
+The nomination of Carl Schurz, as Secretary of the Interior, and David
+M. Key, as Postmaster-General, caused an uproar among the party leaders.
+Schurz was a cosmopolitan, a German-American, a scholar, orator, veteran
+of the Civil War, friend of Lincoln, and independent thinker. His
+devotion to the cause of civil service reform recommended him to the
+friendship of the President and to the enmity of the political leaders.
+The politicians scored Schurz as not a trustworthy Republican--he was
+independent by nature and had been a leader in the Liberal Republican
+movement; and they denounced him as an impractical man, whose head was
+full of transcendental theories--which was a method of saying that he
+was a civil service reformer. No little excitement was occasioned by the
+appointment of Key. The President had desired to appoint to the cabinet
+a southerner of influence, and had thought of Joseph E. Johnston as
+Secretary of War. The choice of General Johnston would have been an act
+of great magnanimity, but since General Sherman, to whom Johnston had
+surrendered only twelve years before, was commander of the army, it
+would have placed Sherman in the singular position of taking military
+orders from a former leading "rebel." When Hayes consulted his party
+associates, however, he found their feelings expressed in the
+exclamation of one of them: "Great God! Governor, I hope you are not
+thinking of doing anything of that kind!" He thereupon reluctantly gave
+way and turned to Key. The latter was less prominent than Johnston, but
+had been a Confederate leader, was a Democrat and a man of moderate
+counsels. The remaining members of the cabinet were men of much less
+moment, but altogether it is clear that few presidents have been
+surrounded by so able a group of advisers.[3]
+
+Seldom, also, has a president's announcement of his cabinet caused so
+much dissent among his own supporters. Senator Cameron, of Pennsylvania,
+had urged a cabinet appointment for his son, and on being refused became
+hostile to Hayes. Senator Blaine, of Maine, was piqued because Hayes
+refused to offer a place to a Maine man; the friends of General John A.
+Logan, of Illinois, were dissatisfied at the failure of Hayes to
+understand the qualifications of their favorite; Conkling disliked
+Evarts and besides desired a place for his associate Thomas C. Platt;
+and the latter considered the nomination of Evarts a "straight-arm" blow
+at the Republican organization. Departing, therefore, from the custom in
+such cases, the Senate withheld confirmation of the nominations for
+several days, during which it became apparent that the rest of the
+country had received the announcement of the cabinet with favor, and
+then the opposition disappeared. During the remainder of his presidency,
+however, Hayes fared badly in making his nominations to office, for
+fifty-one of them were rejected outright, a larger number than had ever
+before been disagreed to when the President and the Senate were of the
+same party. The frequency with which the nominations were rejected and
+the combative manner in which the contests were carried on by the Senate
+indicated that it was determined to regain and hold fast the influence
+in federal counsels that it had relinquished to the executive during the
+war.
+
+Aside from the nomination of members of the cabinet, the first important
+executive action that tested the attitude of the Senate toward the
+President was in relation to the southern problem. By March, 1877, all
+the former Confederate states except Louisiana and South Carolina had
+freed themselves from Republican rule by the methods already mentioned,
+and in these states the Republicans were kept in power only by the
+presence of troops. In Louisiana, both Packard, a Republican
+carpet-bagger, and Nicholls, a Louisiana Democrat, claimed to be the
+rightful governor. In South Carolina, the Republican contestant was
+Chamberlain, a native of Massachusetts; the Democrat was Wade Hampton, a
+typical old-time southerner. Hayes could withdraw the troops, in
+pursuance of his conciliatory policy, but if he did the Republican
+governments would certainly collapse because they were unsupported by
+public opinion. Furthermore, the returning board which had declared
+Hayes the choice of Louisiana in the presidential election had asserted
+that the Republican Packard was elected. Blaine, in the Senate,
+championed the doctrine that Hayes could not forsake the southern
+Republicans without invalidating his own title. Speaking in a confident
+and aggressive manner, he held that the honor, faith and credit of the
+party bound it to uphold the Republican claimants. Nevertheless, the
+President investigated conditions in both states, satisfied himself that
+public opinion was back of the Democratic governments and then recalled
+the troops, hardly more than a month after his inauguration. The
+Republican governments in the two states promptly gave way to the
+Democrats, and the storm was on in the Senate.[4]
+
+The Republican politicians believed that no good thing could come from
+the "rebels," that the President was abandoning the negro, and that he
+was surrendering the principles for which the party had contended.
+"Stalwarts," was the name applied by Blaine to these uncompromising
+party men who would not relinquish the grip of the organization on the
+southern states. Hayes was freely charged with having promised the
+removal of the military forces in return for the electoral votes of the
+two states concerned, and some color seemed to be lent to this
+accusation when he proceeded to reward the Louisiana and Florida
+returning boards with appointments to office. Even the New York _Times_,
+which usually supported Hayes with vigor, characterized the Louisiana
+settlement as "a surrender." William E. Chandler who had assisted Hayes
+as counsel in the disputed election attacked him in a pamphlet, "Can
+such Things be and overcome us like a Summer Cloud without our Special
+Wonder?" Most of the influential leaders in both houses of Congress
+scarcely disguised their hostility. Indeed the discontent went back into
+the states where, as in New Hampshire, a contest over the endorsement of
+Hayes was so bitter that the newspaper reporters had to be excluded from
+the state convention to prevent public reports of schism in the party.
+The Democrats could not come to his support since they were unable to
+forget the election of 1876 even in their satisfaction over the
+treatment accorded the South. In six weeks the President was without the
+backing of most of his party leaders. On the other hand, a few men of
+the type represented by Hoar and Sherman commended the President's
+policy. Independent publications such as _Harper's Weekly_ did likewise,
+and when the Republican convention of 1880 drew up the party platform
+the leaders made a virtue of necessity and adopted a plank
+enthusiastically supporting the Hayes administration.
+
+After he had finished with the southern problem, Hayes confided to his
+diary, "Now for civil service reform!" And for appointments in general
+he recorded several principles: no sweeping changes; recommendations by
+congressmen to be investigated--not merely accepted; and no relatives of
+himself or his wife to be appointed, however good their qualifications
+might be. In the meanwhile Secretary Schurz set to work to put the
+Department of the Interior on a merit basis. The principles that Hayes
+set up for himself and the steps that Schurz took were in conformity
+with the party platform of 1876 and with the President's inaugural
+address; nevertheless the party leaders were displeased, if not
+surprised, for platform promises were lightly regarded and inaugural
+addresses were sometimes not to be taken very seriously.
+
+The earliest acts of Hayes were not such as to facilitate the further
+progress of reform. The appointment of the members of the Louisiana
+Returning Board to federal offices gave color to charges that they were
+receiving their reward for assisting the President into his position.
+Furthermore, on June 22, 1877, he issued an executive order forbidding
+any United States officials to take part in the management of political
+organizations and declaring that political assessments on federal
+officers would not be allowed. So drastic an order brought amazement to
+the party leaders, who had not dreamed of anything so radical. Perhaps
+the order was too sudden and sweeping, considering the practices of the
+time. At any rate it was not enforced and the President seemed to have
+set a standard to which he had not the courage to adhere. Nevertheless,
+reform principles were successfully tested in the New York Post Office
+by Thomas L. James, a vigorous exponent of the merit system who had been
+appointed by President Grant and was now re-appointed and upheld by
+President Hayes.
+
+But the great battle for the new idea came in connection with the New
+York Custom House. Through the port of New York came two-thirds to
+three-fourths of the goods which were imported into this country, and
+the necessity for a businesslike conduct of the custom house seemed
+obvious. Yet there had for some time been complaints concerning the
+service, and Sherman appointed commissions, with the approval of the
+President, to investigate conditions in New York and elsewhere. The
+commission which studied the situation in New York reported that
+one-fifth of the persons employed there were superfluous, that
+inefficiency and neglect of duty were common, and that the positions at
+the disposal of the collector had for years been used for the reward of
+party activity. The commission recommended sweeping changes which
+Secretary Sherman and President Hayes approved. It then appeared that
+the New York officials were not favorable to the President's reform
+plans. Furthermore, Chester A. Arthur, the collector of the port, was a
+close friend of Roscoe Conkling, the head of the state machine; and A.B.
+Cornell, the naval officer, was chairman of the state and national
+Republican committees; It was evident that an attempt to change
+conditions in New York would precipitate a test of strength between the
+administration and the New York organization.
+
+As Arthur and Cornell would not further the desired reforms and would
+not resign, the President removed them. When he nominated their
+successors, however, the Senate, led by Conkling, refused to add its
+confirmation and there the matter rested for some months. Eventually the
+President's nominations were confirmed, an outcome which seems to have
+been brought about in part at least by letters from. Secretary Sherman
+to personal friends in the Senate in which he urgently pressed the case
+of the administration. The President's victory emphasized the
+disagreement of the powerful state organization with the reform idea,
+and while the reformers rejoiced that the warfare had been carried into
+the enemy's country, newspaper opinion varied between the view that the
+President was playing politics and that he was actuated by the highest
+motives only. Agitation for reform, meanwhile, continued to increase.
+The literary men among the reformers, aided by scores of lesser lights,
+conducted a campaign of education; the New York Civil Service Reform
+Association, founded in 1877, and the National Civil Service Reform
+League, in 1881, gave evidence of an effort towards the organization of
+reform sentiment.
+
+While the attention of the President and the politicians was directed
+toward the reform of the civil service, there occurred an event for
+which none of them was prepared. Early in the summer of 1877 train hands
+on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad struck because of a reduction in
+wages, the fourth cut that they had suffered in seven years. The strike
+spread with the speed of a prairie fire over most of the northern roads
+between New England and the Mississippi. At the height of the
+controversy at least 100,000 strikers and six or seven thousand miles of
+railway were involved, while at several points especially Martinsburg,
+West Virginia, and Pittsburg, rioting and destruction took place. A
+considerable number of people were killed or wounded, and the loss of
+property in Pittsburg alone was estimated at five to ten millions of
+dollars. Eventually, when the state militia failed to check the
+disorder, the President was called upon for federal troops and these
+proved effectual. That even so thoughtful and conscientious a man as
+Hayes was far from understanding the meaning of the strike was indicated
+in his message to Congress in which he merely expressed his
+gratification that the troops had been able to repress the disorder.
+Repression, that is to say, was the one resource that occurred to the
+mind of the chief executive and to the majority of the men of his day.
+That repression alone could not remedy evils permanently, that salutary
+force ought to be immediately supplemented by a study of the rights and
+wrongs of the two sides and by a dispassionate correction of
+abuses,--all this did not even remotely occur to the thoughts of the
+political leaders of the time.
+
+The breach in the ranks of the Republicans which was made by the events
+of the early days of the Hayes administration was closed in the face of
+an attack by the common enemy--the Democrats. The latter, being in
+control of the House, appointed the "Potter Committee" to investigate
+the title of Hayes to the Presidency, hoping to discredit him and
+thereby turn the tables in the election of 1880. The committee examined
+witnesses and reported, the Democrats asserting that Tilden had been
+elected and the Republicans that Hayes had been. The Republican Senate,
+meanwhile, had prepared a counterblast. By legal proceedings a committee
+had obtained from the Western Union Telegraph Company over thirty
+thousand of the telegrams sent by both parties during the campaign. The
+Republicans declared that the "cipher despatches" among these messages
+showed that the Democrats had offered a substantial bribe for the vote
+of an Oregon Republican elector. Before the dispatches were returned to
+the telegraph company, somebody took the precaution to destroy those
+that concerned Republican campaign methods and to retain those relating
+to the Democrats. The latter were published by the New York _Tribune_
+and revealed attempts to bribe the Florida and South Carolina Returning
+Boards. Most of them had been sent by Tilden's nephew or received by
+him, so that the corrupt trail seemed to lead straight to the candidate
+himself, but the evidence was inconclusive. The Potter Committee then
+investigated the telegrams, together with a great number of witnesses,
+and another partisan report resulted. It thus appeared that both pot and
+kettle were black and there the matter rested. The Democrats had done
+themselves no good and had done the Republicans no harm.[5]
+
+The Democrats also attacked the election laws, under which federal
+officials supervised elections, and federal judges and marshals had
+jurisdiction over cases concerning the suffrage. Under these laws, also,
+troops could be used to enforce the judgments of the Courts. There is no
+doubt that intimidation, unfair practices and bribery were all too
+common in the North as well as in the South. The lack of official
+ballots and secret voting made abuses inevitable. In New York,
+Cincinnati and other northern cities, and on a smaller scale in the
+rural districts, abuses of one sort or another were normal
+accompaniments of elections. Intimidation in the South was notorious and
+not denied. The existing election laws gave the dominant party an
+opportunity to appoint large numbers of deputy-marshals--largely party
+workers, of course-paying them from the national treasury and so
+solidifying the party organization. In the election of 1876 about
+$275,000 had been spent in this way. Some of the federal supervisors had
+been extremely energetic--so much so that in one case in Louisiana their
+registration lists showed 8,000 more colored voters in 1876 than were
+discovered by the census enumerators four years later.
+
+If the Republicans saw involved in the laws both a principle and a party
+weapon, the Democrats saw both a principle and an opportunity. They
+attached a "rider" to an army appropriation bill, which made it unlawful
+to use any part of the army for any other than the purposes expressly
+authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress. Since the
+Constitution allowed the use of troops only to "execute the laws of the
+Union, to suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions," the new law would
+prevent the employment of armed forces for civil purposes at the polling
+places. The President was compelled to yield to save the appropriation
+bill.
+
+In the next Congress the Democrats controlled both House and Senate and
+they advanced to the attack on the remainder of the election laws.
+Attempts were made to prevent the appointment of special deputy-marshals
+by forbidding the payment of any compensation to them or to the regular
+marshals when used in elections. Each time that Congress passed such a
+law the President vetoed it, even though special sessions had to be
+called to make up for lost time. He saw in the use of the rider a
+dangerous assertion of coercive power on the part of Congress. By means
+of it, Congress was withholding funds essential for military and civil
+purposes until the President should assent to legislation totally
+unconnected with the appropriations. He felt himself being threatened
+and driven by a hostile legislature. For the President to give way
+before such constraint would be to lose the veto power and to destroy
+the independence of the executive as a branch of the government. The
+Democrats were unable to muster force enough to overrule the veto, and
+here the matter rested while other forces, which have already been
+described, were sapping the strength of the election laws. On the whole,
+the result was probably to bring the Republican factions together and so
+to strengthen the party for the election of 1880. The Democrats, on the
+other hand, probably lost ground.
+
+In the meanwhile a difficult and technical problem--the monetary
+question--was forcing itself upon the attention of Congress and of the
+country. The rapid development of the economic life of the United States
+was demanding an increased volume of currency with which to perform the
+multitude of exchanges which constantly take place in the life of an
+industrial people. Unless the volume of the currency expanded
+proportionately with the increase of business, or there was a
+corresponding increase in the use of bank checks, the demand for money
+would cause its value to go up--that is, prices to go down. If the
+volume expanded more rapidly than was necessitated by business, the
+value of money would fall and prices would go up. A change in the price
+level in either direction, as has been seen, would harm important groups
+of people. The exact amount, however, by which the volume should be
+increased was not easy to determine. Furthermore, assuming that both
+gold and silver should be coined, what amount of each would constitute
+the most desirable combination? What ought to be the weight of the
+coins? If paper currency was to supplement the precious metals, what
+amount of it should be in circulation? These are difficult questions
+under any circumstances. They did not become less so when answered by a
+bulky and uninformed Congress acting under the influence of definite
+personal, sectional and property interests.
+
+Several facts tended to restrict the kind of money whose volume could be
+greatly increased. It was not advisable to expand the greenbacks because
+legislation had already limited their amount and because such action
+would unfavorably affect the approaching resumption of specie payments.
+The quantity of national bank notes, another common form of paper money,
+was somewhat rigidly determined by the amount of federal bonds
+outstanding, for the national bank notes were issued upon the federal
+bonds as security. Moreover, the bonds were being rapidly paid off
+during the seventies and it was, therefore, impossible to expect any
+increase of the currency from this source. Normally the supply of gold
+available for coinage did not vary greatly from year to year and
+certainly did not respond with exactness to the demand of industry for a
+greater or smaller volume of circulating medium. It seemed to remain for
+silver to supply any needed increase.
+
+But silver was not in common use except as a subsidiary coin. For many
+years the value of the bullion necessary for coining a silver dollar had
+been greater than the value of the coin. Nobody therefore brought his
+silver to the mint but sold it instead in the commercial markets. Indeed
+so insignificant was the amount of silver usually coined into dollars
+that an act of 1873 systematizing the coinage laws had omitted the
+silver dollar completely from the list of coins. The omission was later
+referred to by the friends of silver currency as the "Crime of 1873." At
+the same time a remarkable coincidence was providing the motive power
+for the demand that silver be more largely used as currency. Early in
+the seventies Germany and the Latin Monetary Union, (France,
+Switzerland, Belgium, Italy and Greece), had reduced the amount of their
+silver coinage, thus throwing a large supply of bullion on the market.
+Simultaneously, enlarged supplies of silver were being found in western
+United States. A Nevada mine, for example, which had produced six
+hundred and forty-five thousand dollars' worth of ore in 1873 had turned
+out nearly twenty-five times that amount two years later. Naturally the
+market price of silver fell and the mine owners began to seek an outlet
+for their product. Thus the people who were convinced that the volume of
+the currency was insufficient for the industrial demands of the nation
+received a new and powerful reenforcement from the producers of silver
+ore. There arose what the New York _Tribune_ referred to as "The Cloud
+in the West."
+
+Inevitably the cloud in the West threw its shadow into Congress where
+the demand was insistent that the government "do something for silver."
+A commission had been appointed in 1876 to study the currency problem
+and make recommendations. When the report was made it appeared that the
+opinions of the members were so divergent that little was gained from
+the investigation. While the commission was deliberating, Richard P.
+Bland of Missouri introduced a bill providing for the free and unlimited
+coinage of silver. Under its provisions the owner of silver bullion
+could present any quantity of his commodity to the government to be
+coined under the conditions which controlled the coinage of gold. The
+House responded readily to Bland's proposal. In the Senate, under the
+leadership of William B. Allison, the free and unlimited feature of the
+bill was dropped and a provision adopted limiting the purchase of
+bullion to an amount not greater than four million dollars' worth per
+month and not less than two million dollars' worth. The bullion so
+obtained was to be coined into silver dollars, which were to be legal
+tender for all debts public and private. Bland was ready to accept the
+compromise because he hoped to be able to increase the use of silver by
+subsequent legislation. "If we cannot do that," he said, "I am in favor
+of issuing paper money enough to stuff down the bond-holders until they
+are sick." The remark was typical of the sectional and class hatreds and
+misunderstandings which this debate aroused, and of the maze of
+ignorance in which both sides were groping. To the silver faction, their
+opponents were "mendacious hirelings" and "Gilded Shylocks." God, in His
+infinite wisdom had imbedded silver in the western mountains for a
+beneficent purpose. "The country," said one speaker, "is in an agony of
+business distress and looks for some relief by a gradual increase of the
+currency." On the other hand, the opponents of silver scorned the
+"delusion" of a "clipped" coin and the dishonest proposition to make
+ninety cents' worth of silver pass as a dollar. The "storm-driven,
+buffeted, and scarred" ship of industrial peace, an easterner declared,
+"deeply laden with all precious and golden treasure is sighted in the
+offing!... shall we put out the lights?... Dare we remove the ship's
+helm, leaving her crippled and helpless!"
+
+Sherman believed that this limited amount of silver could be taken into
+the currency system without difficulty, but President Hayes thought that
+harm would result from making the silver dollar a legal tender when the
+market value of the bullion in the coin was not equal in value to that
+of the gold dollar. He therefore vetoed the bill on February 28, 1878.
+He could not carry Congress with him, however, and the measure was
+passed over the veto on the same day.
+
+Party lines had disappeared during the debates over the passage of the
+act. Eastern members of both houses and of both parties had been
+opposed, with few exceptions, to the increased use of silver; the
+westerners had been equally united in its favor. The East, the creditor
+section and the holder of most of the Civil War bonds, had no desire to
+try an experiment with the currency which would, in their opinion,
+reduce the purchasing power of their income. The debtor West looked with
+disfavor upon an increase in the real amount of their debts which was
+brought about by an inadequate supply of currency. Since prices
+continued to decline they believed that the remedy was a greater
+quantity of money. Evidently the greenback controversy was reviving in a
+new garb.
+
+The approach of the resumption of specie payments which had been set, it
+will be remembered, for January 1, 1879, increased the burden under
+which the westerners and the debtor classes in general were working.
+Favorable commercial conditions and Sherman's foresight, tact and
+intelligence made it possible to overcome the various difficulties in
+the way of accumulating a sufficient reserve of gold, and on December
+31, 1878, the Treasury had on hand about $140,000,000 of the precious
+metal, an amount nearly equal to forty per cent. of the paper in
+circulation. Despite the desirability of resumption, the first effects
+of preparations for it were harmful to considerable bodies of people. As
+January 1 approached, the greenbacks, which had been circulating at a
+depreciated value, rose nearer and nearer to par. Debts which had been
+incurred when paper dollars were worth sixty cents in gold, had to be
+paid in dollars worth eighty, ninety or a hundred cents, according to
+the date when the debt fell due. Business men who were heavily in debt
+and farmers whose property was mortgaged found their burden daily
+growing in size.
+
+Notwithstanding the steady advance of paper toward par value, Sherman
+nervously awaited business hours on January 2, 1879, (since the first
+fell on Sunday) to see whether there would be such a rush of holders of
+paper who would wish gold that his slender stock would be wiped out. New
+York, the financial center, was watched with especial anxiety. To
+Sherman's surprise, only $135,000 of paper was presented for redemption
+in gold; to his amazement and relief, $400,000 in gold was presented in
+exchange for paper. Evidently, now that paper and metal were
+interchangeable, people preferred the lighter and more convenient
+medium. Favorable business conditions enabled the government to continue
+specie payments; a huge grain crop in 1879, coupled with crop failures
+in England, caused unprecedented exports of wheat, corn and other
+products, and a corresponding importation of gold. The damage resulting
+from the appreciation of paper was temporary in character; the public
+credit was vastly benefited; and the greater amount of stability in the
+value of paper proved invaluable to industry.
+
+Happily Hayes's stormy political relations were balanced by comparative
+quiet in foreign affairs. Only Mexico caused trouble, and that was of
+negligible importance. A few raiders made sporadic excursions into
+Texas, which necessitated an expedition for the punishment of the
+marauders. General Ord was directed to cross the border if necessary,
+but General Diaz, at the head of the Mexican government, concluded an
+agreement for cooperation with the United States in the protection of
+the boundary. The agreement was only partly successful, however, and on
+several occasions troops crossed the Rio Grande and fought with bandits.
+
+On the Pacific Coast, meanwhile, the Chinese question was becoming a
+political issue. In earlier times the immigration of the Chinese had
+been encouraged because of the need of a cheap labor supply when the
+transcontinental railroads were being built. As the coast filled up,
+however, with native population, and the demand for laborers fell off,
+there arose numerous objections to the oriental. It was seen that since
+he was willing to work for extremely low wages he could drive American
+laborers out of their places. Labor leaders such as Dennis Kearney held
+meetings on the "sand lots" in San Francisco and aroused anti-Chinese
+feeling. Riots and violence, even, were not unknown.
+
+Just before the inauguration of President Hayes a commission of inquiry
+had visited the coast and examined many witnesses. The commission
+reported that the resources of the Pacific states had been more rapidly
+developed with coolie labor than they would otherwise have been, but
+that the Chinese lived under filthy conditions, formed an inferior
+foreign element and were, on the whole, undesirable. It recommended that
+the executive take steps in the direction of a modification of the
+existing treaty with China, for fear that the problem might spread
+eastward with increasing immigration. The electioneering possibilities
+of the subject had appealed to both parties and they had earnestly
+demanded action in their platforms of 1876. Opinion was forming
+throughout the country, aided by Bret Harte's famous lines:
+
+    Which I wish to remark
+    And my language is plain,
+    That for ways that are dark
+    And tricks that are vain,
+    The heathen Chinee is peculiar
+    Which the same I would rise to explain.
+
+Action by Congress was hindered by the Burlingame treaty of 1868 with
+China, which covered the subject of immigration in unmistakable
+language. By its provisions citizens of China were to have the same
+rights of travel and residence in America as the subjects of the most
+favored nation. Reciprocally, China was to grant equal privileges to
+citizens of the United States. The process of modifying a treaty through
+the ordinary diplomatic channels was so slow that Congress sought to
+avoid delay by passing a law forbidding shipmasters to bring in more
+than fifteen Chinese at one time, and calling upon the President to
+notify China that the terms of the Burlingame treaty, in so far as they
+related to immigration, would not hold after July 1, 1879, when the
+proposed legislation would take effect. President Hayes sympathized with
+the purpose of the bill but felt obliged to veto it because of the
+Burlingame treaty. The veto message recalled that the treaty had been of
+American seeking and that its ratification had been applauded all over
+the country. The abrogation of part of the agreement would be equivalent
+to abrogation of the whole, leaving American citizens in China without
+adequate treaty protection. Furthermore Hayes felt that treaties could
+not rightfully be violated by legislation, but advocated other measures
+for the relief of the people of the Pacific Coast. He thereupon sent to
+China a commission, headed by James B. Angell of Michigan, which
+succeeded in liberally modifying the existing treaty. Under the new
+arrangement the United States might "regulate, limit, or suspend" the
+immigration of Chinese laborers; and as the treaty was promptly
+ratified, it redounded somewhat to the credit of the Republicans in the
+election of 1880.
+
+The administration of Hayes was, on the whole, an admirable one. The
+problems which he faced were varied and difficult, but most of them were
+met sensibly and with success. To be sure, he did not grasp the social
+and economic forces behind the monetary agitation; nor did he have the
+insight and originality necessary for attacking the problem of industrial
+unrest as it appeared in the strike of 1877. But neither did his
+associates, nor his successors in the presidency for many years to
+come. On the other hand, the ethical standards of the administration
+were high and the atmosphere of the White House sane and wholesome. The
+home life of the President was exceptionally attractive, for Mrs. Hayes
+was a woman of unusual charm and social capacity. The attitude of Hayes
+on the southern question and on civil service reform was courageous and
+progressive. And most of all, his ideas on public questions were stated
+with unmistakable clearness in a day when old issues were sinking into
+the background and both parties were reluctant to define their position
+on the new ones.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+A great contribution to the understanding of Hayes's administration was
+made by the publication of C.R. Williams, _Life of Rutherford B. Hayes_
+(2 vols., 1914). It is complete and contains copious extracts from
+Hayes's diary, but is written with less of the critical spirit than is
+desirable; J.F. Rhodes has a valuable chapter in his _Historical Essays_
+(1909); J.W. Burgess, _Administration of R.B. Hayes_ (1916), is a
+eulogy; V.L. Shores, _Hayes-Conkling Controversy_ (1919), describes the
+civil service quarrel; J.R. Commons and others, _History of Labor in the
+United States_ (2 vols., 1918), describes the strike of 1877; so also
+does J.F. Rhodes, _History of the United States from Hayes to McKinley_
+(1919), with full references. On the Chinese affair, consult Mrs. M.E.
+B.S. Coolidge, _Chinese Immigration_ (1909). Most of the general
+histories already mentioned dwell at length on the Hayes administration.
+
+For the official messages of this and succeeding administrations, the
+most convenient source is J.D. Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the
+Presidents_ (10 vols., 1903).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] For a time public interest was absorbed by the determination of
+President and Mrs. Hayes to serve no wines of any kind in the White
+House. Finally a delicious frozen punch was served at about the middle
+of the state dinners, known to the thirsty as "the Life-saving Station."
+It was popularly understood to be liberally strengthened with old Santa
+Croix rum, but the President later asserted that he had caused the punch
+to be sharpened with the flavor of Jamaica rum and that no drop of
+spirits was inserted. What the _chef_ really did, perhaps nobody knows.
+At any rate, both sides were satisfied. Williams, _R.B. Hayes_, II; 312
+note.
+
+[2] Because March 4 fell on Sunday, the oath of office was privately
+administered to Hayes on Saturday evening, March 3. Williams, _Hayes_,
+II, 5.
+
+[3] George W. McCrary was Secretary of War; Richard W. Thompson,
+Secretary of the Navy; Charles Devens, Attorney-General.
+
+[4] Chamberlain, the Republican claimant in South Carolina, wrote in
+1901 that he was "quite ready now to say that he feels sure that there
+was no possibility of securing permanent good government in South
+Carolina through Republican influences." _Atlantic Monthly_, LXXXVII,
+482.
+
+[5] Many of the dispatches were in a complicated cipher which resisted
+all attempts at solution. The _Tribune_ published samples from time
+to time, keeping interest alive in the hope that somebody might solve
+the riddle. Finally two members of the _Tribune_ staff were successful
+in discovering the key to the cipher in a way that recalls the
+paper-covered detective story. The newspaper aroused and excited public
+interest by publishing specimens and eventually achieved a sensation by
+putting the most damaging material into print on October 16, 1878. One
+of the telegrams, with its translation, ran as follows:
+
+    "Absolutely Petersburg can procured by Copenhagen may Thomas
+    prompt Edinburgh must if river take be you less London Thames
+    will."
+
+    Translation: If Returning Board can be procured absolutely, will
+    you deposit 30,000 dollars? May take less. Must be prompt. Thomas.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+THE POLITICS OF THE EARLY EIGHTIES
+
+The Hayes administration was scarcely half over when the politicians
+began to look forward to the election of 1880. At the outset of his
+term, Hayes had advocated a single term for the executive and there was
+no widespread movement among the politicians to influence him to change
+his attitude. His enemies, indeed, had already turned to General Grant.
+There had been a third-term boom for the General during his second
+administration and he had indicated that he was not formidably opposed
+to further continuance in office. Suddenly, however, the anti-third-term
+feeling had risen to impressive proportions, whereupon the House of
+Representatives had adopted a resolution which characterized any
+departure from the two-term precedent as "unwise, unpatriotic, and
+fraught with peril to our free institutions." As the resolution passed
+by an overwhelming vote--233-18--nothing further was heard of a
+third-term boom.
+
+The Hayes administration put a different complexion on the matter. The
+wheel-horses of the party were not enthusiastic over the President or
+his policies, and in their extremity they looked to Grant. The New York
+State Republican Convention, under control of Roscoe Conkling and his
+forces, instructed delegates to support the General as a candidate for
+the nomination and endeavored to forestall opposition to a third term.
+It declared that the objection to a third presidential term applied only
+to a third consecutive term and hence was inapplicable to the
+re-election of Grant. Grant, meanwhile, presented a spectacle that was
+at once humorous and pathetic. He had not expected, on leaving the
+presidency, to return to power again, had dropped consideration of the
+political future and had given himself up to the enjoyment of foreign
+travel. The royal reception accorded him wherever he went suggested to
+his political supporters that they utilize his popularity. It was
+foreseen that when he returned to America he would receive a tremendous
+ovation, on the wave of which he might be carried into office. He was
+flooded with advice and entreaties that he act in accordance with this
+plan. His family was eager to return to the position of social eminence
+which they had occupied, and pressure from them was incessant. At first
+he did nothing either to aid or to hinder the boom, then gave way to the
+pressure and at last became extremely anxious to obtain the coveted
+prize.
+
+If the politicians did, in truth, desire a relaxation from the patronage
+standards of the Hayes regime, they did not make that the ostensible
+purpose of their campaign. They argued that the times demanded a strong
+man; that foreign travel had greatly broadened the General and given him
+a knowledge of other forms of government; that he had been great as a
+commander of armies, greater as a President, and that as a citizen of
+the Republic he "shone with a luster that challenged the admiration of
+the world." Behind him were Conkling and Platt, with the New York state
+organization under their control, Don Cameron who held Pennsylvania in
+his hand, General Logan, strong in Illinois, and lesser leaders who
+wielded much power in smaller states. Many business men were ready to
+lend their aid; the powerful Methodist Church, to which he belonged, was
+favorable to him; and, of course, his popularity as a military leader
+was unbounded. His return to the United States while the enthusiasm was
+at its height was the signal for an unprecedented ovation. The opponents
+of a third term painted in high colors the danger of a revival of the
+scandals of Grant's days in the presidential chair, formed "No Third
+Term" leagues, called an "Anti-Third-Term" convention and decried the
+danger of continuing a military man in civil office. _The Nation_
+scoffed at the educational effect of foreign travel on a man who was
+fifty-seven years of age and could understand the language in only one
+of the countries in which he travelled. A large fraction of the
+Republican press, in fact, was in opposition. "Anything to beat Grant"
+and "No third term" were their war-cries. Nor was there any lack of
+Republican candidates to oppose the Grant movement and to give promise
+of a lively nominating convention. Blaine's popularity was as widespread
+as ever. Those who feared the nomination of either Grant or Blaine
+favored Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont or Secretary Sherman. Both
+of these men were of statesmanlike proportions, but Edmunds was never
+widely popular and Sherman was lacking in the arts of the
+politician--"the human icicle," T.C. Platt called him.
+
+The Republican nominating convention of 1880 met in Chicago in a
+building described as "one of the most splendid barns" ever built. This
+convention is unusually worthy of study because it involved most of the
+elements which entered into American politics in the early eighties. It
+was long memorable as making a record for that form of enthusiasm which
+bursts into demonstrations. "Great applause," "loud laughter," "cheers"
+and "hisses long and furious" dot the newspaper accounts of its
+deliberations. The members "acted like so many Bedlamites," one of the
+delegates said. On one day the opening prayer was so unexpectedly short
+that there was applause and laughter. The keen contest for the
+nomination resulted in galleries packed with supporters of the several
+candidates, who cheered furiously as their favorite delegates appeared.
+As the galleries came down nearly to the level of the floor, the
+spectators were almost as much members of the convention as the
+delegates themselves. It was under such conditions, then, that the
+convention proceeded to the serious business of adopting principles and
+choosing a leader.
+
+Three hundred and six of the 757 delegates were sworn supporters of
+Grant--pledged to die, if they died at all, "with their boots on," one
+of their leaders said. In each of the big delegations--those from New
+York, Pennsylvania and Illinois--a minority was unfavorable to Grant.
+This minority could be counted in the General's column if the convention
+could be forced to adopt the so-called "unit-rule," under which the
+delegation from a state casts all its votes for the candidate favored by
+the majority. In this particular case, the minorities in New York,
+Pennsylvania and Illinois numbered more than sixty delegates, so that
+the adoption of the rule was a stake worth playing for. The plan
+formulated by the Grant leaders was worthy of the time.
+
+Donald Cameron of Pennsylvania was chairman of the National Republican
+Committee. Following the usual custom, Cameron was to call the
+convention to order and present the temporary chairman who had been
+chosen by the Committee. As the Grant supporters were in a minority even
+on the Committee, provision was made to meet the emergency in case the
+majority insisted on the appointment of an anti-Grant chairman. Cameron
+was to announce the name, a Grant delegate was to move to substitute a
+Grant man instead, and Cameron would enforce the unit-rule in the
+resulting ballot. This would ensure control of the organization of the
+convention and, doubtless, of the nomination of the candidate.
+
+Unhappily for this well-laid plan, rumor of it leaked out, and the
+majority of the National Committee--opposed to Grant--conveyed
+information to Cameron that he must agree to give up such a scheme or be
+ousted from his position. Cameron, convinced that his enemies were
+determined, gave up his project, and Senator George F. Hoar, who favored
+neither Grant nor Blaine, was made temporary and later permanent
+chairman.
+
+Although defeated in the first skirmish, the Grant forces pressed
+forward for renewed conflict. Conkling presented a resolution that every
+member of the convention be bound in honor to support the eventual
+candidate, whoever he might be. The resolution passed 716 to three; and
+he then moved that the three who had voted in the negative had thereby
+forfeited their votes in the convention. James A. Garfield of Ohio led
+the opposition to such rough-shod action and Conkling angrily withdrew
+his resolution amid hisses. When Garfield reported from the Committee on
+Rules in regard to the regulations under which the convention should
+deliberate, he moved that the unit rule be not adopted and the
+convention upheld him. It was manifest that the delegates were not in a
+mood to surrender to a junto of powerful machine politicians.
+
+The way having been now cleared for action, the convention adopted a
+platform. This was composed largely of a summary of the achievements of
+the party and denunciation of the opposition. Most of the planks were
+abstract or perfunctory, or expressed in such a way as not to commit the
+party seriously. _Harper's Weekly_, a Republican periodical, regretted
+the character of the platform and remarked that such documents are
+expected to say
+
+    An undisputed thing
+    In such a solemn way.
+
+Judged by this criterion, the platform was ideal. The obligations of the
+country to the veterans were emphasized and the restriction of Chinese
+immigration called for. On the tariff, the only utterance was an avowal
+that duties levied for the purposes of revenue should discriminate in
+favor of labor. After this declaration of faith had been unanimously
+adopted, a Massachusetts delegate presented an additional plank
+advocating civil service reform.
+
+The convention was now badly put to it. To reject a plank which had been
+accepted both in 1872 and in 1876 would discredit the party,
+particularly as the platform just adopted had accused the opposition of
+sacrificing patriotism "to a supreme and insatiable lust for office."
+Nevertheless the opposition to its adoption was formidable, and it had
+already been twice rejected in the Committee on Resolutions, which drew
+up the platform. There seemed no way of avoiding the issue, however, and
+the plank was thereupon adopted, though not before Webster Flanagan of
+Texas had blurted out, "After we have won the race ... we will give
+those who are entitled to positions office. What are we up here for?"
+
+With the speeches presenting candidates to the convention, the real
+business of the week began. Senator Conkling aroused a tempest of
+enthusiasm for General Grant in a famous speech which began with the
+lines,
+
+    When asked what state he hails from,
+      Our sole reply shall be,
+    He comes from Appomattox
+      And its famous apple tree.
+
+Garfield presented Sherman's name. At the outset General Grant led,
+Blame was a close second and Sherman third. This order continued for
+thirty-five ballots. By that time Blaine and Grant had fought each other
+to a standstill. The General's three hundred and six held together
+without a break, and Blaine's forces were equally determined.[1]
+
+There was little chance of compromise, as Grant and Blaine were not on
+speaking terms, and Conkling and Blaine looked upon each other with
+unconcealed hatred. Since Sherman was handicapped by lack of united
+support in his own state, the natural solution of the problem seemed to
+be the choice of some other leader who might harmonize the contending
+factions. On the thirty-fourth ballot, seventeen votes were given to
+Garfield; on the next, fifty; then a stampede began, in spite of a
+protest by Garfield, and on the thirty-sixth ballot a union of the
+Blaine and Sherman forces made him the choice of the convention. The
+nominee for the vice-presidency was Chester A. Arthur, who was one of
+the leading supporters of Grant and a member of the Conkling group.
+
+The choice of Garfield was well received by the country, perhaps the
+more so as a relief from the danger of a third term. The nominee was a
+man of great industry, possessed of a store of information, tactful,
+modest, popular, an effective orator, and a veteran of the war. His
+rise from canal boy to candidate for the presidency exemplified the
+possibilities before industrious youth and gave rise to many a homily
+on democratic America. Yet his friends had to defend his relation to a
+paving scandal in the District of Columbia and an unwise connection with
+the Credit Mobilier of 1873. In neither of these cases does Garfield
+seem to have been corrupt, but in neither does he appear in a highly
+favorable light.[2]
+
+As the Republicans were dispersing, the Greenback convention was
+assembling. Their strength in the campaign was almost negligible but
+their platform presaged the future. Money to be issued only by the
+government, the volume of money increased, ameliorative labor
+legislation, restriction of Chinese immigration, regulation of
+interstate commerce, an income tax, government for the people rather
+than for classes, wider suffrage,--all these were advocated in concise
+and unmistakable terms. James B. Weaver was the presidential candidate.
+
+Among the Democrats, the all important question was whether Tilden would
+be a candidate again. He naturally wished for a renomination and an
+opportunity to prove by an election that he had been "fraudulently"
+deprived of the presidency in 1876. The party, likewise, seemed to need
+his services, as no other leader of equal prominence had appeared. On
+the other hand, his health had rapidly failed since 1876 and it was
+apparent that he was unequal to the exacting labors of the presidency.
+Not until just before the meeting of the convention, however, did he
+make known his wishes and then he declared that he desired nothing so
+much as an honorable discharge from public service and that he
+"renounced" the renomination. The party took him at his word and turned
+to the adoption of a platform and the choice of another leader.
+
+The platform reflected the bitterness of the party over the "great
+fraud" of 1876-1877 and advocated tariff for revenue only, civil service
+reform and the restriction of Chinese immigration. In other words,
+except for the usual self-congratulation and the denunciation of the
+opposition, the Democratic platform closely resembled that of the
+Republicans. The convention then nominated for the presidency General
+Winfield S. Hancock, a modest, brave Union soldier, of whom Grant once
+said, "his name was never mentioned as having committed in battle a
+blunder for which he was responsible." He was not an experienced
+politician, but was popular even in the South.
+
+On the whole the Democratic convention was much less interesting than
+its Republican predecessor. There were no fierce factional quarrels to
+arouse the emotions to concert pitch. The applause spurted out here and
+there like the "jets from a splitting hose" in the "Ki yi yi yi" which
+characterized the cheers of the lower wards of New York, in contrast to
+the rolling billows of applause which formed so memorable an element in
+the opposition gathering. The New York Tribune, although hostile to
+everything Democratic, perhaps stated the fact when it commented on the
+lack of enthusiasm. The convention, the Tribune noted, was well-behaved,
+but a mob without leaders; there were no Conklings or Garfields or
+Logans, only John Kelleys and Wade Hamptons.
+
+The campaign of 1880 reflected the lack of definite utterances in the
+party platforms. Since each side was loath to press forward to the
+solution of any real problem facing the nation, the campaign was
+confined, for the most part, to petty or even corrupt partisanship. The
+career of General Garfield was carefully overhauled for evidences of
+scandal. Arthur's failings as a public officer were duly paraded.
+General Hancock was ridiculed as "a good man weighing two hundred and
+forty pounds." Some attempt was made by the Republicans to make an issue
+of the tariff, and a remark of Hancock to the effect that the tariff was
+a "local issue" was jeered at as proving an ignorance of public
+questions. There was little response to the "bloody shirt" and little
+interest in "the great fraud." A modicum of enthusiasm was injected into
+the canvass by the participation of Conkling and General Grant. The
+former was not happily disposed toward the Republican candidate and
+Grant had always refused to make campaign speeches, but as the autumn
+came on and defeat seemed imminent, these two leaders were prevailed
+upon to lend their assistance. Near the end of the campaign a letter was
+circulated in the Pacific states, purporting to have been written by
+Garfield to a Mr. Morey, and expressing opposition to the restriction of
+Chinese immigration. The signature was a forgery, but complete exposure
+in the short time before election day was impossible and the letter
+perhaps injured Garfield on the coast. Nevertheless Garfield and Arthur
+won, although their popular plurality was only 9,500 in a total of about
+nine millions. The electoral vote was 214 to 155 and showed that the
+division among the states was sectional, for in the North Hancock
+carried only New Jersey, together with Nevada and five electoral votes
+in California, the result probably of the Morey letter.
+
+Two aspects of the campaign had especial significance. The attempt by
+Conkling and his associates to choose the Republican nominee through the
+shrewd manipulation of political machinery, and against the wishes of
+the rank and file of the party, was a move on the part of the greater
+state bosses to get control of the national organization, so that they
+might manage it as they managed their local committees and conventions.
+The second notable circumstance concerned the collection and expenditure
+of the campaign funds.
+
+Even before the convention met, the Republican Congressional Committee,
+pursuing the common practice of the time, addressed a letter to all
+federal employees, except heads of departments, in which the suggestion
+was made that the office holders would doubtless consider it a
+"privilege and a pleasure" to contribute to the campaign funds an amount
+equal to two per cent. of their salaries. The Republican National
+Committee also made its demands on office holders--usually five per
+cent. of a year's salary. The Democrats, having no hold on the federal
+offices, had to content themselves with the cultivation of the
+possibilities in states which they controlled. In New York, Senator
+Platt was chairman of the executive committee and he sent a similar
+communication to federal employees in the state. Even the office boy in
+a rural post office was not overlooked, and when contributions were not
+forthcoming, the names of delinquents were sent to their superiors.
+Other developments appeared after the election was over. In February,
+1881, a dinner was given in honor of Senator S.W. Dorsey, secretary of
+the Republican National Committee, to whom credit was given for carrying
+the state of Indiana. General Grant presided and grace was asked by
+Reverend Henry Ward Beecher. Dorsey was an Arkansas carpet-bagger, who
+had been connected with a railroad swindle and was soon, as it turned
+out, to be indicted for complication in other frauds. The substance of
+the speeches was that the prospect of success in the campaign seemed
+waning, that Indiana was essential to success and that Dorsey was the
+agent who accomplished the task. Arthur, who was one of the speakers,
+explained the _modus operandi_: "Indiana was really, I suppose, a
+Democratic State. It had been put down on the books always as a State
+that might be carried by close and perfect organization and a great deal
+of--(laughter). I see the reporters are present, therefore I will simply
+say that everybody showed a great deal of interest in the occasion and
+distributed tracts and political documents all through the State."
+
+With the victory accomplished, the politicians turned from the contest
+with the common enemy to the question of the division of the spoils;
+from the ostensible issue of platforms, to the real issue that Flanagan
+had personified. Although the Republicans had presented a united front
+to their opponents, there were factional troubles within the party that
+all but dwarfed the larger contest. The "Stalwarts" were composed of the
+thorough "organization men" like Conkling, Platt and Arthur; the
+"Half-breeds" were anti-organization men and more sympathetic with the
+administration. The commander of the Stalwarts and one of the most
+influential leaders in the country was Roscoe Conkling, Senator from New
+York. In person Conkling was a tall, handsome, imperious man, with
+something of the theatrical in his appearance and manner. As a
+politician he was aggressive, fearless, scornful, shrewd and adroit when
+he chose to be, and masterful, always. As an orator he knew how to play
+on the feelings of the crowd; his vocabulary, when he turned upon one
+whom he disliked, was memorable for its wealth of invective and
+ridicule, and especially he uncorked the vials of his wrath on any who
+were not strictly organization men. Although an able man and a
+successful lawyer, Conkling seems to have had less interest in the
+public welfare than in conventions, elections and patronage.
+
+The announcement of Garfield's choice of a Cabinet was the signal for a
+fierce patronage fight. James G. Blaine, the choice for Secretary of
+State, was distasteful in the extreme to Conkling. Many years before,
+during a debate in the House, Blaine had compared Conkling to Henry
+Winter Davis as
+
+    Hyperion to a satyr, Thersites to Hercules, mud to marble,
+    dunghill to diamond, a singed cat to a Bengal tiger, a whining
+    puppy to a roaring lion.
+
+He had contemptuously referred to Conkling's "haughty disdain, his
+grandiloquent swell, his majestic, supereminent, overpowering,
+turkey-gobbler strut." Accordingly when Garfield disregarded Conkling's
+wishes in regard to the representation which New York should have in the
+cabinet, Conkling laid the blame upon his old enemy.[3]
+
+As soon as the administration was in office, the Senate met in executive
+session to act on appointments, and it appeared that the parties were
+evenly divided, the balance of power lying in the hands of two
+Independents. President Garfield sent in his list of nominees for office
+without consulting Conkling in regard to New York appointments. Among
+them was William H. Robertson for the coveted position of collector for
+the port of New York. As Robertson had been opposed to Grant and to the
+unit rule in the Republican convention, Conkling's rage reached a fever
+pitch. In an attempt to discredit the President before the country, he
+made public a letter from Garfield giving countenance to the practice of
+levying campaign assessments on federal employees. Conkling's point of
+view is not difficult to understand. Consultation with the senators from
+a state with regard to nominations to offices within its boundaries was
+the common custom; Conkling had sunk his dislike of Garfield during the
+campaign in order to assist in a party victory; moreover, he and Platt,
+the other New York senator, understood that Garfield had agreed to
+dispense New York patronage in conformity to the wishes of the
+Stalwarts, in case Conkling took the stump. He had carried out his part
+of the bargain and now desired his _quid pro quo_.
+
+Meanwhile the Senate was trying to organize and having failed because of
+the even division of the parties, stopped the attempt long enough to act
+on the nominations. The President then withdrew all except that of
+Robertson, thus indicating that offices in which other senators were
+concerned would not be filled until the New York case was settled.
+Foreseeing that the members would wish to clear the way for their own
+interests and that Robertson's nomination was likely to be agreed to,
+Conkling and Platt resigned their posts and appealed to the New York
+legislature for a re-election as a vindication of the stand they had
+taken. As the legislature was Republican and as Vice-President Arthur
+went to Albany to urge their case, they seemed likely to succeed; but to
+their mortification they were both defeated after an extended contest,
+and Conkling retired permanently to private life. Platt, who was
+promptly dubbed "Me Too," also relinquished public office, but only for
+a time. In the meanwhile, as soon as Conkling and Platt had left the
+Senate, the nomination of Robertson had been approved, and Garfield was
+triumphant.
+
+Further light was thrown upon political conditions by the investigations
+of the "star routes." These were routes in the South and West where
+mails had to be carried by stage lines, and were under the control of
+the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, Thomas J. Brady. Rumors had
+been common for some years that they were a source of corruption.
+Garfield's Postmaster-General, Thomas L. James, had already made a
+reputation as the reform postmaster of New York, and he set himself
+to investigate the reports. Among other things it was discovered that a
+combination of public men and contractors had succeeded in raising the
+compensation on 134 star routes from $143,169 to $622,808, dividing the
+extra profits among themselves. Brady and Senator Dorsey, the active
+agent in the campaign in Indiana, were accused of being in the "ring"
+and were indicted on the ground of conspiracy to defraud the government.
+Brady attempted to block the investigation by threatening Garfield with
+an exposure of the campaign methods, and when the threat failed he made
+public a letter from the President to "My dear Hubbell," chairman of the
+Congressional Committee, similar to that which Conkling had earlier
+published. The trials of the conspirators dragged on until 1883 and
+resulted in the acquittal of all the accused except one of the least
+important. Yet some good was accomplished, for the ring was broken up.
+Dorsey retired from public life, and renewed attention was drawn to the
+need of better federal officials.
+
+During the course of the trials, the country was shocked by the
+assassination of the President on July 2, 1881, at the hands of a
+disappointed office seeker named Guiteau. Despite a strong constitution
+Garfield grew slowly weaker and died on September 19. The catastrophe
+affected the country the more profoundly because of its connection with
+the factional quarrel in the Republican party and because, following the
+recent murder of the Russian Czar, it seemed to show that democratic
+government was no guarantee against violence.[4]
+
+The consternation with which the elevation of Chester A. Arthur to the
+presidency was received was not confined to the Democrats. An
+oft-repeated remark made at the time was expressive of the opinion of
+those best acquainted with the new executive: "'Chet' Arthur President
+of the United States! Good God!" In truth Arthur's previous career
+hardly justified anything except consternation. He had been identified
+always with machine politics and particularly with the Conkling group;
+he had been a prominent figure in the opposition to Hayes when the
+latter attempted to improve conditions in the New York Customs House;
+and had taken an active and undignified share in the quarrel between
+Garfield and Conkling. Chester A. Arthur, however, was a combination of
+characteristics such as enlist the interest of the student of human
+nature. Of Vermont birth, educated at Union College where he had taken
+high rank, he had taught school for a time, had entered the practice of
+law in New York, had made a good war record, and had been a member of
+the Republican party from its beginning. In many ways Arthur was made
+for politics. He was the "man of the world" in appearance, polished,
+refined, well-groomed, scrupulously careful about his attire, a
+_bon-vivant_. Yet he was equally at home in the atmosphere of politics
+in the early eighties; a leader of the "Johnnies" and "Jakes," the
+"Barneys" and "Mikes" of New York City. Dignity characterized him,
+whether in the "knock-down" and "drag-out" caucus or at an exclusive
+White House reception. He possessed a refinement, especially in his home
+life, that is not usually associated with ward politics but which forms
+an element of the "gentleman" in the best sense of that abused word.
+
+Yet they who feared that President Arthur would be like Chester A.
+Arthur, the collector of the port, were treated to a revelation. The
+suddenness with which the elevation to the responsibility of the
+executive's position broadened the view of the President proved that he
+possessed qualities which had been merely hidden in the pursuit of
+ordinary partisan politics. Platt, expectant of the dismissal of
+Robertson, now that a Stalwart was in power, fell back in disgust and
+disowned his former associate, for it appeared that Arthur intended to
+further the principles of reform. His first annual message to Congress
+contained a sane discussion of the civil service and the needed
+remedies, which committed him whole-heartedly to the competitive system.
+Although he did not go as far as some reformers would have had him, he
+went so much farther than was expected that commendation was
+enthusiastic, even on the part of the most prominent leaders in the
+reform element. In the same message he urged the repeal of the
+Bland-Allison silver-coinage act, the reduction of the internal revenue,
+revision of the tariff, a better navy, post-office savings banks, and
+enlightened Indian legislation. Altogether it was clear that he had laid
+aside much of the partisan in succeeding to his high office.[5]
+
+The Chinese problem soon provided him with an opportunity to show an
+independence of judgment, together with an indifference to mere
+popularity, which were in keeping with the new Arthur, but which were a
+surprise to his former associates. As a result of the changes in the
+Burlingame treaty, which gave the United States authority to suspend the
+immigration of Chinese laborers, Congress passed a bill in 1882 to
+prohibit the incoming of laborers for twenty years, western Republicans
+joining with the Democrats in its passage.[6] Arthur vetoed the measure
+on the ground that a stoppage for so great a period as twenty years
+violated those provisions of the treaty which allowed us merely to
+suspend immigration, not to prohibit it. An attempt to overcome the veto
+failed for lack of the necessary two-thirds majority. Congress did,
+however, pass legislation suspending the immigration of laborers for ten
+years, and this bill the President signed. Later acts have merely
+extended this law or made it more effective.
+
+Arthur also exercised the veto upon a rivers and harbors bill. It had,
+of course, long been the custom for the federal government to aid in the
+improvement of the harbors and internal water-ways of the country. But
+the modest sums of _ante-bellum_ days grew rapidly after the war,
+stimulated by immense federal revenues, until the suggested legislation
+of 1882 appropriated nearly nineteen million dollars. It provided not
+merely for the dredging of great rivers like the Mississippi and Ohio,
+but also for the Lamprey River in New Hampshire, the Waccemaw in North
+Carolina, together with Goose Rapids and Cheesequake Creek. Some of
+these, the opposition declared, might better be paved than dredged.[7]
+It might seem that a bill against which such obvious objections could be
+raised would be doomed to failure. But the argument of Ransom of North
+Carolina, who had charge of the bill in its later stages in the Senate,
+seems to have been a decisive one. Somebody had objected that the
+members of the committee had cared for the interests of their own
+states, merely. Ransom repelled the charge. He showed that the New
+England states had been looked out for; "Look next to New York, that
+great, grand, magnificent State ... that empire in itself ... Go to
+Delaware, little, glorious Delaware." The committee had retained $20,000
+for Delaware. "Go next ... to great, grand old Virginia." Virginia had
+received something. "Go to Missouri, the young, beautiful, growing,
+powerful State of my friend over the way." And so on--all had been
+treated with thoughtful care. Ransom was wise in his day and generation.
+Although Arthur objected to the bill on the grounds of extravagance and
+of the official demoralization which accompanied it, nevertheless
+Republicans and Democrats alike joined in passing over the veto an act
+which would get money into their home states.
+
+The congressional elections in the fall of 1882 indicated that the
+factional disputes among the Republicans, and their failure to reform
+conditions in the civil service had presented the opposition with an
+opportunity. In the House of Representatives, Republican control was
+replaced by a Democratic majority of sixty-nine; the state legislatures
+chosen were Democratic in such numbers as to make sure the even division
+of the Senate when new members were elected; in Pennsylvania, a
+Democratic reformer, Robert E. Pattison, was elected governor, and in
+New York another, Grover Cleveland, was successful by the unprecedented
+majority of 190,000.
+
+The results of the campaign added interest to a civil service reform
+bill which had been drafted by some reformers led by Dorman B. Eaton,
+and which had been presented to the Senate by George F. Pendleton, of
+Ohio. The debate elicited several points of view. Pendleton set forth
+the evils of the existing system of appointments, and emphasized the
+superior advantages of appointment after competitive examination. The
+Democrats were in distress. Although Pendleton was himself a Democrat
+and the party platforms had been advocating reform, nevertheless the
+election of 1884 was not far ahead, Democratic success seemed likely,
+and the party leaders desired an unrestrained opportunity to fill the
+offices with their followers. Senator Williams expressed a conviction
+that the Republican party was a party of corruption and continued:
+
+    The only way to reform is to put a good honest Democratic
+    president in in 1884; then turn on the hose and give him a
+    good hickory broom and tell him to sweep the dirt away.
+
+The Republicans, on their side, were fearful of the same clean sweep
+that Williams hoped for, and they therefore looked with greater
+equanimity upon a bill which might retain in office the existing
+office-holders, most of whom belonged to their party. This aspect of the
+situation was not lost upon such Democrats as Senator Brown who moved
+that the measure be entitled "a bill to perpetuate in office the
+Republicans who now hold the patronage of the government." In the Senate
+only five members voted against its passage, but thirty-three absented
+themselves; and in the House forty-seven opposed, while eighty-seven
+were absent. A little study of the debate makes it clear that the
+passage of the act was due to conviction in favor of reform on the part
+of a few and to fear of public opinion on the part of many others.
+Undoubtedly many of the absentees were members who would not vote for
+the measure and were fearful of the results of voting against it. The
+President signed the bill January 16, 1883.
+
+The Pendleton act left large discretion in the hands of the President.
+It authorized the appointment of a commission of three who should
+prepare and put into effect suitable rules for carrying out the law. The
+act also provided that government offices should be arranged in classes
+and that entrance to any class should be obtained by competitive
+examination; that no person should be removed from the service for
+refusing to contribute to political funds; and that examinations should
+be held in one or more places in each state and territory where
+candidates appeared. The system was to be inaugurated in customs
+districts and post offices where the number of employees was as many as
+fifty, but could be extended later under direction of the President. The
+soliciting or receiving of contributions by federal officials of all
+grades, for political purposes, was forbidden. With the exceptions just
+mentioned, officers could be removed from office as before, but the
+purpose of removal was now gone. Since the appointee to the vacancy must
+be the successful competitor in an examination, the chief who removed an
+officer could not replace him with a personal friend or party worker.
+
+The first commission was headed by Dorman B. Eaton. The work of grading
+officials and placing them within the protection of the law began at
+once, and by the close of President Arthur's term nearly 16,000 were
+classified. Fortunately, the work of the commission was carried on
+sensibly and slowly, and no backward steps had to be taken.
+
+The attitude of Congress toward tariff revision illustrates many of the
+characteristics of congressional action during the early eighties. In
+his first message to Congress, Arthur said that the surplus for the year
+was $100,000,000, and therefore urged the reduction of the internal
+revenue taxes and the revision of the tariff. In May, 1882, Congress
+authorized a tariff commission to investigate and report, and in
+conformity with the law Arthur appointed its nine members. All of them
+were protectionists and the chairman, John L. Hayes, was secretary of
+the Wool Manufacturers' Association. After holding hearings in more than
+a score of cities and examining some hundreds of witnesses, the
+commission recommended reductions varying from nothing in some cases to
+forty or fifty per cent. in others. The average reduction was twenty to
+twenty-five per cent.
+
+Using the report as a foundation, the Senate drew up a tariff measure,
+added it to a House bill which provided for a reduction of the internal
+revenues, and passed the combination. Meanwhile, lobbyists poured into
+Washington to guard the interests of the producers of lumber, pig-iron,
+sugar and other materials upon which the tariff might be reduced. When
+the Senate bill reached the House it contained lower duties than the
+protectionist members desired. The latter, although in possession of the
+organization of the House, were not strong enough to restore higher
+rates, but under the shrewd management of Thomas B. Reed, one of their
+number, they were able to refer the bill to a conference committee of
+the two houses which contained seven strong protectionists out of ten
+members. Reed admitted that the proceedings were "unusual in their
+nature and very forcible in their character" but he felt that a change
+in the tariff had been promised and that the only way to bring it about
+in the face of Democratic opposition was to settle the details "in the
+quiet of a conference committee." A "great emergency" having arisen, he
+would take extraordinary measures. The bill produced under these
+circumstances reduced the internal revenue taxes, lowered some of the
+tariff duties and raised others, but left the general level at the point
+where it had been at the close of the war. _The Nation_, favorable to
+reform, scornfully characterized the act as "taking a shaving off the
+duty on iron wire, and adding it to the duty on glue!" Senator Sherman,
+a protectionist member of the conference committee, wrote an account of
+the whole procedure many years afterward. After commending the spirit
+and proposals of the tariff commission and mentioning the successful
+efforts of many persons to have their individual interests looked out
+for, he expressed a regret that he did not defeat the bill, as he could
+have done in view of the evenly balanced party situation in the Senate
+at that time.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The election of 1880 is well treated by Sparks, Stanwood, Andrews, and
+Rhodes. Senator G.F. Hoar, the chairman of the Republican nominating
+convention, has a valuable chapter in his _Autobiography of Seventy
+Years_. Such newspapers as the New York _Times_ and _Tribune_ are
+invaluable for a discussion of the conventions.
+
+The events of the administration, such as the tariff debates, the
+passage of the civil service law and others are discussed in the special
+works mentioned in Chapter V. Consult also: Edward Stanwood, _J.G.
+Blaine_; T.C. Platt, _Autobiography_; and A.R. Conkling, _Life and
+Letters of Roscoe Conkling_. The _Annual Cyclopaedia _contains several
+excellent articles on the tariff (1882, 1883), civil service reform
+(1883), star route trials (1882, 1883). H.C. Thomas, _The Return of the
+Democratic Party to Power in 1884_ (1919), contains useful chapters on
+Garfield and Arthur.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] For Platt's account of the annual reunion and banquet of the three
+hundred and six--"The Old Guard"--see _Autobiography_, 115.
+
+[2] Garfield's early career as a canal boy led to such campaign songs
+as the following:
+
+    He early learned to paddle well his own forlorn canoe,
+    Upon Ohio's grand canal he held the hellum true.
+    And now the people shout to him: "Lo! 't is for you we wait.
+    We want to see Jim Garfield guide our glorious ship of state."
+
+[3] William Windom, of Minn., was Secretary of the Treasury; E.T.
+Lincoln, of Ill., Secretary of War; Wayne MacVeagh, of Pa.,
+Attorney-General; T.L. James, of N.Y., Postmaster-General; W.H. Hunt,
+of La., Secretary of the Navy; S.J. Kirkwood, of Ia., Secretary of
+the Interior.
+
+[4] The death of the President emphasized the need of a presidential
+succession law. Under an act of 1792, the president and vice-president
+were succeeded by the president of the Senate and the speaker of the
+House. When Garfield died, the Senate had not yet elected a presiding
+officer and the House had not met. The death of Arthur would have left
+the country without a legal head. The Presidential Succession Act of
+1886 remedied the fault by providing for the succession of the cabinet
+in order, beginning with the Secretary of State. The presiding officers
+of the Senate and House were omitted, because they might not be of the
+dominant party.
+
+[5] The cabinet was composed of F.T. Frelinghuysen, N.J., Secretary of
+State; C.J. Folger, N.Y., Secretary of the Treasury; R.T. Lincoln, Ill.,
+Secretary of War; B.H. Brewster, Pa., Attorney-General; T.O. Howe, Wis.,
+Postmaster-General; W.E. Chandler, N.H., Secretary of the Navy; H.M.
+Teller, Colo., Secretary of the Interior.
+
+[6] Above, p. 145.
+
+[7] Some thoroughly unselfish members of Congress like Senator Hoar,
+however, believed the bill a justifiable one and voted for it. See Hoar,
+_Autobiography_, II, chapter VIII.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+THE OVERTURN OF 1884
+
+The election of 1880 was memorable only for the type of politics with
+which that contest was so inextricably involved. The party leaders were
+second-rate men; the platforms, except for that of the Greenback party,
+were as lacking in definiteness as the most timid office-seeker could
+desire; in brief, it was a cross-section of American professional
+politics at its worst. The election of 1884 was a distinct, although not
+a complete contrast. It was not a campaign of platforms, but like the
+election of 1824 it was a battle of men. Two genuine leaders, each
+representing a distinct type of politics, contended for an opportunity
+to try out a philosophy of government in the executive chair. In 1880
+the conventions were the chief interest--the campaign was dull. The
+campaign of 1884, on the other hand, was one of the most remarkable in
+our history.
+
+It will be remembered that the year 1882 had been characterized by
+political upheavals. In Pennsylvania the Greenbackers had demanded that
+currency be issued only by the central government--not by the national
+banks--and that measures be taken to curb monopolies; the independent
+Republicans had revolted against Cameron, and demanded civil service
+reform and the overthrow of bossism; and the Democrats had elected a
+governor of the reformer type, Robert E. Pattison. Massachusetts
+Republicans had gasped the day after the election to find that "Ben"
+Butler, who bore a questionable reputation as a politician, as a soldier
+and as a man, had been elected by a combination of Greenbackers and
+Democrats on a reform program. In New York the Democrats had taken
+advantage of a factional quarrel among their opponents to elect as
+governor a man who had achieved a reputation as a reformer--Grover
+Cleveland. That some of the states which had been Democratic in 1882,
+had become Republican again in 1883 illustrates the unstable character
+of the politics of the time.
+
+The beginning of the convention season of 1884 gave hint of the vigorous
+campaign ahead. An Anti-Monopoly party nominated Benjamin F. Butler, who
+was also supported by the Greenbackers. The Prohibitionists presented a
+ticket headed by John P. St. John. The action of the Republican
+convention, which met at Chicago on June 3, proved to be the turning
+point in the campaign. President Arthur was frankly a candidate for
+another term, but he did not have the united support of the professional
+politicians and was distrusted by most of the reform element. Nor had
+his veto of the Chinese immigration bill and the rivers and harbors act
+tended to increase his popularity. Most enthusiastic, confident and
+vociferous were the supporters of James G. Blaine, of Maine. The
+independent element hoped to nominate Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, and
+was particularly disturbed at the character of the workers for the "Man
+from Maine." His campaign manager, Stephen B. Elkins, had been charged
+with a discreditable connection with the star-route scandals; men of the
+Platt type were urging that it was now Blaine's "turn"; and Powell
+Clayton, an Arkansas carpet-bagger of ill-repute, was the Blaine
+candidate for the position of temporary chairman of the convention.
+
+Before a candidate was chosen the delegates turned to the adoption of
+the platform. This was of the usual type but was an advance over that of
+1880 in several respects. It committed the party to a protective tariff
+and advocated an interstate commerce law and the extension of civil
+service reform.
+
+The balloting for candidates proved that Blaine was clearly the choice
+of the convention. The mere mention of his name threw the delegates
+into storms of applause and even on the first ballot he received votes
+from every state in the union save five. On the fourth ballot he
+received an overwhelming majority and became the nominee. John A.
+Logan of Illinois, a prominent politician and soldier, was nominated
+for the Vice-Presidency--a tail to the ticket, in the opinion of the
+Democrats, which was designed to "Wag Invitation to the Soldier Vote."
+The choice of Blaine was variously received by the different factions
+in the convention. The Pacific coast delegates, in a special train,
+went from Chicago to Augusta, Maine, before starting for home, in
+order personally to pledge their support to the candidate. On the
+other hand, Theodore Roosevelt disgustedly remarked that he was going
+to a cattle-ranch in the West to stay he knew not how long. George
+William Curtis sadly declared that he had been present at the birth of
+the Republican party and feared that he was to be a witness of its
+death. Other reformers were no less disaffected.
+
+The outspoken Republican opposition to Blaine gave infinite aid and
+comfort to the Democrats whose convention, coming a month later, could
+take advantage of the growing schism in the opposition. During the
+interval between the two conventions the growing sentiment in favor of
+the nomination of Grover Cleveland received the additional impetus of
+independent Republican support. The Democratic party was still an object
+of suspicion to them, but they were ready to run the risks of even a
+Democratic administration, if a leader of proved integrity should be
+nominated, and Cleveland seemed to them to meet the demands of the
+times. The first work of the convention, which met in Chicago on July 8,
+was the adoption of a reform platform. Characterizing the opposition
+party as a "reminiscence," it condemned Republican misrule, and promised
+reform; it proposed a revision of the tariff that would be fair to all
+interests, and reductions which would promote industry, do no harm to
+labor and raise sufficient revenue; and it briefly advocated "honest"
+civil service reform.
+
+The enthusiasm which the independent Republicans were manifesting for
+Cleveland was balanced by the hostility of elements within his party.
+As Governor he had exercised his veto power with complete disregard
+for the effect on his own political future. He had, for example,
+vetoed a popular measure reducing fares on the New York City elevated
+railroad, basing his objections on the ground that the bill violated
+the provisions of the fundamental railroad law of the state. He was
+opposed by Tammany Hall, led by John Kelley, who declared that the
+labor element disliked him. Kelley's reputation, however, was such
+that his hostility seemed like a compliment and gave force to General
+Bragg's assertion, in seconding the nomination of Cleveland, that his
+friends "love him most for the enemies he has made." The first ballot
+proved that the Governor was stronger than his competitors, Senator
+Bayard, Allen G. Thurman, Samuel J. Randall and several men of lesser
+importance, and on the second ballot he received the nomination.
+
+The choice of Cleveland gave the independent movement more than the
+expected impetus. The New York _Times_ at once crossed the line into
+the Cleveland camp and _Harpers Weekly_, long a supporter of the
+Republicans, the Boston _Herald_, Springfield _Republican_, New York
+_Evening Post_, _The Nation_, the Chicago _Times_ and a host of less
+important ones followed. A conference of Independents in New York
+City, which was composed of five hundred delegates and which enlisted
+the support of such men as Carl Schurz, George William Curtis, Henry
+C. Lea, Charles J. Bonaparte, Moorfield Storey and President Seelye of
+Amherst College, gave striking evidence of the revolt which Blaine's
+nomination had aroused. Curtis said in the conference, that the chief
+issue of the campaign was moral rather than political. The New York
+_Times_ declared that the issue was a personal one. Some of the better
+element, however, like Senator Hoar, earnestly urged the election of
+Blaine, while Senator Edmunds refused either to aid or oppose his
+party. Others, like Roosevelt, were unable to give ungrudging support,
+but felt that reform would be better promoted by working within the
+party than by withdrawing. It is obvious that Blaine and Cleveland,
+not the platforms of the parties, had become the issue of the
+campaign.
+
+James G. Blaine was born in Pennsylvania in 1830, was educated at
+Washington College in his native state, later moved to Augusta, Maine,
+and purchased an interest in the Kennebec _Journal_. On assuming his
+journalistic duties he familiarized himself with the politics of the
+state and became powerful in local, and later in federal affairs. He was
+a member of the first Republican convention and was chairman of the
+state Republican committee for more than twenty years, from which point
+of vantage he had a prevailing influence in Maine politics. He served in
+the state and federal legislatures as well as in Garfield's cabinet and
+was a prominent candidate for the presidential nomination in 1876 and in
+1880.
+
+Grover Cleveland, although only seven years younger than Blaine, was
+relatively inexperienced on the stage of national affairs. He was born
+in New Jersey, the son of a Presbyterian minister, grew up with little
+education, was salesman in a village store and later clerk in a law
+office, at the age of eighteen. Although he had been sheriff of Erie
+County, it was not until 1881, when he became mayor of Buffalo, that
+he took an important part in politics, and here his record as the
+business-like "veto mayor" was such as to carry him into the governor's
+chair a year later. The huge majority which he received in the
+gubernatorial contest was not wholly due to his own strength--doubtless
+factional quarrels among the Republicans assisted him--but the
+prominence which this election gave him and his conduct as Governor
+made inevitable his candidacy for higher office.
+
+Few men could have been nominated who would have presented a more
+complete contrast than Blaine and Cleveland. In personality Blaine was
+magnetic, approachable, high-strung, possessed of a vivid imagination
+and of a marvellous memory for facts, names and faces. Over him men
+went "insane in pairs," either devotedly admiring or completely
+distrusting him. Cleveland was almost devoid of personal charm except
+to his most intimate associates. He was brusque and tactless,
+unimaginative, plodding, commonplace in his tastes and in the elements
+of his character. Men threw their hats in the air and cheered
+themselves hoarse at the name of Blaine; to Cleveland's courage,
+earnestness and honesty, they gave a tribute of admiration. When the
+campaign was at fever heat, Blaine was lifting crowds of eager
+listeners to the mountain peaks of enthusiasm; Cleveland was in the
+governor's room in Albany, phlegmatically plodding away at the
+business of his office. He was too heavy, unimaginative, direct, to
+indulge in flights of oratory. Yet scarcely anything that Blaine said
+still lives, while some of Cleveland's phrases have passed into the
+language of every-day.
+
+No less a contrast existed between Blaine and Cleveland as political
+characters. The former's experience in the machinery of politics, in the
+disposal of its loaves and fishes, has already been mentioned. Of that
+part of politics, Cleveland had had no experience. It is said that he
+never was in Washington, except for a single day, until he went there to
+become President. Both were bold and active fighters, but Blaine was a
+strategist, a manager and a diplomat, while Cleveland could merely state
+the policy which he desired to see put into effect, and then crash
+ahead. Blaine had the instinct for the popular thing, was never ahead of
+his party, was surrounded by his followers; Cleveland saw the thing
+which he felt a moral imperative to accomplish and was far in advance of
+his fellows. The Republican was popular among the professional political
+element in his party and was supported by it; the Democrat never was.
+Cleveland openly declared his attitude on controverted issues, in words
+that admitted of no ambiguity and at times when only silence or soft
+words would save him from defeat. Blaine lacked the moral courage and
+the indifference to immediate results which were necessary for so
+exalted an action. Cleveland had more of the reformer in his nature, and
+had so keen a sense of responsibility and duty that his political career
+was a succession of battles against things that seemed wrong to him.
+Blaine accepted the party standards as they were; he belonged to the
+past, to the policies and political morality of war and reconstruction;
+Cleveland belonged to the transition from reconstruction to the
+twentieth century.
+
+The particular thing, however, that came out of Blaine's past to dog his
+foot-steps, give him the enmity of the Independents--better known as the
+"Mugwumps"--and, doubtless, to defeat him, was a series of transactions
+exposed in the Mulligan letters. In order to understand these, it is
+necessary to inquire into events that occurred fifteen years before the
+overturn of 1884. In April, 1869, a bill favorable to the Little Rock
+and Fort Smith Railroad--an Arkansas land-grant enterprise--was before
+the House of Representatives. Blaine was Speaker. As the session was
+near its close and the bill seemed likely to be lost, its friends
+bespoke Blaine's assistance. He suggested that a certain point of order
+be raised, which would facilitate the passage of the measure, and also
+asked General John A. Logan to raise the point. Logan did so, Blaine
+sustained him and the act was passed. Nearly three months later, Warren
+Fisher, Jr., a Boston business man, asked Blaine to participate in the
+affairs of the Little Rock Railroad. Blaine signified his readiness,
+closing his letter with the words, "I do not feel that I shall prove a
+dead-head in the enterprise if I once embark in it. I see various
+channels in which I know I can be useful." When Blaine's enemies got
+hold of this, they declared that he intended to use his position as
+Speaker to further the interests of the road, as he had done at the time
+of the famous point of order; his friends asserted that he intended
+merely to sell the securities of the road to investors. Whether one of
+these contentions is true, or both, he did sell considerable amounts of
+the securities of the road to Maine friends, getting a "handsome
+commission." Considerable correspondence passed between Blaine and
+Fisher from 1869 to 1872 when their relations ended. Blaine understood
+that all their correspondence was mutually surrendered.
+
+In the spring of 1876, the presidential campaign was on the horizon and
+Blaine was a prominent candidate for the Republican nomination.
+Meanwhile ugly rumors were flying about concerning the connection of
+certain members of Congress, Blaine among them, with questionable
+railroad transactions, and he arose in the House to deny the charges. He
+did not discuss the matter fully, as he did not wish his Maine
+constituents to know that he had received a large commission for selling
+Little Rock securities. Gossip grew, however, and a congressional
+investigation resulted in May, 1876. Blaine was one of the witnesses,
+but was doubtless anxious to bring the investigation to an end, since it
+clearly reduced his chances of receiving the nomination. Presently
+gossip said that Warren Fisher and James Mulligan were going to testify.
+Mulligan had been confidential clerk to one of Mrs. Blaine's brothers
+and later to Fisher. When Mulligan began his testimony it appeared that
+he intended to lay before the committee a package of letters that had
+passed between Blaine and Fisher, and thereupon, at Blaine's whispered
+request, one of the members of the committee procured an adjournment for
+the day. That evening Blaine found Mulligan at the latter's hotel and
+prevailed on him to surrender the letters temporarily, in order that
+Blaine might read and then return them. Blaine thereupon consulted two
+lawyers and on their advice he refused to restore the package to
+Mulligan. Merely to keep silence, however, was to admit guilt. Blaine,
+therefore, arose one day in the House of Representatives and holding the
+letters in his hand read selections and defended himself in a remarkable
+burst of emotional oratory. At the climax of this defence he elicited
+from the chairman of the committee of investigation an unwilling
+admission that the committee had suppressed a dispatch which Blaine
+declared would exonerate him. Blaine was triumphant, his friends sure
+that he had cleared himself and the matter dropped for the time. Further
+investigation was prevented by Blaine's refusal to produce the letters
+even before the committee and by his sudden illness shortly afterward.
+His election to the Senate soon took him out of the jurisdiction of the
+House committee and no action resulted.
+
+The nomination of Blaine in 1884 was a fresh breeze on the half-dead
+embers of the Mulligan letters. _Harper's Weekly_ and other periodicals
+published them with damaging explanatory remarks. Campaign committees
+spread them abroad in pamphlet form. Attention was directed to such
+phrases as "I do not feel that I shall prove a dead-head" and "I see
+various channels in which I know I can be useful." Hostile cartoonists
+used the phrases with an infinite variety of innuendo. But the most
+powerful evidence was still to come. On September 15, 1884, Fisher and
+Mulligan made public additional letters which Blaine had not possessed
+at the time of his defence in 1876. The most damaging of these was one
+in which Blaine had drawn up a letter completely exonerating himself,
+which he asked Fisher to sign and make public as his own. Blaine had
+marked his request "confidential" and had written at the bottom "Burn
+this letter." Fisher had neither written the letter which was requested
+nor burned Blaine's. Meanwhile it was recalled that Blaine had earlier
+characterized the reformers as "upstarts, conceited, foolish, vain" and
+as "noisy but not numerous, pharisaical but not practical, ambitious but
+not wise," and the already intemperate campaign became more personal
+than ever.
+
+Thomas Nast's able pencil caricatured Blaine in _Harper's Weekly_ as a
+magnetic candidate too heavy for the party elephant to carry; _Puck_
+portrayed him as the "tattooed man" covered all over with "Little Rock,"
+"Mulligan Letters" and the like. _Life_ described him as a
+
+    Take all I can gettery,
+    Mulligan lettery,
+    Solid for Blaine old man.
+
+Nor was the contest of scurrility entirely one-sided. _Judge_
+caricatured Cleveland in hideous cartoons. The New York _Tribune_
+described him as a small man "everywhere except on the hay-scales."
+Beginning in Buffalo rumors spread all over the country that Cleveland
+was an habitual drunkard and libertine. As is the way of such gossip,
+its magnitude grew until the Governor appeared in the guise of a monster
+of immorality. The editor of the _Independent_ went himself to Buffalo
+and ran the rumors to their sources. He came to the conclusion that
+Cleveland as a young man had been guilty of an illicit connection, that
+he had made amends for the wrong which he had done and had since lived a
+blameless life. Such religious periodicals as the _Unitarian Review_,
+however, continued to describe him as a "_debauchee_" and "_roue_."
+Nearly a thousand clergymen gathered in New York declared him a synonym
+of "incapacity and incontinency." Much was made, also, of the fact that
+Cleveland had not served in the war, and John Sherman denounced him as
+having no sympathy for the Union cause. It did little good in the heated
+condition of partisan discussion to point out that young Cleveland had
+two brothers in the service, that he was urgently needed to support his
+widowed mother and her six other children, and that he borrowed money to
+obtain a substitute to take the field. On the other side, _Harper's
+Weekly_ dwelt upon the Mulligan scandal; _The Nation_, while deploring
+the incident in Cleveland's past, considered even so grave a mistake as
+less important than Blaine's, since the latter's vices were those by
+which "governments are overthrown, states brought to naught, and the
+haunts of commerce turned into dens of thieves."
+
+As the campaign neared an end it appeared that the result would turn
+upon New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Indiana, and especially upon
+the first of these. In New York several elements combined to make the
+situation doubtful and interesting. Tammany's dislike of Cleveland was
+well-known, but open opposition, at least, was quelled before election
+day. Roscoe Conkling, still influential despite his retirement, refused
+to take the stump in behalf of Blaine, declaring that he did not engage
+in "criminal practice." The Republicans also feared the competition of
+the Prohibitionists, because they attracted some Republicans who refused
+to vote for Blaine and could not bring themselves to support a Democrat.
+On the eve of the election an incident occurred which would have been of
+no importance if it had not been for the closeness of the contest. As
+Blaine was returning from a speaking tour in the West, he was given a
+reception in New York by a delegation of clergymen. The spokesman of the
+group, the Reverend Dr. Burchard, referred to the Democrats as the party
+of "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion." Blaine, weary from his tour, failed to
+notice the indiscreet remark, but the opposition seized upon it and used
+it to discredit him in the eyes of the Irish. On the same evening a
+dinner at Delmonico's at which many wealthy men were present, provided
+material for the charge that the Republican candidate was the choice of
+the rich classes.
+
+Early returns on election night indicated that the Democrats had carried
+the South and all the doubtful states, with the possible exception of
+New York. There the result was so close that some days elapsed before a
+final decision could be made. Excitement was intense; and business
+almost stopped, so absorbed were people in the returns. At length it was
+officially decided that Cleveland had received 1,149 more votes than
+Blaine and by this narrow margin the Democrats carried New York, and
+with it the election.
+
+Contemporary explanations of Blaine's defeat were indicated by a
+transparency carried in a Democratic procession which celebrated the
+victory:
+
+    The _World_ Says the Independents Did It
+    The _Tribune_ Says the Stalwarts Did It
+    The _Sun_ Says Burchard Did It
+    Blaine Says St. John Did It
+    Theodore Roosevelt Says It Was the Soft Soap Dinner[1]
+    We Say Blaine's Character Did It
+    But We Don't Care What Did It
+             It's Done.
+
+None of these explanations took into account the strength of Cleveland,
+but the closeness of the result made all of them important. From the
+vantage ground of later times, however, it could be seen that greater
+forces were at work. By 1884 the day had passed when political contests
+could be won on Civil War issues. The younger voters had no recollections
+of Gettysburg and felt no animosity toward the Democratic South. Moreover,
+Cleveland's success was the culmination of a long-continued demand for
+reform, which he satisfied better than Blaine.
+
+The opening of the first Democratic administration since Buchanan's time
+excited great interest in every detail of Cleveland's activities and
+characteristics.[2] Moreover, many who had voted for him distrusted his
+party and were apprehensive lest it turn out that a mistake had been
+made in placing such great confidence in one man. The more stiffly
+partisan Republicans firmly believed that Democratic success meant a
+triumphant South, with the "rebels" again in the saddle. Sherman
+declared that Cleveland's choice of southern advisors was a "reproach to
+the civilization of the age," and Joseph B. Foraker, speaking in an Ohio
+campaign, found that the people wished to hear Cleveland "flayed" and
+wanted plenty of "hot stuff."
+
+The President's early acts indicated that the partisans were unduly
+disturbed. His inaugural address was characterized by straightforward
+earnestness. The exploitation of western lands by fraudulent claimants
+was sharply halted. The cabinet, while inexperienced, contained several
+able men, of whom Thomas F. Bayard, Secretary of State, William C.
+Whitney, Secretary of the Navy, and L.Q.C. Lamar, the Secretary of the
+Interior, were best known.[3]
+
+The first great obstacle that Cleveland faced was well portrayed by one
+of Nast's cartoons, in which the President, with an "Independent" club
+in his hand, was approaching a snarling, open-jawed tiger, which
+represented the office-seeking classes. The drawing was entitled
+"Beware! For He is Very Hungry and Very Thirsty." It was not difficult
+to foresee grave trouble ahead in connection with the civil service. The
+Democrats had been out of power for twenty-four years, the offices were
+full of Republicans, about 100,000 positions were at the disposal of the
+administration, and current political practice looked with indifference
+upon the use of these places as rewards for party work. Hordes of
+office-seekers descended upon congressmen, in order to get introductions
+to department chiefs; they filled the waiting rooms of cabinet officers;
+they besieged Cleveland. Disappointed applicants and displaced officers
+added to the clamor and confusion.
+
+The President's policy, as it worked out in practice, was a compromise
+between his ideals and the wishes of the party leaders. He earnestly
+approved the Pendleton act and desired to carry out both its letter and
+its spirit. He removed office holders who were offensively partisan and
+who used their positions for political purposes. He gave the South a
+larger share in the activities of the government, both in the cabinet
+and in the diplomatic and other branches of the service. When the term
+of a Republican office holder expired he filled the place with a fit
+Democrat, if one could be found, in order to equalize the share of the
+two parties in the patronage. Nearly half of the diplomatic and consular
+appointments went to southerners, and eventually most of the Republicans
+were supplanted.
+
+The displacement of so many officials gave the Republicans an
+opportunity to attempt to discredit the President in the eyes of his
+mugwump supporters. An amended law of 1869 gave the Senate a certain
+control over removals, although the constant practice of early times had
+been to give the executive a free hand. Moreover the law had fallen into
+disuse--or, as the President put it--into "innocuous desuetude." The
+case on which the Senate chose to force the issue was the removal of
+George M. Duskin, United States District Attorney in Alabama, and the
+nomination of John D. Burnett in his place. The Senate called upon the
+Attorney-General to transmit all papers relating to the removal; the
+President directed him to refuse, on the ground that papers of such a
+sort were not official papers, to which the Senate had a right, and also
+on the ground that the power of removal was vested, by the Constitution,
+in the president alone. In the meantime it had been hinted to Cleveland
+that his nominations would be confirmed without difficulty if it were
+acknowledged that the suspensions were the usual partisan removals. To
+do this would, of course, make his reform utterances look hypocritical
+and he refused to comply:
+
+    I ... dispute the right of the Senate ... in any way save
+    through the judicial process of trial on impeachment, to review
+    or reverse the acts of the Executive in the suspension, during
+    the recess of the Senate, of Federal officials.
+
+As he was immovable and was taking precisely the position that such
+Republican leaders as President Grant had previously taken, the Senate
+was obliged to give way. Although it relieved its feelings by censuring
+the Attorney-General, it later repealed the remains of the Tenure of
+Office act of 1869, leaving victory with the President.
+
+In connection with the less important offices Cleveland was forced to
+compromise between the desirable and the practicable. Most of the
+postmasters were changed, although in New York City an efficient officer
+was retained who had originally been appointed by Garfield. All the
+internal revenue collectors and nearly all the collectors of customs
+were replaced. On the other hand, the classified service was somewhat
+extended by the inclusion of the railway mail service, a change which,
+with other increases, enlarged the classified lists by 12,000 offices.
+
+It seems evident that Cleveland pressed reform far enough to alienate
+the politicians but not so far as to satisfy the reformers. When he
+withstood Democratic clamor for office, the Independents applauded, and
+the spoilsmen in his own party accused him of treason. When he listened
+to the demands of the partisans, the reformers became disgusted and many
+of them returned to their former party allegiance. Eugene Field
+expressed Republican exultation at the dissension in the enemy's ranks:
+
+    ... the Mugwump scorned the Democrat's wail,
+    And flirting its false fantastic tail,
+    It spread its wings and it soared away,
+    And left the Democrat in dismay,
+            Too hoo!
+
+Aside from the President, official Washington seems to have had but
+little real interest in reform. The Vice-President, Hendricks, was a
+partisan of the old school, and so many members of Congress were out of
+sympathy with the system that they attempted to annul the law by
+refusing appropriations for its continuance. On the whole a fair
+judgment was that of Charles Francis Adams, a Republican, who thought
+that Cleveland showed himself as much in advance of both parties as it
+was wise for a leader of one of them to be.
+
+In addition to further improvements in the civil service laws, Cleveland
+was interested in a long list of reforms which he placed before Congress
+in his first message: the improvement of the diplomatic and consular
+service; the reduction of the tariff; the repeal of the Bland-Allison
+silver-coinage act; the development of the navy, which he characterized
+as a "shabby ornament" and a naval reminder "of the days that are past";
+better care of the Indians; and a means of preventing individuals from
+acquiring large areas of the public lands. The fact that Hayes and
+Arthur had urged similar reforms showed how little Cleveland differed
+from his Republican predecessors. It was not likely, however, that the
+program would be carried out, for Congress was not in a reforming mood
+and the Republicans controlled the upper house so that they could block
+any attempt at constructive policies.
+
+The latent hostility which many of the Civil War veterans felt toward
+the Democratic party was fanned into flame by Cleveland's attitude
+toward pension legislation. The sympathy of the country for its disabled
+soldiers had early resulted in a system of pensions for disability if
+due either to wounds or to disease contracted in the service. Early in
+the seventies the number of pensioners had seemed to have reached a
+maximum. Two new centers of agitation, however, had appeared, the Grand
+Army of the Republic and the pension agent. The former was originally a
+social organization but later it took a hand in the campaign for new
+pension legislation. The agents were persons familiar with the laws, who
+busied themselves in finding possible pensioners and getting their
+claims established. The agitation of the subject had resulted in the
+arrears act of 1879, which gave the claimant back-pensions from the day
+of his discharge from the army to the date of filing his claim,
+regardless of the time when his disability began. As the average first
+payment to the pensioner under this act was about $1,000, the number of
+claims filed had grown enormously and the pension agents had enjoyed a
+rich harvest. The next step was the dependent pensions bill, which
+granted a pension to all who had served three months, were dependent on
+their daily toil, and were incapable of earning their livelihood,
+whether the incapacity was due to wounds and disease or not. President
+Cleveland's veto of the measure aroused a hostility which was deepened
+by his attitude toward private pension acts.
+
+For some time it had been customary to pass special acts providing
+pensions for persons whose claims had already been rejected by the
+pension bureau as defective or fraudulent. So little attention was paid
+to private bills in Congress that 1454 of them passed between 1885 and
+1889, generally without debate and often even without the presence of a
+quorum of members. Two hours on a day in April, 1886, sufficed for the
+passage of five hundred such bills. Nobody would now deny that many were
+frauds, pure and simple. Cleveland was too frugal and conscientious to
+pass such bills without examination and he began to veto some of the
+worst of them. Each veto message explained the grounds for his dissent,
+sometimes patiently, sometimes with a sharp sarcasm that must have made
+the victim writhe. In one case where a widow sought a pension because of
+the death of her soldier husband it was discovered that he had been
+accidentally shot by a neighbor while hunting. Another claimant was one
+who had enlisted at the close of the war, served nine days, had been
+admitted to the hospital with measles and then mustered out. Fifteen
+years later he claimed a pension. The President vetoed the bill,
+scoffing at the applicant's "valiant service" and "terrific encounter
+with the measles." Altogether he vetoed about two hundred and thirty
+private bills. Time after time he expressed his sympathy with the
+deserving pensioner and his desire to purge the list of dishonorable
+names, and many applauded his courageous efforts. Nevertheless, his
+pension policy presented an opportunity for hostile criticism which his
+Republican opponents were not slow to embrace. His efforts in behalf of
+pension reform were said to originate in hostility to the old soldiers
+and in lack of sympathy with the northern cause. In 1887 it even became
+necessary for him to withdraw his acceptance of an invitation to attend
+a meeting of the Grand Army in St. Louis, because of danger that he
+might be subjected to downright insult.[4]
+
+Before the hostility due to the pension vetoes had subsided,
+Adjutant-General Drum called the attention of the President to the fact
+that flags taken from Confederate regiments by Union soldiers during the
+war and also certain flags formerly belonging to northern troops had for
+many years lain packed in boxes in the attic and cellar of the War
+Department. At his suggestion Cleveland ordered the return of these
+trophies to the states which the regiments had represented. Although
+recommended by Drum as a "graceful act," it was looked upon by the old
+soldiers with the utmost wrath. The commander of the Grand Army called
+upon Heaven to avenge so wicked an order and such politicians as
+Governor Foraker of Ohio gained temporary prominence by their bitter
+condemnation of it. Eventually the clamor was so great that the
+President rescinded the order on the ground that the final disposition
+of the flags was within the sphere of action of Congress only. In
+February, 1905, however, Congress passed a resolution providing for the
+return of the flags and the exchange was effected without excitement.
+
+For the reasons already mentioned, little legislation was passed during
+President Cleveland's administration that was of permanent importance.
+An exception was the Interstate Commerce Act, which is a subject for
+later discussion. A Presidential Succession Act, which has earlier been
+described, provided for the succession of the members of the cabinet in
+case of the removal or death of the president and vice-president. The
+Electoral Count Act placed on the states the burden of deciding contests
+arising from the choice of presidential electors. When more than one set
+of electoral returns come from a state, each purporting to be legal,
+Congress must decide which shall be counted. Of some importance, too,
+was the establishment of the Department of Agriculture in 1889 and the
+inclusion of its secretary in the cabinet. The admission of the Dakotas,
+Montana and Washington as states took place in the same year. The
+improvement of the navy, begun so auspiciously by Secretary Chandler
+under President Arthur, was continued with enthusiasm and vigor, and the
+vessels constructed formed an important part of our navy.
+
+Of less popular interest than many of the political questions, but of
+more lasting importance, was the rapid reduction of the public land
+supply. The purpose of the Homestead law of 1862 had been to supply land
+at low rates and in small amounts to _bona fide_ settlers, but the
+beneficent design of the nation had been somewhat nullified by the
+constant evasion of the spirit of the laws. Squatters had occupied land
+without reference to legal forms; cattlemen had fenced in large tracts
+for their own use and forcibly resisted attempts to oust them; by hook
+and by crook individuals and companies had got large areas into their
+possession and held them for speculative returns. Western public opinion
+looked upon many such violations with equanimity until the supply of
+land began to grow small. Then came the demand for the opening of the
+Indian reservations, which comprised 250,000 square miles in 1885. The
+Dawes act of 1887 provided for individual ownership of small amounts of
+land by the Indians instead of tribal ownership in large reservations.
+By this means a considerable amount of good land was made available for
+settlement by whites. The dwindling supply of western land also called
+attention to certain delinquencies on the part of the railway companies.
+Many of them had been granted enormous amounts of land on certain
+conditions, such as that specified parts of the roads be constructed
+within a given time. This agreement, with others, was frequently broken,
+and question arose as to whether the companies should be forced to
+forfeit their claims. Cleveland turned to the problem with energy and
+forced the return of some millions of acres. Nevertheless, the fact that
+it was becoming necessary to be less prodigal with the public land
+indicated that the supply was no longer inexhaustible, and led the
+President in his last annual message to urge that the remaining supply
+be husbanded with great care. Congress was not alert to the demands of
+the time, however, and no effective steps were taken for many years.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+H.C. Thomas, _The Return of the Democratic Party to Power in 1884_
+(1919), is most complete and scholarly on the subject; Sparks, Curtis,
+Dewey, and Stanwood continue useful; H.T. Peck, _Twenty Years of the
+Republic, 1885-1905_ (1907), is illuminating and interesting; H.J. Ford,
+_Cleveland Era_ (1919), is brief; the files of _The Nation_ and
+_Harper's Weekly_ are essential, while those of the New York _Sun,
+Evening Post_ and _Tribune_ add a few points. The Mulligan letters are
+reprinted in _Harper's Weekly_ (1884, 643-646).
+
+On the administration, consult the general texts and the special volumes
+mentioned in chapter V; G.F. Parker, _Recollections of Grover Cleveland_
+(1909); and _Political Science Quarterly_ (June, 1918), "Official
+Characteristics of President Cleveland," give something on the personal
+side; J.L. Whittle, _Grover Cleveland_ (1896), is by an English admirer;
+Cleveland's own side of one of his controversies is in Grover Cleveland,
+_Presidential Problems_ (1904); on Blaine, Edward Stanwood, _James G.
+Blaine_ (1905). The _Annual Cyclopaedia_ has useful biographical
+articles.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] A reference to the Dorsey dinner at which Arthur told how Indiana
+was carried.
+
+[2] His marriage to Miss Frances Folsom, which occurred in 1886,
+occasioned lively interest.
+
+[3] Other members were: Daniel Manning, N.Y., Secretary of the
+Treasury; William C. Endicott, Mass., Secretary of War; A.H. Garland,
+Ark., Attorney-General; William F. Vilas, Wis., Postmaster-General.
+
+[4] President Cleveland also frequently used his veto power to prevent
+the passage of appropriations for federal buildings which he deemed
+unnecessary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+TRANSPORTATION AND ITS CONTROL
+
+The most significant legislative act of President Cleveland's
+administration was due primarily neither to him nor to the great
+political parties. It concerned the relation between the government
+and the railroads, and the force which led to its passage originated
+outside of Congress. The growth of the transportation system,
+therefore, the economic benefits which resulted, the complaints which
+arose and the means through which the complaints found voice were
+subjects of primary importance.
+
+Beginning with the construction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
+about 1830, the extension of the railways went forward with increasing
+rapidity so that they soon formed a veritable network: between 1830
+and 1850 over 7,000 miles were laid; by 1860 the total was 30,000
+miles; the Civil War and the financial depression of 1873 retarded
+progress somewhat, but such delays were temporary, and by 1890 the
+total exceeded 160,000 miles. In the earlier decades most construction
+took place in the Northeast, where capital was most plentiful and
+population most dense. Later activity in the Northeast was devoted to
+building "feeders" or branch lines. In the South, the relatively
+smaller progress which had been made before the war had been undone
+for the most part by the wear and tear of the conflict, but the
+twenty-five years afterward saw greatly renewed construction. The most
+surprising expansion took place in Texas where the 711 miles of 1870
+were increased to 8,754 by 1890. In the Middle West, roads were
+rapidly built just before the war and immediately after it, and the
+first connection with the Pacific Coast, as has been shown, was made
+in 1869.
+
+[Illustration:
+Railroad Mileage, 1860-1910, in thousands of miles]
+
+Many of the circumstances accompanying this rapid expansion were novel
+and important. Beginning with a federal grant to the Illinois Central,
+for example, in the middle of the century, both the nation and the
+states assisted the roads by gifts of millions of acres of land. It
+was to the advantage of the companies to procure the grants on the
+best possible terms, and they exerted constant pressure upon
+congressmen whose votes and influence they desired. Frequently the
+agents of the roads were thoroughly unscrupulous, and such scandals as
+that connected with the Credit Mobilier were the result. More
+important still, the fact that the federal and state governments had
+aided the railroads so greatly gave them a strong justification for
+investigating and regulating the activities of the companies.
+
+Mechanical inventions and improvements had no small part in the
+development of the transportation system. The early tracks,
+constructed of wood beams on which were fastened iron strips, and
+sometimes described as barrel-hoops tacked to laths, were replaced by
+iron, and still later by heavy steel rails. By 1890 about eighty per
+cent. of the mileage was composed of steel. Heavy rails were
+accompanied by improved roadbeds, heavier equipment and greater speed.
+A simple improvement was the gradual adoption of a standard
+gauge--four feet eight and a half inches--which replaced the earlier
+lack of uniformity. The process was substantially completed by the
+middle eighties, when many thousands of miles in the South were
+standardized. On the Louisville and Nashville, for example, a force of
+8,763 men made the change on 1,806 miles of track in a single day. The
+inauguration of "standard" time also took place during the eighties.
+Hitherto there had been a wide variety of time standards and different
+roads even in the same city despatched their trains on different
+systems. In 1883 the country was divided into five vertical zones each
+approximately fifteen degrees or, in sun-time, an hour wide. Both the
+roads and the public then conformed to the standard time of the zone
+in which they were.
+
+[Illustration:
+Map of the United States showing railroads in 1870]
+
+Of greater importance was the consolidation of large numbers of small
+lines into the extensive systems which are now familiar. The first
+roads covered such short distances that numerous bothersome transfers
+of passengers, freight and baggage from the end of one line to the
+beginning of the next were necessary on every considerable journey. No
+fewer than five companies, for example, divided the three hundred
+miles between Albany and Buffalo, no one of them operating more than
+seventy-six miles. In 1853, these five with five others were
+consolidated into the New York Central Railroad. Sixteen years later,
+in 1869, the Central combined with the Hudson River, and soon
+afterwards procured substantial control of the Lake Shore and Michigan
+Southern, the Rock Island, and the Chicago and Northwestern. As the
+result of this process a single group of men directed the interests of
+a system of railroads from New York through Chicago to Omaha. The
+Pennsylvania Railroad began with a short line from Philadelphia to the
+Susquehanna River, picked up smaller roads here and there--eventually
+one hundred and thirty-eight of them, representing two hundred and
+fifty-six separate corporations--reached out through the Middle West
+to Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis, and in 1871 controlled over
+three thousand miles of track, with an annual income of over forty
+million dollars. In the eighties a railroad war in northern New
+England started the consolidation of the Boston and Maine system.
+
+The beneficial results of the growth of the transportation facilities
+of the nation were immediate and revolutionary. The fact that average
+freight rates were cut in halves between 1867 and 1890 helped make
+possible the economic readjustments after the Civil War to a degree
+that is not likely to be overestimated. Not only did railway
+construction supply work for large numbers of laborers and help bring
+about an ever greater westward migration, but it opened a market for
+the huge agricultural surplus of the Middle West. Without the market
+in the cities of the populous Atlantic Coast and Europe, the expansion
+of the West would have been impossible. Moreover, the railways brought
+coal, ore, cotton, wool and other raw materials to the Northeast, and
+thus enabled that section to develop its manufacturing interests.
+
+[Illustration:
+Map of the United States showing railroads in 1890]
+
+Despite the admittedly great benefits resulting from the railroad
+system, there was a rising tide of complaint on the part of the public
+in regard to some aspects of its construction and management. It was
+objected, for example, that many of the western roads especially were
+purely speculative undertakings. Lines were sometimes built into new
+territory where competition did not exist and where, consequently, the
+rates could be kept at a high point. The Chicago, Burlington and
+Quincy presented such a case in 1856. Profits were so great as to
+embarrass the company, since the payment of large dividends was sure
+to arouse the hostility of the farmers who paid the freight rates.
+"This, indeed," declared the biographer of one of the presidents of
+the road, "was the time of glad, confident morning, never again to
+occur in the history of railroad-building in the United States."
+Sometimes lines were driven into territory which was already
+sufficiently supplied with transportation facilities, in order to
+compel the company already on the ground to buy out the new road. If,
+as time went on, traffic enough for both roads did not appear, they
+had to be kept alive through the imposition of high rates; otherwise,
+one of them failed and the investors suffered a loss. The
+opportunities for profit, however, were so numerous that the amount of
+capital reported invested in railways increased by $3,200,000,000
+during the five years preceding 1885.
+
+A practice which was productive of much wrong-doing and which was
+suggestive of more dishonesty than could be proved, related to the
+letting of contracts for the construction of new lines. The directors
+of a road frequently formed part or all of the board of directors of a
+construction company. In their capacity as railroad directors they
+voted advantageous contracts to themselves in their other capacity,
+giving no opportunity to independent construction companies who might
+agree to build at a lower cost. As the cost of construction was part
+of the debt of the road, the directors were adding generously to their
+own wealth, while the company was being saddled with an increased
+burden. It cost only $58,000,000, for example, to build the Central
+Pacific, but a construction company was paid $120,000,000 for its
+services. When John Murray Forbes was investigating the Chicago,
+Burlington and Quincy he found that the president of the road was
+paying himself a salary as president of a construction company, out of
+the railroad's funds, without the supervision of the treasurer or any
+one else, and without any auditing of his accounts. Moreover, six of
+the twelve members of the board of directors were also members of the
+construction company. Such an attempt to "run with the hare and hunt
+with the hounds" was suggestive, to say the least, of great
+possibilities of profit to the directors and a constant invitation to
+unnecessary construction.
+
+Another grievance against the railways was the reckless, irresponsible
+and arrogant management under which some of them operated. An eminent
+expert testified before an investigating commission in 1885 that Jay
+Gould once sold $40,000,000 of Erie Railway stock and pocketed the
+proceeds himself. Most of the energy of the officers of some roads was
+expended in deceiving and cheating competitors. "Railroad
+financiering" became a "by-word for whatever is financially loose,
+corrupt and dishonest." If certain roads demonstrated by successful
+operation that honest methods were better in the long run, their
+probity received scant advertisement in comparison with the
+unscrupulous practices of their less respectable neighbors. It is to
+be remembered, also, that the growth of the railway system had been so
+rapid and so huge that it was impossible to meet the demand for
+trained administrators. Naturally, men possessed of little or no
+technical understanding of transportation problems could not provide
+highly responsible management.
+
+The dishonest manipulation of the issues and sales of railroad stocks
+is a practice that was not confined solely to the twenty-five years
+after the Civil War, but the numerous examples of it which occurred
+during that period aggravated the exasperation which has already been
+mentioned. Daniel Drew, the treasurer of the Erie Railway in 1866,
+furnished an excellent illustration of this type of activity. Drew had
+in his possession a large amount of Erie stock which had been secretly
+issued to him in return for a loan to the company. The stock in the
+market was selling near par and still rising. Drew instructed his
+agents to make contracts for the future delivery of stock at prices
+current at the time when the contracts were made. When the time came
+for fulfilling his contracts, Drew suddenly threw the secret stock on
+the market, drove general market prices on Erie stock down from
+ninety-five to fifty, bought at the low figure, and sold at the high
+price which was called for in the contracts made by his agents. The
+effect of such sharp dealing on investors, the railroad or the public
+seems not to have entered into the calculation. Indeed, the Erie and
+many another road was looked upon by its owners merely as a convenient
+piece of machinery for producing fortunes.
+
+Gould, Drew and other railroad men of their time were also expert in
+the practice of "stock-watering." This consists in expanding the
+nominal capitalization of an enterprise without an equivalent addition
+to the actual capital. The rates which the railway has to charge the
+public tend to increase by approximately whatever dividends are paid
+on the water.[1] Then, as later, when a road was prospering greatly
+it would sometimes declare a "stock dividend," that is, give its
+stockholders additional stock in proportion to what they already
+owned. The addition would frequently be water. Its purpose might be to
+cover up the great profits made by the company. If, on a million
+dollars' worth of stock, it was paying ten per cent. dividends, the
+public might demand lower freight and passenger rates; but if the
+stock were doubled and earnings remained stationary, then the
+dividends would appear as five per cent.--an amount to which there
+could be no objection. H.V. Poor, the railroad expert, declared before
+a commission of investigation in 1885 that the New York Central
+Railroad was carrying $48,000,000 of water, on which it had paid eight
+per cent. dividends for fifteen years. He also estimated that of the
+seven and a half billions of indebtedness which the roads of the
+country were carrying in 1883, two billions represented water. Others
+thought that the proportion of water was greater. In any case the
+unnecessary burden upon business to provide dividends for the watered
+stock was an item of some magnitude. The investor, however, looked
+upon stock-watering with other eyes. The building of a new road was a
+speculation; the profits might be large, to be sure, but there might
+in many cases be a loss. In order to tempt money into railroad
+enterprises, therefore, inducements in the form of generous stock
+bonuses were necessary.
+
+The rate wars of the seventies gave wide advertisement to another
+aspect of railroad history. The most famous of these contests had
+their origin in the grain-carrying trade from the Lakes to the
+sea-board. The entry of the Baltimore and Ohio and the Grand Trunk
+into Chicago in 1874, stimulated a four-cornered competition among
+these roads and the Pennsylvania and New York Central for the traffic
+between the upper Mississippi Valley and the coast. Rates on grain and
+other products were cut, and cut again; freight charges dropped to a
+figure which wiped out profits; yet it was impossible for any line to
+drop out of the competition until exhaustion forced all to do so. A
+railroad can not suspend business when profits disappear, for fixed
+expenses continue and the depreciation of the value of the property,
+especially of the stations, tracks and rolling stock, is extreme.
+Since the rate wars were clearly bringing ruin in their train, rate
+agreements and pooling arrangements were devised. The latter took
+several forms. Sometimes a group of competing roads agreed to divide
+the business among the competitors on the basis of an agreed-upon
+percentage. Another plan was to pool earnings at the close of a period
+and divide according to a prearranged ratio. Sometimes destructive
+competition was prevented by a division of the territory, each company
+being allowed a free hand in its own field. In general, pooling
+agreements were likely to break down, although a southern pool
+organized by Albert Fink on a very extensive scale lasted for many
+years and was thought to have had a vital influence in eliminating
+rate-wars. Their efficacy depended mainly on good faith, and good
+faith was a rarity among railroad officials in the seventies and
+eighties. In the eyes of the public, rate agreements and pools were
+vicious conspiracies which left the rights and well-being of the
+private shipper completely out of the calculation.
+
+Still another indictment of the railways resulted from their
+participation in politics. It was inevitable, of course, that the
+roads should be drawn into the field of legislation--the grants of
+public land, for example, helped bring about the result. It early
+seemed advantageous to attempt to influence state legislatures to pass
+favorable laws, and it seemed a necessity to bring pressure to bear in
+order to protect the roads from hostile acts. The methods used by the
+railway agents in their political activity naturally varied all the
+way from legitimate agitation to crude and subtle forms of bribery. An
+insidious method of influencing both law-making and litigation was the
+pass system. Under it the roads were accustomed to give free
+transportation to a long list of federal and state judges, legislators
+and politicians. For a judge to accept such favors from a corporation
+which might at any time be haled before his court, and for a
+legislator to receive a gift from a body that was constantly in need
+of legislative attention is now held to be improper in the extreme.
+But in those days a less sensitive public opinion felt hardly a qualm.
+That the practice was likely to arouse an unconscious bias in the
+minds of public officials is hardly debatable. The more crude forms of
+bribery, too, were not uncommon. It was testified before a committee
+of investigation that the Erie Railway Company in one year expended
+$700,000 as a corruption fund and for legal expenses, carrying the
+amount on the books in the "India-rubber account." The manipulation of
+the courts of New York by the Erie and the New York Central during the
+late sixties was nothing short of a scandal. Alliances between
+political rings and railroad officials for the purpose of caring for
+their mutual interests were so common that reformers questioned
+whether the American people could be said to possess self-government
+in actuality. Immediately after the Civil War, Charles Francis Adams,
+an acute student of transportation, declared that it was scarcely an
+exaggeration to say that the state legislatures were becoming a
+species of irregular boards of railroad direction. The evils of the
+alliance between the roads and politics were not, of course, due
+entirely to the former. The receiver of a pass shared with the giver
+the evil of the system. Many a legislator was corrupt; more shared in
+practices which were little removed from dishonorable. Adams, for
+example, gives an account of his experiences, as a director of the
+Union Pacific, in dealing with a United States senator in 1884. The
+congressman was ready to take excellent care of railroad corporations
+which retained him as counsel, but was a corrupt and ill-mannered
+bully toward the Union Pacific, which had not employed him.[2]
+
+The most constant grievance was discrimination--that the roads varied
+their rates for the benefit or detriment of especial types of freight,
+of individuals and of entire localities. Through business between
+competing points was carried at a low figure, while the roads recouped
+themselves by charging heavily in towns where competition was absent.
+Shippers complained that rates between St. Paul and Chicago, for
+example, where competition existed were hardly more than half the
+charges to places at a similar distance where a single road was in a
+position to demand what it pleased. Manufacturers in Rochester could
+send goods to New York City and reship them to Cincinnati, back
+through Rochester, for less than the rate direct to their destination.
+Yet the direct haul was seven hundred miles shorter than the indirect.
+Secret arrangements were commonly made with favored shippers by which
+they secured lower rates than their competitors. When it became
+evident that transportation cost entered into the price of
+substantially everything which the ordinary citizen consumed, and when
+it was considered that a slight rise in railroad rates might easily
+amount to a heavy tax on a shipper or an entire region, it was seen
+that uniformity of rates was a matter of the utmost concern.
+
+In brief, then, it was complained that the growth of the
+transportation system had placed enormous power in the hands of a
+small group of men, many of whom had indicated by their selfishness,
+arrogance and questionable practices that they ought not to be
+entrusted with so great a measure of authority.
+
+The best example of the American railroad president after the war was
+Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt began his career by
+ferrying passengers and freight between Staten Island and New York
+City. Later he turned his attention to shipping, in which he made a
+fortune, and planned the operation of steamships on a large scale.
+Becoming interested in railroading, he clearly perceived the
+importance of the western trade and the necessity of consolidation.
+Vanderbilt was a man of vision, a man who combined magnitude of plan
+with the vigorous grasp of the practical details necessary for the
+realization of his ambitions. He was buoyant, energetic, confident,
+ambitious, determined, despotic. Unhampered by modern conceptions of
+public duty, undeterred by the hostility of powerful opponents, with
+eyes fixed upon the combination and control of a great transportation
+system, Vanderbilt entered courageously upon bitter struggles for
+supremacy which involved the misuse of the courts, the control of the
+New York state legislature and a thousand charges of corrupt influence
+and bribery, but he welded railroads together, replaced wood and iron
+with steel, and constructed tracks and terminals. At his death in 1877
+he left a huge fortune and bequeathed to his successors a great,
+consolidated railroad enterprise, skillfully and successfully
+administered. The great weakness of Commodore Vanderbilt and his
+associates, and of those who later imitated his work was their
+fundamental conception of the railroad as a private venture. Success
+consisted in bigness, great profits, crushing or buying out
+competitors, and administering the business for the best good of the
+few owners, regardless of the interests of the region through which
+the railway passed. Vanderbilt and many of his contemporaries were men
+of business sagacity and foresight, but their ethical outlook was
+restricted and their sense of public responsibility not well
+developed.
+
+So considerable a list of grievances naturally bestirred the people to
+seek relief at the hands of their legislators. Two lines of action
+were followed. In Massachusetts, as early as 1869, a state commission
+was formed with purely advisory powers. Under the able leadership of
+Charles Francis Adams it attained great influence and worked
+effectively for the elimination of railroad abuses through conference
+and the weight of public opinion. In Illinois, on the other hand,
+reliance was placed upon compulsory action. The state constitution of
+1870 declared the railroads to be public highways and required the
+legislature to fix rates for the carriage of freight and passengers,
+and to pass laws to correct abuses connected with the railways and
+grain warehouses. In compliance with the constitution the state passed
+the necessary legislation and placed their execution in the hands of a
+commission with considerable power. Other western states followed the
+Illinois model.
+
+On the national scale the agitation for government action began with
+the minor parties. In 1872 the Labor Reformers demanded fair rates and
+no discrimination; in 1876 the Prohibitionists called for lower rates;
+in 1880 the Greenbackers stood for fair and uniform rates; four years
+later they urged laws which would put an end to pooling,
+stock-watering and discrimination, and in the same year the
+Republicans promised an act to regulate commerce if they were elected.
+The most effective force behind the demand for railroad regulation was
+the Patrons of Husbandry, better known as the "Grange." This society
+was founded by O.H. Kelley, a government clerk in Washington, in 1867.
+Its initial purpose was the organization of the agricultural classes
+for social and intellectual improvement, but later it engaged in the
+effort to correct transportation abuses and to arouse cooperation
+among the farmers in other ways. The movement grew astonishingly,
+especially in the Middle West, where its membership reached nearly
+759,000 in 1875.
+
+Transportation conditions in the West had not reached the relatively
+stable situation which characterized those of the East. In the West
+much new work was being done, with the attendant evils of construction
+companies and unnecessary and speculative undertakings. Much of the
+railroad stock was in the hands of eastern investors whom the western
+farmers pictured as living in idle ease on swollen incomes, careless
+of the high rates and unfair discriminations under which the farmer
+groaned. The constantly falling prices, which influenced the West in
+so many other ways, served to heighten the discontent with any abuse
+which increased the farmer's burden. Moreover, the western states had
+contributed huge amounts of land to help build the railways and they
+were not minded to give up the hold which their generosity had
+justified.
+
+Impelled, then, by such force as the Grange and similar organizations
+supplied, the western states proceeded to the adoption of laws whose
+purposes ordinarily included railroad rate-making by the legislature
+or by a commission, the doing away with such abuses as discrimination,
+and the prohibition of free passes. The railroads promptly opposed the
+laws and carried the battle to the courts. The so-called "Granger
+Cases" resulted. Three of these were representative of the general
+trend of the decisions.
+
+The famous case Munn _v._ Illinois, which was decided by the Supreme
+Court in 1876 was possibly the most vital case in the history of the
+regulation of public service corporations after the Civil War. The
+legislature of Illinois, in conformity with the state constitution of
+1870, had passed a law fixing maximum charges for the storage of grain
+in warehouses. The owners of a certain warehouse refused compliance
+with the law on the ground that it was contrary to the Constitution
+and hence null and void. They argued that when the state fixed rates
+it deprived the owners of the right to set higher charges and so, in
+effect, deprived them of their property, in defiance of that portion
+of the Fourteenth Amendment forbidding a state to "deprive any person
+of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."
+
+On examination of the history of the control of such enterprises, the
+Court found that it had been customary in England for many centuries
+and in this country from the beginning, to regulate rates on ferries,
+charges at inns, and similar public enterprises, and that it had never
+been thought that such action deprived persons of property without due
+process of law. In other words, the established common law, at the
+time of the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, did not look upon
+rate regulation as a deprivation of property. The Court, therefore,
+declared the Illinois warehouse law constitutional, and in doing so
+made the following statement:
+
+    Property does become clothed with a public interest when
+    used in a manner to make it of public consequence, and affect
+    the community at large. When, therefore, one devotes his
+    property to a use in which the public has an interest, he, in
+    effect, grants to the public an interest in that use, and must
+    submit to be controlled by the public for the common good,
+    to the extent of the interest he has thus created.
+
+While the Munn case was before the Court, the case Peik _v._ the
+Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company was raising a question which
+struck at the heart of the chief practical impediment in the way of
+state control of transportation. The central question in the
+litigation was whether the legislature of Wisconsin could lawfully
+regulate rates on railroads inside the state. Since the bulk of the
+traffic on most roads crosses state borders at one time or another in
+its transit, the regulation of rates within a state normally affects
+interstate commerce. But the regulation of interstate commerce is
+vested in Congress by the terms of the Constitution. The railroad was
+quick to take advantage of the division of power between the states
+and the nation. Indeed, when fighting state legislation, the roads
+earnestly emphasized the exclusive power of Congress over interstate
+commerce; but when fighting national regulation, they equally
+deprecated any interference with the reserved rights of the states.
+Acting in accordance with its established practice, the Court decided
+that the state was authorized to regulate rates within its borders,
+even though such regulation indirectly affected persons outside, until
+Congress passed legislation concerning interstate commerce. Obviously
+this decision allowed the states to work out their railroad problems
+unhampered, and constituted one of the chief victories for the
+Grangers.
+
+In 1886, however, the Court overturned some of the principles which
+had been established in the Munn and Peik cases. The new development
+came about in connection with the Wabash railroad. It appeared that
+the road had been carrying freight from Peoria, Illinois, to New York
+for smaller rates than were charged from Gilman to New York, despite
+the fact that Peoria was eighty-six miles farther away. Since Illinois
+law forbade a road to levy a greater charge for a short haul than for
+a long one, a suit was instituted and carried to the Supreme Court.
+The company held that the Illinois legislation affected interstate
+commerce and hence trenched upon the constitutional power of Congress.
+This time the Court upheld the road. It decided that the
+transportation of goods from Illinois to New York was commerce among
+the states, that such commerce was subject to regulation by Congress
+exclusively, and that the Illinois statute was void. It seemed, then,
+that state regulation was a broken reed on which nobody could safely
+lean, and attention thereupon turned to the federal government.
+
+Congress had already been discussing federal regulation intermittently
+for some years. The so-called "Windom Report" of 1874 had advised
+federal construction and improvement of transportation facilities in
+order to lower rates through competition, but no action had resulted.
+In 1878 the "Reagan bill" had proposed government regulation, and from
+that time the subject had been almost continuously before Congress. In
+1885 the Senate had appointed a select committee of five to
+investigate and report upon the regulation of freight and passenger
+transportation. The committee was headed by Shelby M. Cullom, who had
+been a member of the legislature of Illinois and later governor, in
+the years when the railroad and warehouse laws were being put into
+effect. It endeavored to discover all shades of opinion by visiting
+the leading commercial centers, and by consulting business men, state
+commissioners of railroads, Granger officials and others. After a
+somewhat thorough investigation, the committee expressed its
+conviction that no general question of governmental policy occupied so
+prominent a place in the attention of the public as that of
+controlling the growth and influence of corporations. The needed
+relief might be obtained, the committee thought, through any one of
+four methods: private ownership and management, with a greater or less
+degree of government oversight; government ownership and management;
+government ownership with private management under public regulations;
+partial state ownership and management in competition with private
+companies. The widespread opposition to state ownership of railroads,
+the commission thought, seemed to point to some form of government
+regulation and control of the existing situation.
+
+Impressed with the magnitude of the abuses involved, and the
+hopelessness of regulation through state laws, the committee presented
+a bill designed to bring about regulation on a national scale through
+a federal agency. The resulting law was the Interstate Commerce Act of
+February 4, 1887. It provided that all railway charges should be
+reasonable and just; forbade the roads to grant rebates, or to give
+preferences to any person, locality or class of freight, or to charge
+more for a short haul than for a long one except with the consent of
+the proper authorities; it made pooling unlawful; and it ordered the
+companies to post printed copies of their rates, which were not to be
+altered except after ten days' public notice. The act also created an
+Interstate Commerce Commission of five members to serve six-year
+terms, into whose hands the administration of the measure was placed.
+Persons who claimed that the railways were violating the provisions of
+the law could make complaint to the Commission, or bring suit in a
+United States Court. In order that the Commission might know the
+condition of the roads, it was given power to call upon the carriers
+for information, to demand annual reports from them, and to require
+the attendance of witnesses. If the railroads refused to carry out the
+orders of the Commission, they could be brought before a United States
+district court.
+
+In forbidding pools, the Act committed the railroads to the policy of
+enforced competition, a policy which was commonly accepted at the time
+as the best one for the public interest. Such experts, however, as
+Professor A.T. Hadley and Charles Francis Adams, Jr., raised important
+objections. They cited the rate wars to indicate the results of
+competition and declared that railroads ought to be monopolies. If two
+grocery stores are established where trade enough exists for only one,
+they asserted, the weaker competitor can close his doors and the
+public loss is not heavy; but in the case of the railways a weak
+competitor must continue business even at disastrously low rates
+because all his interest charges continue and the depreciation on his
+property is extreme. The construction of an unnecessary road and its
+subsequent operation at a loss, its failure or its abandonment,
+constitute a great drain upon the public. Such objectors contended
+that pooling combinations did away with many of the evils of
+cut-throat competition, and they accordingly urged that the carriers
+be permitted to make such arrangements, under whatever government
+regulation might be needed to prevent unreasonable charges. By such
+means the available business of a region might be fairly divided among
+the roads entering it, without resort to competitive rate-cutting and
+its consequent evils.
+
+The passage of the law was looked upon with much hostility on the part
+of the railroad interests. James J. Hill thought that the railroads
+might survive, although the country would be ruined, and he predicted
+that Congress would shortly be called in special session to repeal the
+act. More important than mere hostility was the constant opposition
+and evasion which characterized the attitude of the carriers toward
+the operation of the law. Discriminations were commonly practiced and
+hidden away in accounts under false or misleading headings. Rebates
+were given and received, a fact which was due in no small degree to
+the shippers themselves. A large shipper might demand advantageous
+rates and threaten to turn his trade over to a rival road. As the
+arrangement would be secret, and the likelihood of discovery small,
+the temptation to break the law was correspondingly great.
+
+The good results of the passage of the law were disappointingly
+slight. To be sure, the Commission was gaining experience,
+administrative precedents were being established and injustice was
+somewhat less common than before. The first chairman was Judge T.M.
+Cooley, a noted lawyer whose appointment was considered an admirable
+one. Most important of all, the principle of government regulation was
+established. Nevertheless, progress was so slow as to be almost
+invisible. The courts hampered the activities of the Commission. When
+cases arose involving its decisions, they allowed a retrial of the
+entire case from the beginning, permitting the introduction of facts
+which had been designedly withheld by the carriers in order to
+undermine the influence of the Commission, and sometimes they reversed
+its findings and so dulled the effectiveness of its labors. Eleven
+years after the Act was passed the Commission declared that abuses
+were so constant that the situation was intolerable; a prominent
+railroad president made the charge that "good faith had departed from
+the railway world"; and an important authority on railroad affairs
+declared that the Commission had become an impotent bureau of
+statistics.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+More study has been made of railroad regulation and the technical side
+of railroading than of the history of transportation and the effects
+of the roads on the political and economic life of the people. An
+excellent single volume is John Moody, _The Railroad Builders_ (1919),
+which devotes attention to the important personages of railroad
+history, discusses the growth of large systems and contains valuable
+maps; the best concise account of the history of the railways is W.Z.
+Ripley, _Railroads: Rates and Regulation_ (1912). Chap. I; W.Z.
+Ripley, _Railway Problems_ (rev. ed., 1913), is reliable; E.R. Johnson
+and T.W. Van Metre, _Principles of Railroad Transportation_ (1916),
+has some excellent chapters and several informing maps; C.F. Carter,
+_When Railroads were New_, (1909), is a popular account; C.F. Adams,
+_Chapters of Erie_ (1886), exposes early railroad practices; H.G.
+Pearson, _An American Railroad Builder_ (1911), presents the career
+of J.M. Forbes as a railroad president; A.T. Hadley, _Railroad
+Transportation_ (1886), is a classic, early account. Consult also E.R.
+Johnson, _American Railway Transportation_ (1903); Frank Parsons,
+_Heart of the Railroad Problem_ (1906); C.F. Adams, Jr., _Railroads:
+Their Origin and Problems_ (1878, rev. ed., 1893); "A Decade of
+Federal Railway Regulation," in _Atlantic Monthly_ (Apr., 1898). On
+the personal side, the following are valuable: E.P. Oberholtzer, _Jay
+Cooke, Financier of the Civil War_ (2 vols., 1907); J.G. Pyle, _Life
+of J.J. Hill_ (2 vols., 1917); _Memoirs of Henry Villard_ (1909). On
+the subject of land grants and regulation: L.H. Haney, _Congressional
+History of Railways_ (2 vols., 1910); S.J. Buck, _The Granger
+Movement_ (1913), and the same author's _The Agrarian Crusade_ (1920),
+are best on the relation of unrest among the agricultural classes to
+the railroad problem. The "Cullom Report" is in Senate Reports, 49th
+Congress, 1st session (Serial Number 2356), in 2 vols., and is a mine
+of information on early abuses. The most important Granger cases are
+in _United States Reports_, vol. 94, p. 113 (Munn _v._ Ill.), and vol.
+118, p. 557 (Wabash case).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] For example, an investor might contribute $100 in cash to an
+enterprise. The "paid in capital" or "actual" capital would, then be
+$100. He might receive in return $100 in stock and $100 in bonds, in
+which case the "nominal capital" would be $200; the additional $100
+would be "water." If the enterprise paid interest on the bonds, and
+dividends on the stock, it would, of course, be paying a return on the
+water. The practice of stock-watering did not end with the days of
+Gould and Drew.
+
+[2] In this connection Professor Farrand mentions the statement of a
+railroad magnate that "in Republican counties he was a Republican, and
+in Democratic counties he was a Democrat, but that everywhere he was
+for the railroad." _Development of the United States_, p. 290.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+EXTREME REPUBLICANISM
+
+That the election of 1888 differed from its predecessors since 1865 was
+due chiefly to the independence, courage and political insight of
+President Cleveland. Hitherto campaigns had been contested with as
+little reference to real issues as conditions rendered possible.
+Neither party had possessed leaders with sufficient understanding of
+the needs of the nation to force a genuine settlement of an important
+issue. That 1888 saw a clear contest made it a memorable year in recent
+politics.
+
+It will be remembered that the tariff act of 1883 had been satisfactory
+only to a minority in Congress, because it retained the high level of
+customs duties that had been established during the Civil War. The
+congressional election of 1882 had resulted in the choice of a
+Democratic House of Representatives and had offered another opportunity
+for downward revision. Early in 1884, therefore, William R. Morrison
+presented a bill making considerable additions to the free list and
+providing for a "horizontal" reduction of about twenty per cent. on all
+other duties as levied under the act of 1883. The measure was defeated
+by four votes. Opposed to it were substantially all the Republicans and
+forty-one Democrats, most of them from the industrial states of New
+York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The Democratic tariff plank of
+1884, as has been seen, was practically meaningless, but the election
+of Cleveland, and the choice of a Democratic House gave another
+opportunity for revision. Again Morrison attempted a reduction, and
+again he was defeated by Samuel J. Randall and the other protectionist
+Democrats.
+
+The entire matter, however, was about to receive a new and important
+development at the hands of President Cleveland and John G. Carlisle,
+who was the Speaker of the House during the four years from 1885 to
+1889. Carlisle was a Kentuckian, a man of grave bearing, unflagging
+industry and substantial attainments. His tariff principles were in
+accord with those of the President, and his position as Speaker enabled
+him to determine the make-up of the Committee on Ways and Means, which
+would frame any tariff legislation. Cleveland had expressed his belief
+in the desirability of tariff reduction in his messages to Congress of
+1885 and 1886, basing his recommendations on the same facts that had
+earlier actuated President Arthur in making similar suggestions. His
+recommendations, however, had received the same slight consideration
+that had been accorded those of his Republican predecessor. He
+therefore determined to challenge the attention of the country and of
+Congress by means of a novel expedient.
+
+Previous presidential messages had covered a wide variety of
+subjects--foreign relations, domestic affairs, and recommendations of
+all kinds. Departing from this custom, the President made up his mind
+to devote an entire message to tariff reform. His project was startling
+from the political point of view, for his party was far from being a
+unit in its attitude toward reduction, a presidential campaign was at
+hand, and the Independents, who had had a strong influence in bringing
+about his success in 1884, sent word to him that a reform message would
+imperil his chances of re-election. This type of argument had little
+weight with Cleveland, however, and his reply was brief: "Do you not
+think that the people of the United States are entitled to some
+instruction on this subject?"
+
+On December 6, 1887, therefore, he sent to Congress his famous message
+urging the downward revision of the tariff. The immediate occasion of
+his recommendation, he declared, was the surplus of income over
+expenditure, which was piling up in the treasury at a rapid rate and
+which was a constant invitation to reckless appropriations. The portion
+of the public debt which was payable had already been redeemed, so that
+whatever surplus was not expended would be stored in the vaults, thus
+reducing the amount of currency in circulation, and making likely a
+financial crisis. The simplest remedy for the situation seemed to
+Cleveland to lie in a reduction of the income, and the most desirable
+means of reduction seemed to be the downward revision of the tariff, a
+system of "unnecessary taxation" which he denominated "vicious,
+inequitable, and illogical." Disclaiming any wish to advocate free
+trade, he expressed the hope that Congress would turn its attention to
+the practical problem before it:
+
+    Our progress toward a wise conclusion will not be improved by
+    dwelling upon the theories of protection and free trade. This
+    savors too much of bandying epithets. It is a _condition_ which
+    confronts us, not a theory.
+
+The effect of the message was immediate. Men began at once to take
+sides as if everybody had been waiting for a leader to speak his mind;
+and the parties adopted the definite principles to which they adhered
+for many years afterwards. The Democrats very generally rallied to the
+support of their champion; gaps in the ranks were closed up; and
+doubtless the usual pressure was applied to obstinate members who were
+disinclined to follow the leader. The Republican attitude was well
+expressed in the phrase of one of the politicians: "It is free-trade,
+and we have 'em!" The most prominent Republican, James G. Blaine, was
+in Paris, but true to his instinctive recognition of a good political
+opportunity he gave an interview which was immediately cabled to
+America. In it Blaine maintained that tariff reduction would harm the
+entire country, and especially the South and the farmers, and urged the
+reduction of the surplus by the abolition of the tax on tobacco, which
+he termed the poor man's luxury. The "Paris Message" was generally
+looked upon as the Republican answer to Cleveland, and as pointing to
+Blaine as the inevitable candidate for the ensuing campaign. On one
+point, most men of both parties were agreed--that the President had
+displayed great courage. "The presidential chair," declared James
+Russell Lowell, "has a MAN in it, and this means that every word he
+_says_ is weighted with what he _is_."
+
+The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in the House of
+Representatives, Roger Q. Mills, promptly presented a bill which
+conformed to the principles for which the President had argued. The
+discussion of the Mills bill was long known as the "Great Tariff Debate
+of 1888." The House seethed with it for more than a month. Mills and
+Carlisle on one side and William McKinley and Thomas B. Reed on the
+other typified the new leadership and the new positions which the
+parties were taking. Senator Morrill's idea that the war tariff was a
+temporary one, President Arthur's advice that the tariff be revised,
+the recommendations of the Tariff Commission of 1882 that reductions
+were necessary,--all these were no longer heard. Instead, the
+Republicans upheld the protective system as the cause of the unexampled
+prosperity of the nation. It is not to be supposed that protectionist
+or reductionist converts were made by the endless discussion, but the
+initial prejudices of each side were undoubtedly deepened. Each telling
+blow on either side was applauded by the partisans of each particular
+speaker, so that "applause" fairly dots the dull pages of the
+Congressional Record. McKinley enlivened his colleagues by pulling from
+his desk and exhibiting a suit of clothes which he had purchased for
+$10.00, a figure, he asserted, which proved that the tariff did not
+raise prices beyond the reach of the laboring man. Mills tracked down
+the cost of the suit and the tariff on the materials composing it, and
+further entertained the House by an exhibit showing that it cost $4.98
+to manufacture the suit and that the remainder of the price which the
+laborer paid was due to the tariff. In the end, the Mills bill passed
+the House with but four Democrats voting against it. Randall was so ill
+that he was unable to be present when the final vote was taken, but a
+letter from him declaring his opposition to the bill was greeted with
+great applause on the Republican side. Randall's day was past, however,
+and leadership was passing to new men.
+
+Meanwhile the Republicans in the Senate, where they were in control,
+had prepared a tariff bill which was designed to give evidence of the
+sort of act which would be passed if they were successful in the
+campaign. Senator Allison and Senator Aldrich were influential in this
+connection. The passage of leadership in tariff matters to Senator
+Aldrich and men of his type was as significant as the transition in the
+House. Aldrich was from Rhode Island, an able man who had had
+experience in state affairs, had served in the federal House of
+Representatives and had been in the Senate since 1881. He had already
+laid the foundations of the great financial and industrial connections
+which gave him an intimate, personal interest in protection and which
+later made him an important figure in American industry and politics.
+Since neither party controlled both branches of Congress, it was
+impossible to pass either the Mills bill or the Senate measure; but the
+proposed legislation indicated what might be expected to result from
+the election. Each side had thoroughly committed itself on the tariff
+question.
+
+In the meanwhile, great interest attached to the question of leaders
+for the campaign. Opposition to Cleveland was not lacking. His efforts
+in behalf of civil service reform had not endeared him to the
+office-seekers, and the hostility of the Democrats in the Senate was
+shown by their feeble support of him. The West did not relish his
+opposition to silver coinage, while his vetoes of pension legislation
+were productive of some hostility, even in his own party. Nor was the
+personality of the President such as to allay ill-feeling. Indeed,
+Cleveland was in a position comparable to that of Hayes eight years
+before. He was the titular party leader, but the most prominent
+Democratic politicians were not in agreement with his principles, and
+any step taken by him was likely to arouse as much hostility in some
+Democratic quarters as among the Republicans. Opposition to his
+nomination focused upon David B. Hill, Governor of New York, a man who
+was looked upon as better disposed towards the claims of party workers
+for office. Other leaders like Bayard, Thurman and Carlisle aroused
+little enthusiasm, and the gradual drift of sentiment toward Cleveland
+became unmistakable. If the politicians did not accept him with joy,
+they at least accepted him; for he was master of the party for the
+moment at least, and his hold on a large body of the rank and file was
+not to be doubted. When the Democratic convention met in St. Louis in
+June, 1888, his nomination was made without the formality of a
+ballot.[1]
+
+The platform was devoted, for the most part, to the question of revenue
+reform, indorsing the President's tariff message and urging that the
+party be given control of Congress in order that Democratic principles
+might be put into effect. Resolutions were also adopted recommending
+the passage of the Mills bill, which was still under discussion when
+the convention met.
+
+Among the Republicans the choice of a candidate was a far more
+difficult matter. The probable choice of the party was Blaine, but his
+letter from Italy, where he was travelling early in the convention
+year, forbade the use of his name and opened the contest to a great
+number of less well-known leaders. Publicly it was stated that Blaine
+refused for reasons which were "entirely personal," but intimate
+friends knew that he would accept a nomination if it came without
+solicitation and as the result of a unanimous party call. Although the
+demand for him still continued, there were smaller "booms" for various
+favorite sons, and as his ill health continued he made known his
+irrevocable decision to withdraw. Except for Blaine, the most prominent
+contender was Senator Sherman, whose candidacy reached larger
+proportions than ever before. The Ohio delegation was unitedly in his
+favor and considerable numbers of southern delegates were expected to
+vote for him. On the other hand, his lack of personal magnetism was
+against him and his career had been connected with technical matters
+which did not make a popular appeal. On the first ballot in the
+nominating convention his lead was considerable, although not decisive,
+but no fewer than thirteen other leaders also received votes. One of
+these was Senator Benjamin Harrison of Indiana whom Blaine had
+suggested as an available man and whom the New York delegation
+considered a strong candidate because he was poor, a reputable senator,
+a distinguished volunteer officer in the war and a grandson of William
+H. Harrison of Tippecanoe fame. Further voting only emphasized the lack
+of unanimity until the eighth ballot, when the delegates suddenly
+turned to Harrison and nominated him.
+
+The platform was long and verbose. It devoted much attention to the
+protective tariff which, in imitation of Henry Clay, it entitled the
+"American system"; it advocated the reduction of internal revenue
+duties, if necessary to cut down the surplus; and it urged civil
+service reform, liberal pensions and laws to control oppressive
+corporations.
+
+Two factions of the Labor party, as well as the Prohibitionists,
+nominated candidates and urged programs to which no attention was paid,
+but which were later taken up by both the great parties, such as
+arbitration in labor disputes, an income tax, the popular election of
+senators, woman suffrage and the prohibition of the manufacture of
+alcoholic beverages.
+
+The campaign deserves attention because of the unusual elements that
+entered into it. A spectacular feature which, although not new, was
+developed on a large scale, was the formation of thousands of political
+clubs, which paraded evenings with flaming torches. In this type of
+organization the Republicans were more successful than the Democrats
+and thus steered many young men into the party at a time when they were
+looking forward to casting their first ballot. The most unwholesome
+feature was, as before, the methods used to finance the campaign. In
+this connection both parties were guilty, but the Republicans were able
+to tap a new source of supply. The campaign was in the hands of Matthew
+S. Quay, a Pennsylvania senator whose career as a public official left
+much to be desired. Quay's political methods were vividly described at
+a later time by his friend and admirer Thomas C. Platt, whose account
+lost none of its delightfulness in view of the fact that Platt
+obviously felt that he was complimenting his friend in telling the
+story. Believing in the "rights" of business men in politics, Platt
+declared, Quay was always able to raise any amount of money needed,
+although when funds were raised by business interests against him, he
+lifted the "fiery cross" and virtuously exposed his opponents before
+the people. Having calculated with skill the number of votes needed for
+victory, he found out where he could get them--"and then he got them."
+
+That Quay was able to tap a new source of supply was due to a
+combination of circumstances. It will be remembered that the Pendleton
+civil service act of 1883 had forbidden the assessment of
+office-holders in political campaigns, and had made it necessary to
+procure funds elsewhere. In the campaign of 1888, business men who
+believed that the success of Cleveland would hurt their interests, and
+manufacturers who profited directly by the protective tariff rallied to
+the defence of Harrison and contributed heavily to his campaign
+fund.[2]
+
+The use to which the funds thus contributed were put was revealed in a
+letter written apparently by W.W. Dudley, treasurer of the National
+Republican Committee, and sent to party leaders in Indiana. The latter
+were directed to find out who had the "Democratic boodle" and force
+them, presumably by competition, to pay big prices for their own men.
+The leaders were also instructed to "divide the floaters into blocks of
+five and put a trusted man with the necessary funds in charge of these
+five, and make him responsible that none get away, and that all vote
+our ticket."
+
+On the other hand the most wholesome feature of the campaign was its
+educational aspect. Hundreds of societies, tons of "literature,"
+thousands of stump speeches attacked and defended the tariff.
+Schoolboys glibly retailed the standard arguments on one side or the
+other. Attention was centered, as it had not been since the war, on an
+important issue.
+
+At the close of the campaign the Republicans played a trick which was
+reminiscent of the Morey letter of Garfield's day. A letter purporting
+to be from a Charles F. Murchison, a naturalized American of English
+birth, was sent to the British minister in Washington, Lord
+Sackville-West. Murchison requested the minister's opinion as to
+whether President Cleveland's hostile policy in a recent controversy
+with Canada had been adopted for campaign purposes and whether after
+election the President would be more friendly toward England. Lord
+Sackville indiscreetly replied that he believed President Cleveland
+would show a conciliatory spirit toward Great Britain. The
+correspondence was held back until shortly before the election and was
+then published in the newspapers and on hand bills. Republicans
+triumphantly declared that Cleveland was the "British candidate." The
+President was at first inclined to overlook the incident but eventually
+gave way to pressure and dismissed the minister, whereupon the English
+government refused to fill the vacancy until there was a change of
+administration.
+
+In the ensuing election the vote cast was unusually heavy; the
+protectionists felt that a supreme effort must be made to preserve the
+tariff system, and the Democrats, having experienced the joys of power,
+were determined not to loosen their grip on authority; the
+Prohibitionists increased their vote over that of 1884 by 100,000,
+while the Labor party cast 147,000, almost as many ballots as the
+Prohibitionists had numbered in the earlier year. Cleveland received
+somewhat over 100,000 more votes than Harrison, but his support was so
+placed that his electoral vote was sixty-five less than his opponent's.
+
+From the standpoint of political history the result was unfortunate.
+The tariff question had been sadly in need of a definite answer, the
+people had been educated upon it and had given a decision, but the
+electoral system placed in power the party pledged to the theories of
+the minority. Aside from the unusual effect of our machinery of
+election, many small elements entered into the Republican victory. Some
+of the Independents had become disaffected since 1884 and had returned
+to the Republican fold. Disgruntled office-seekers opposed a President
+who did not reward his workers. In New York, which was the decisive
+factor, Hill was a candidate for re-election as governor and was
+elected by a small majority, while Cleveland lost the state by 7,000
+votes. This gave color to charges that the enemies of the President had
+made a bargain with the Republicans by which the latter voted for Hill
+as governor and the Democrats for Harrison as President.
+
+Benjamin Harrison, veteran of the Civil War in which he had attained
+the rank of brevet brigadier-general, and senator from Indiana for a
+single term, was hardly a party leader when he was nominated for the
+presidency. Although he was by no means unknown, he had been
+sufficiently obscure to be unconnected with factional party quarrels,
+and his career and character were without blemish. At the time of his
+accession to the executive chair he was fifty-six years of age, a short
+man with bearded face, and with head set well down between his
+shoulders. Accounts of his characteristics, drawn by his party
+associates, did not differ in any essential detail. As a public
+speaker, the new President was a man of unusual charm--felicitous in
+his remarks, versatile, tactful. In a famous trip through the South and
+West in 1891, he made speech after speech at a wide variety of places
+and occasions, and created a genuine enthusiasm. His remarks were
+widely read and highly regarded. Nevertheless there seems to have been
+some truth in the remark of one of his contemporaries that he could
+charm ten thousand men in a public speech but meet them individually
+and send every one away his enemy. His manner, even to senators and
+representatives of his own party, was reserved to the point of
+frigidity. When he granted requests for patronage he was so ungracious
+as to anger the recipients of favor. Although his personal character
+and integrity were as unquestioned as those of Hayes, and although he
+was a man of cultured tastes, well-informed, thoughtful and
+conscientious, it must be admitted that he lacked robust leadership and
+breadth of vision, and that he did not understand the real purposes of
+the policies which his party associates were embarking upon, or if he
+did that he tamely acquiesced in them. The party leaders were soon
+engaged in initiating practices and passing legislation which would
+strengthen the organization with certain groups of interested persons.
+Harrison, conscientious but aloof, provided no compelling force to turn
+attention toward wider and deeper needs.
+
+Two appointments to the cabinet were important. Since Blaine was the
+foremost leader of the party and had done much to bring about the
+election of Harrison, it was well-nigh impossible for the latter to
+fail to offer him the position of Secretary of State. The appointment
+was so natural that popular opinion looked upon it as the only
+possibility, yet the natures of the two men were so diverse and their
+positions in the party so different that friction seemed likely to
+result. Even before the administration began it was freely predicted
+that Blaine would "dominate" the cabinet, a prophecy that might well
+create a feeling of restraint between the two. The invitation to John
+Wanamaker to become Postmaster-General was regarded as significant.
+Wanamaker was a wealthy merchant of Philadelphia, who had organized an
+advisory campaign committee of business men which contributed and
+expended large sums of money during the canvass. Critical reformers
+like the editor of _The Nation_ were not slow to connect Wanamaker's
+large contribution to the campaign fund with his elevation to the
+cabinet, and to suggest that the business interests were being brought
+into close relations with the administration. T.C. Platt, expectant of
+a return for his campaign assistance, in the form of a cabinet
+position, and in fact understanding that a pledge had been made that he
+would be appointed, found himself superseded by William Windom of
+Minnesota in the Treasury and became a bitter opponent of the
+President.[3]
+
+It was an odd turn of the fortune of politics that brought Benjamin
+Harrison face to face with the responsibility for furthering the cause
+of civil service reform--the same Harrison who, as a senator, had
+sneered at Cleveland for surrendering to difficulties. The party
+platform had urged the continuation of reform, which had been
+"auspiciously begun under the Republican administration" and had
+declared that the party promises would not be broken as Democratic
+pledges had been; and Harrison had announced his adherence to the party
+statement. In some respects real progress was made. Secretary of the
+Navy Tracy introduced reform methods in his department. The appointment
+of Theodore Roosevelt to the Civil Service Commission was productive of
+good results. The work of reform was defended forcefully and
+successfully; its opponents were challenged to substantiate their
+charges. When Senator Gorman declared that in an examination for letter
+carriers in Baltimore the candidates were asked to tell the most direct
+route from Baltimore to China, Roosevelt at once wrote asking him to
+state the time and place of the examination himself or to send somebody
+to look over the papers, copies of which were in the commission's
+office. The senator did not reply.
+
+The removal of office holders, however, proceeded with amazing
+rapidity. The First Assistant Postmaster-General was J.S. Clarkson, who
+had been vice-chairman of the Republican National Campaign Committee.
+The speed with which he cleared the service of Democrats earned him the
+title "headsman" and is indicated by the estimate that he removed one
+every three minutes for the first year. When the force of clerks was
+increased for the taking of the census of 1890, the superintendent of
+the census office found himself "waist deep in congressmen" trying to
+get places for friends. The Republican postmaster of New York who had
+been continued by Cleveland was not re-appointed. It was soon
+discovered, also, that the President was placing his own and his wife's
+relatives in office and giving positions to large numbers of newspaper
+editors, thus indirectly subsidizing the press. The Commissioner of
+Pensions, Corporal James Tanner, distributed pensions so freely as to
+arouse wide-spread comment and was soon relieved of his position.[4]
+
+Curtis, addressing the National Civil Service Reform League, flayed the
+President because he had despoiled the service. A Republican newspaper,
+he declared, had said that the administration whistled reform down the
+wind "as remorselessly as it would dismiss an objectionable tramp."
+Prominent members of the party went to the President in person to urge
+on him the redemption of the platform promises.
+
+Although progress was not general, nevertheless there were particular
+reforms that commended themselves. The offensive Clarkson gave way to
+hostile criticism and retired. During the last half of the
+administration, the civil service rules were amended so as to add a
+considerable number of employees to the classified service, especially
+in the post office department. Quay and Dudley found their methods
+condemned by public opinion and resigned their positions on the
+National Republican Committee.[5]
+
+Aside from his choice of subordinates, Harrison contributed little to
+the political history of his administration, for the leadership was
+seized by a small coterie of extreme Republicans in the House of
+Representatives, of whom the chief figure was the Speaker, Thomas B.
+Reed. The House which had been elected with Harrison contained 159
+Democrats and 166 Republicans. The Republican majority was too slight
+for safety, for the questions which were coming before Congress were
+such as to arouse party feeling to a high pitch. The Republicans felt
+themselves commissioned, by a successful election, to put the party
+program into force, but so powerful a minority could readily block any
+legislation under the existing parliamentary rules. Only Reed knew what
+expedient would be resorted to in the attempt to put through the party
+program, and not even he could guarantee that the adventure would be
+successful.
+
+Thomas B. Reed had long represented Maine in the House of
+Representatives. He was a man of huge bulk, bland in appearance,
+imperturbable in his serenity, caustic, concise and witty of tongue,
+rough, sharp, strong, droll. In the cut-and-thrust of parliamentary
+debate and manoeuvre, as well as in his knowledge of the intricacies of
+procedure, Reed was a past master. He worsted his adversaries by
+turning the laugh on them, and his stinging retorts, which swept the
+House "like grapeshot," made him a powerful factor in partisan
+contests.[6]
+
+The political and economic philosophy of Reed and his associates was
+unusually important, because it controlled their action during the time
+when they dominated the House and determined the character of the
+legislation passed during Harrison's time. When President Cleveland's
+tariff message welded the Democrats together to demand reduction, it
+likewise influenced the Republicans to adopt the other extreme. That is
+not to say, of course, that the Republican attitude was due solely to
+Cleveland, for the party was already committed to protectionism.
+Nevertheless, many of its prominent leaders, including its presidents,
+had urged revision. That recommendation was now no longer heard. Such
+men as McKinley in the House fairly apotheosized the protective system.
+The philosophy of the party leaders received full exposition in a
+volume edited by John D. Long, ex-governor of Massachusetts, and
+composed of articles written by sixteen of the most prominent
+Republicans. It had been published during the campaign. The attitude of
+the party toward its chief tenet was expressed in the phrase, "The
+Republican party enacted a protective tariff which made the United
+States the greatest manufacturing nation on earth"; and its conception
+of the Democratic party in the statement that the Democrats were mainly
+old slave-holders, liquor dealers and criminals in the great northern
+cities. In the field of national expenditure, also, the party reacted
+from Cleveland's frugality. Senator Dolph frankly urged the expenditure
+of the surplus revenue rather than the reduction of taxation. McKinley
+took the position that prices might be too low. "I do not prize the word
+cheap," he said; "cheap merchandise means cheap men and cheap men mean
+a cheap country." Harrison remarked that it was "no time to be weighing
+the claims of old soldiers with apothecary's scales." This philosophy
+was now to have its trial, but first the obstructive power of the
+minority must be curbed. Reed's plan for accomplishing this result
+appeared late in January, 1890.
+
+A contested election case was up for decision in the House. The roll
+was called and three less than a quorum of representatives answered.
+Scores of Democrats were present, but by merely refusing to answer to
+their names they could be officially absent. Unless the Republicans
+could provide a quorum--that is, more than half the total membership of
+the chamber of their own number, they were helpless. Clearly they
+could not muster their full force at all times and especially on
+questions upon which the party might be divided. On the other hand, the
+right to refuse to vote was a long-standing one and had been used over
+and over again by Republicans as well as Democrats. Reed, however, had
+made up his mind to cut the Gordian knot. Looking over the House he
+called the names of about forty Democrats, directed the clerk to make
+note of them and then declared a quorum present. The meaning of the act
+was not lost on the opposition. Pandemonium broke loose. Members rushed
+up the aisle as if to attack the Speaker, but Reed, huge, fearless and
+undisturbed, stood his ground. The Democrats hissed and jeered and
+denounced him with a wrath which was not mollified by the derisive
+laughter of the Republicans, who were surprised by the ruling, but
+rallied to their leader. Two days later, when a member moved to
+adjourn, the Speaker ruled the motion out of order and refused to
+entertain any appeal from his decision. He then firmly but quietly
+stated his belief that the will of the majority ought not to be
+nullified by a minority and that if parliamentary rules were used
+solely for purposes of delay, it was the duty of the Speaker to take
+"the proper course."
+
+The rules committee then presented a series of recommendations designed
+to expedite business. One of the proposed changes provided that the
+chair should entertain no dilatory motions. Such motions, whose purpose
+was merely to obstruct action, had long been common. The Republicans
+were said to have alternated motions to adjourn and to fix a day for
+adjournment no less than one hundred and twenty-eight times in an
+attempt to defeat the Kansas-Nebraska bill in 1854. The second rule
+allowed the speaker to count members who were present and not voting in
+determining whether a quorum was present. Other rules systematized
+procedure and facilitated the passage of legislation. The Democrats
+raged, denounced Reed as a "Czar," fought against the adoption of the
+rules--all to no avail. The majority had its way; the Speaker
+dominated legislation.[7]
+
+The efficacy of the Reed reforms in expediting legislation was quickly
+demonstrated. One of the earliest proposals to pass the House was Henry
+Cabot Lodge's federal election law, which was intended to insure
+federal control at polling places. Theoretically the measure was
+applicable to the North as well as to the South, but no doubt existed
+that it was really designed to prevent southern suppression of the
+negro vote. The Democrats rallied to the opposition and denounced
+Lodge's plan as a "force act." Despite objections it passed the House,
+but it languished in the Senate and finally was abandoned. The generous
+expenditure policy which the new philosophy called for brought forth
+certain increases which were noteworthy. The dependent pension bill
+which Cleveland had vetoed was passed, and a direct tax which had been
+levied on the states during the Civil War was refunded. Another extreme
+party measure was the Sherman silver act which became law on July 14,
+1890. By it, 4,500,000 ounces of silver were to be purchased each
+month. Its partisan character was indicated by the fact that no
+Republicans voted against it, and no Democrats for it. Since the amount
+of silver to be purchased was practically the total output of the
+country, it was evident that the western mine owners were receiving the
+same attention that was being accorded manufacturers who sought
+protective tariff laws. Indeed, western Republicans, who were opposed
+to the high tariff which eastern Republicans favored, were brought to
+support such legislation only by a bargain through which each side
+assisted the other in getting what it desired.[8]
+
+The tariff measure which was thus entwined with the silver bill was
+intended to carry out the pledge made in the party platform. Harrison
+had early called the attention of Congress to the need of a reduction
+of the surplus, had urged the passage of a new tariff law and the
+removal of the tobacco tax which, he declared, would take a burden from
+an "important agricultural product." The framing of the bill was in the
+hands of William McKinley, the chairman of the Committee on Ways and
+Means. McKinley was a thorough-going protectionist whose attitude on
+the question had already been expressed somewhat as follows: previous
+Democratic tariffs have brought the country to the brink of financial
+ruin; without the protective tariff English manufacturers would
+monopolize American markets; under the protective system the foreign
+manufacturer largely pays the tax through lessened profits; under
+protection the American laborer is the best paid, clothed and contented
+workingman in the world; since it is necessary, then, to preserve
+protection, the surplus should be reduced by the elimination of the
+internal revenues; and protective tariff duties should be raised and
+retained, not gradually lowered and done away with.
+
+The Committee early proceeded to hold public hearings at which
+testimony was taken, and to which manufacturers came from all over the
+country to make known what duties they thought they ought to have. The
+bill which was finally presented to the House proposed a level of
+duties which was so high that it has generally been considered the
+extreme of protection. McKinley himself justified the high rates only
+on the ground that without them the bill could not be passed. With the
+help of the Reed rules and the western Republicans the McKinley tariff
+reached the President and was signed by him on October 1, 1890. It went
+into effect at once.
+
+The more prominent features of the measure sprang from the tariff creed
+which had been advocated through the campaign. In order to conciliate
+the farmers, the protective principle was applied to agricultural
+products, and tariffs were laid on such articles as cereals, potatoes
+and flax. On the cheaper grades of wool and woolens and on carpet wools
+there was a slight rise over even the rates of 1883. On the higher
+grades of woolen, linen and clothing the increase was marked. The duty
+on raw sugar was removed and one-half cent per pound retained on the
+refined product, but domestic sugar producers were given a bounty of
+two cents a pound in order to protect them against the free importation
+of the raw material. As the sugar duty had been productive of large
+amounts of revenue, its remission reduced the surplus by about sixty to
+seventy millions of dollars. In order to encourage the manufacture of
+tin-plates, a considerable duty was imposed, which was to cease after
+1897 unless domestic production reached specified amounts. As the
+result of Blaine's urgency, a reciprocity feature was introduced. The
+usual plan had been to reduce duties on certain products in case
+concessions to American goods were given by the exporting countries,
+but in the McKinley act the Senate inserted a novel provision. Instead
+of being given power to lower duties in case reciprocal reductions were
+made, the President was authorized to impose duties on certain articles
+on the free list when the exporting nation levied "unjust or
+unreasonable" customs charges on American products. It was expected
+that this plan would be applied to Latin-American countries and would
+increase our exports to them in return for sugar, molasses, tea, coffee
+and hides. In general, the McKinley act was the climax of protection.
+Under the impetus of President Cleveland's reduction challenge, the
+Republican party had recoiled to the extreme.
+
+The high rates levied by the new tariff act were quickly reflected in
+retail prices and caused immediate and wide-spread discontent. The
+benefits which the farmer had been led to expect did not put in their
+appearance. Unhappily for McKinley and his associates the congressional
+elections occurred early in November, scarcely a month after the new
+law went into effect, and when the dissatisfaction was at its height.
+The result was a stinging defeat for the Republicans. The 159 Democrats
+were increased to 235, and the 166 Republicans dwindled to 88. Even in
+New England the Democrats gained eleven members, in New York eight, and
+in Iowa five. In Wisconsin not one Republican survived, and among the
+lost in Ohio was McKinley himself.
+
+Although the Republicans retained control of the Senate after 1890, the
+Democratic House brought an end for a time to the domination of Reed
+and the primacy of the lower chamber in the government. Such extreme
+legislation as had characterized the first half of the Harrison regime
+stopped abruptly. The role played in all this by Harrison himself seems
+to have been a minor one. Many of his recommendations lacked the solid
+character of those made by Hayes, Arthur and Cleveland, and he did not
+make his influence felt in connection with the silver legislation, of
+which he probably disapproved. It is significant that the one piece of
+legislation which had the most enduring results was not a partisan act.
+This act, the Sherman Anti-Trust law, demands attention in detail.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+In addition to the general and special works already mentioned, C.
+Hedges, _Benjamin Harrison: Speeches_ (1892), provides useful material;
+Cleveland's tariff message of Dec. 6, 1887 is in J.D. Richardson,
+_Messages and Papers of the Presidents_, VIII, 580-591.
+
+On the administration, and particularly the ascendancy of the House of
+Representatives under Reed, consult: De A.S. Alexander, _History and
+Procedure of the House of Representatives_ (1916); Mary P. Follett,
+_Speaker of the House of Representatives_ (1896); C.S. Olcott, _William
+McKinley_ (2 vols., 1916); J.G. Cannon in _Harper's Magazine_ (Mar.,
+1920); _Annual Cyclopaedia_, 1890, pp. 181-191; S.W. McCall, _Thomas B.
+Reed_ (1914), well written, although adding little to what was already
+known; H.D. Croly, _Marcus A. Hanna_ (1912); W.D. Foulke, _Fighting the
+Spoilsman_ (1919), on Harrison and the civil service; G.W. Curtis,
+_Orations and Addresses_ (2 vols., 1894), summarizes the
+administration's attitude toward civil service; T.B. Reed, _Reed's
+Rules, A Manual of General Parliamentary Law_ (1894), gives a concise
+summary of parliamentary conditions from Reed's standpoint; H.B.
+Fuller, _The Speakers of the House_ (1909), excellent on the personal
+side. The tariff is well treated in Stanwood, Taussig and Tarbell. On
+pensions consult W.H. Glasson, _History of Military Pension Legislation
+in the United States_ (1900), or better, the same author's _Federal
+Military Pensions in the United States_ (1918).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The vice-presidential candidate was Allan G. Thurman of Ohio,
+affectionately known as the "noble old Roman," one of whose titles to
+fame was the ownership of a large red bandanna handkerchief which he
+nourished on all occasions.
+
+[2] A party worker who realized the opportunity which this fact
+presented complained that Pennsylvania manufacturers who made fortunes
+under protection did not contribute to the Republican campaign fund,
+and remarked: "If I had my way about it I would put the manufacturers
+of Pennsylvania under the fire and fry all the fat out of them."
+
+[3] The remaining members of the cabinet were: Redfield Proctor, Vt.,
+Secretary of War; W.H.H. Miller, Ind., Attorney-General; B.F. Tracy,
+N.Y., Secretary of the Navy; J.W. Noble, Mo., Secretary of the
+Interior; J.M. Rusk, Wis., Secretary of Agriculture.
+
+[4] Corporal Tanner is commonly supposed to have been so anxious to
+have a hand in the generous distribution of government revenue among
+the old soldiers that he declared one morning as he seated himself at
+his desk, "God help the surplus." This is a mistake, although the
+Corporal seems to have been more ready than the President to act
+quickly and generously on claims.
+
+[5] The open character of the financial corruption of the campaign
+also gave impetus to the movement for the secret or Australian ballot
+which was first introduced in Louisville, Ky., on Feb. 28, 1888, and in
+Massachusetts on May 29, of the same year. Another reform movement was
+that which resulted in the destruction of the Louisiana lottery. Cf.
+A.K. McClure, _Recollections_, 173-183, and Peck, _Twenty Years_,
+215-220.
+
+[6] An incident which occurred when he was not speaker may serve to
+illustrate the manner in which he routed his opponents. Representative
+Springer, of Illinois, who had a reputation for loquacity and
+insincerity, once asked for unanimous consent to correct a statement
+which he had previously made in debate. "No correction needed," shouted
+Reed. "We didn't think it was so when you made it."
+
+[7] In his _Manual of General Parliamentary Law_, Reed declared that
+the House prior to 1890 was the most unwieldy parliamentary body in the
+world. Three resolute men, he asserted, could stop all public business.
+A few years later, when the Democrats were in power, they adopted the
+plans which Reed had so successfully used.
+
+[8] These acts were part of the general financial history of the
+period and in that connection demand fuller discussion at a later
+point. Cf. Chap. XV.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+INDUSTRY AND _LAISSEZ FAIRE_
+
+About the time the Sherman Anti-trust law was being passed, in 1890,
+Henry D. Lloyd was writing his book _Wealth Against Commonwealth_, in
+which occurred a memorable passage:
+
+    A small number of men are obtaining the power to forbid any but
+    themselves to supply the people with fire in nearly every form known
+    to modern life and industry, from matches to locomotives and
+    electricity. They control our hard coal and much of the soft, and
+    stoves, furnaces, and steam and hot-water heaters; the governors on
+    steam-boilers and the boilers; gas and gas-fixtures; natural gas and
+    gas-pipes; electric lighting, and all the appurtenances. You cannot
+    free yourself by changing from electricity to gas, or from the gas
+    of the city to the gas of the fields. If you fly from kerosene to
+    candles, you are still under the ban.
+
+To understand the dangers of the monopolies which Lloyd feared and
+denounced, it is necessary to know the principal features in the
+development of American industry from the close of the Civil War to
+1890.
+
+It will be remembered that the consolidation of small railroad lines
+into large systems was accompanied by such advantages to the companies
+and to the travelling public, as to demonstrate that combination was the
+inevitable order of the day. The similar integration of small industrial
+and commercial enterprises took place more slowly between 1870 and 1890,
+but the process was no less inevitable on that account. The census of
+1890 indicated that the production of manufactured articles had greatly
+increased since 1870; more capital was engaged; the product was more
+valuable; and more workmen were employed. Nevertheless the number of
+establishments which were in operation had shown a considerable decline
+in many industries. An army of 100,000 employees represented the
+expansion of the wage-earning force in the iron and steel works, for
+example, and $270,000,000 the increase in the value of their products;
+yet the number of establishments engaged showed a shrinkage of nearly
+fourteen per cent. The workers in the textile mills grew from 275,000 to
+512,000, and the capital outlay from $300,000,000 to $750,000,000, but
+the number of factories declined from 4,790 to 4,114. A cartoon in
+_Puck_ on January 26, 1881, remarked that "the telegraph companies have
+been consolidated, which in simple language means that Mr. Jay Gould
+controls every wire in the United States over which a telegram can be
+sent."
+
+Some of the reasons for the prevalent tendency toward combination were
+not hard to discover. In the first place, although industrial
+organizations fought one another with the utmost bitterness, it was in
+the nature of things for them to combine if threatened by any common
+foe. Moreover, production on a large scale made possible savings and
+improvements that were outside the grasp of more modest enterprises;
+buying and selling large quantities of goods commanded opportunities for
+profit; waste products could be made use of and costly scientific
+investigations conducted in order to discover improved methods, overcome
+difficulties and open new avenues of activity; large salaries and
+important positions could be offered to men of executive capacity; and
+expensive equipment could be purchased and utilized.[1] An effective
+force which tended to drive industries to combine was the cut-throat
+competition which prevailed. Herbert Croly in his stimulating book _The
+Promise of American Life_ vividly describes the bitter, warlike
+character of industrial competition after 1865. Competition was battle
+to the knife and tomahawk. The leaders were constantly seeking bigger
+operations, to which the bigger risks only added zest. A company might
+be making unbelievable profits one year and "skirting" bankruptcy the
+next. Exciting as all this was, however, the desire for adventure was
+not as powerful as the desire for profits, and cut-throat competition in
+industry led as naturally to combination, as rate-wars on the railroads
+led to pooling agreements.
+
+An important factor in the development of large corporations was the
+increasing use of the corporation form of industrial organization, as
+contrasted with the co-partnership plan. If a few men enter a
+copartnership, each of them must supply a considerable amount of
+capital; but if a corporation is formed and stock is sold, the par value
+of the shares may be placed at a low figure--$100 or less, for
+example--and thus a large number of persons may be able to establish an
+industry which is far beyond the financial resources of any individual
+or small group among them. The corporation, moreover, is relatively
+permanent, for the death of one stock-holder among many is unimportant
+as compared with that of one member of a co-partnership. In case of
+disaster to the enterprise the liability of the stock-holder in a
+corporation is limited to the amount which he has invested, while any
+member of a partnership may be legally held for all the debts of the
+organization. With such advantages in its favor the corporation plan
+largely dominated the organization of industry.
+
+The most famous example of combination before 1890 was the Standard Oil
+Company, which was the cause of more litigation, more study and more
+complaint than any other industrial organization that has ever existed
+in America. In 1865 Rockefeller & Andrews started an oil-refining
+business in Cleveland, Ohio. Samuel Andrews was a mechanical genius and
+he attended to the technical end of the industry; John D. Rockefeller
+had bargaining capacity, and to him fell the task of buying the crude
+oil, providing barrels and other materials and selling the product. The
+firm prospered. H.M. Flagler was taken into the company and a branch was
+established in New York. In 1870 these three with a few others organized
+the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, with a capitalization of a million
+dollars. It controlled not over ten percent. of the business of
+oil-refining in the United States at that time. But the oil business was
+so profitable that capital flowed into it and competition became keen.
+Rockefeller and some associates, therefore, devised the South
+Improvement Company of Pennsylvania, a combination of refiners, headed
+and controlled by the Standard, the purpose of which was to make
+advantageous arrangements With the railroads for transportation
+facilities. Early in 1872, a most remarkable contract was signed between
+the company and the important railroads of the oil country--the
+Pennsylvania, the New York Central and the Erie. By it the roads agreed
+to establish certain freight rates from the crude-oil producing region
+of western Pennsylvania to such refining and shipping centers as New
+York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburg and Cleveland. From these rates
+the South Improvement Company was to receive substantial rebates,
+amounting to forty or fifty per cent. on crude oil and twenty-five to
+forty-five per cent. on refined. On their side the railroads were
+promised the entire freight business of the Company, each to have an
+assured proportion of the traffic, with freedom from rate-cutting
+competition. All this was the common railroad practice of the times.
+
+But another portion of the contract was not so common. It provided that
+the roads should give the South Improvement Company rebates on all oil
+shipped by its competitors and furnish it with full way-bills of all
+such shipments each day. In other words, the Company was to know exactly
+the amount of the business of its competitors and with whom it was being
+done. The contract allowed the roads to make similar rebates with
+anybody offering an equal amount of traffic, but the likelihood of such
+an outcome was slender in the extreme. Armed with this powerful weapon,
+Rockefeller entered upon a campaign to eliminate competition by offering
+to buy out independent refiners either with cash or with Standard Oil
+stock, at his estimate of the value of their property. Those who
+objected to selling were shown that the alliance between the South
+Improvement Company and the railroads was so strong that they faced the
+alternative of giving way or being crushed. Of the twenty-six refineries
+in Cleveland, at least twenty-one yielded. The capacity of the Standard
+leaped from 1,500 to 10,000 barrels a day and it controlled a fifth of
+the refining business of the country. When these facts came to be known
+in the oil country, the bitter Oil War of 1872 began. Independent
+producers joined to fight for existence, and at length the railroads
+gave way and agreed to abandon the contract with the South Improvement
+Company, and the legislature of Pennsylvania annulled its charter,
+although in one way or another rebates continued and the absorption of
+rivals went on. In 1882 the entire combination--thirty-nine refiners,
+controlling ninety to ninety-five per cent. of the product--was
+organized as the Standard Oil Trust. All stock-holders in the combining
+companies surrendered their certificates and received in return receipts
+or "trust-certificates," which showed the amount of the owner's interest
+in the trust. In order to secure unity of purpose and management, the
+affairs of the combination were put into the hands of nine trustees,
+with Rockefeller at the head.
+
+The wonderful success of the Standard Oil Company, however, was not due
+solely to the alliance with the railroads, although this advantage came
+at a strategic time when it was fighting for supremacy. Its marketing
+department gave it an unenviable reputation, but achieved amazing
+success. The department was organized to cover the country, find out
+everything possible about competitors, and then kill them off by
+price-cutting or other means. The great resources of the Company enabled
+it to undersell rivals, going below cost if necessary, and thus wearing
+out opposition. Continuity of control, also, contributed to Standard
+success; the narrow limits of the area in which the crude oil was
+produced before 1890 rendered the problem of securing a monopoly
+somewhat easier; the organization was extremely efficient and the
+constituent companies were stimulated to a high degree of productivity
+by encouraging the spirit of emulation; men of ability were called to
+its high positions; the policy of gaining the mastery over the trade in
+petroleum and its products was kept definitely and persistently to the
+front; and then there was John D. Rockefeller.
+
+Rockefeller was what used to be called a "self-made" man. He began his
+business life in Cleveland as a clerk at an extremely modest salary.
+Capacity for details and for shrewd bargaining, patience, frugality,
+seriousness, secretiveness, caution, an instinctive sense for business
+openings, self-control--all these were characteristic both of the
+Cleveland clerk and the later oil-refiner. In the bigger field he
+developed a daring caution, a quick understanding of the value of new
+inventions, a capacity for organization, quick grasp of essentials and a
+resourcefulness that dominated the entire Standard combination. He built
+his own barrels, owned the pipe-lines, tank-cars, tank-wagons and
+warehouses. Consolidation, magnitude and financial returns were his
+aims, and in achieving these he and his associates were so successful as
+to make the Standard a leader in all branches of business, except the
+ethics of industry. Litigation has been the constant accompaniment of
+Standard progress.
+
+Following the Standard Oil Company, other combinations found the trust
+form of organization a convenient one. The cotton trust, the whiskey
+trust, and the sugar, cotton bagging, copper and salt trusts made the
+public familiar with the term. Moreover, popular suspicion and hostility
+became aroused, and the word "trust" began to acquire something of the
+unpleasant connotation which it later possessed.
+
+Although it was upon the Standard Oil Company that people turned when
+they denounced the trusts and feared or condemned their practices, the
+principles to which the Standard adhered when under the strain of
+competition were the practices which were followed by their
+contemporaries, both big and little. When the Diamond Match Company, for
+example, was before the Courts of Michigan in 1889, it appeared that the
+organization was built up for the purpose of controlling the manufacture
+and trade in matches in the United States and Canada. Its policy was to
+buy up and "remove" competition, so that it might monopolize the
+manufacture and sale of matches. It could then fix the price of its
+commodity at such a point that it could recoup itself for the expense of
+eliminating competitors and also make larger profits than were possible
+when its rivals were active.
+
+Still more dangerous was the combination of the hard coal operators. By
+1873, six corporations owned both the hard coal deposits of Pennsylvania
+and the railroads which made it possible to haul the coal out to the
+markets. In the same year and later these companies made agreements
+which determined the amounts of coal that they would mine, the price
+which they would charge, and the proportion of the whole output that
+each company would be allowed to handle. Independent operators--that is,
+operators not in the combination--found their existence precarious in
+the extreme, for their means of transportation was in the hands of the
+six coal-carrying railroads, who could raise rates almost at will and
+find reasons even for refusing service. The states were powerless to
+remedy the situation because their authority did not extend to
+interstate commerce, yet it was intolerable for a small group of
+interested parties to have power to fix the output of so necessary a
+commodity as coal, on no other basis than that provided by their own
+desires.
+
+Other abuses appeared which showed that industrial combinations were
+open to many of the complaints which, in connection with the railroads,
+had led to the Interstate Commerce Act. Industrial pools resembled
+railroad pools and were objected to for similar reasons. Bankers and
+others who organized combinations were given returns that seemed as
+extravagant as the prices paid to railroad construction companies; the
+issues of the stock of corporations were bought and sold by their own
+officers for speculative purposes; and stock-watering was as common as
+in railroading. The industrial combinations also had somewhat the same
+effect on politics that the railroads had. Lloyd declared that the
+Standard Oil Company had done everything with the Pennsylvania
+legislature except refine it.
+
+One of the most noted cases of corporation influence in politics was
+that of the election of Senator Henry B. Payne of Ohio. In 1886 the
+legislature of the state requested the United States Senate to
+investigate the election of Payne because of charges of Standard Oil
+influence. The debate over the case showed clearly the belief on the
+part of many that the Standard, which controlled "business, railroads,
+men and things" was also choosing United States senators. Senator Hoar
+raised the question whether the Standard was represented in the Senate
+and even in the Cabinet. In denying any connection with the Oil Company,
+Payne himself declared that no institution or association had been "to
+so large an expense in money" to accomplish his defeat when he was a
+candidate for election to the lower house. Popular suspicion seemed
+confirmed, therefore, that the Company was taking an active share in
+government. Whether the trust was for or against Payne made little
+difference.
+
+A complaint that brought the trust problem to the attention of many who
+were not interested in its other aspects was the treatment accorded
+independent producers. The rough-shod methods employed by the Standard
+Oil Company, the Diamond Match Company and the coal operators were
+concretely illustrated in many a city and town by such incidents as that
+of a Pennsylvania butcher mentioned by Lloyd. An agent of the great meat
+slaughtering firms ordered the butcher to cease slaughtering cattle, and
+when he refused the agent informed him that his business would be
+destroyed. He then found himself unable to buy any meat whatever from
+Chicago, the meat-packing center, and discovered that the railroad would
+not furnish cars to transport his supplies. Faced by such overwhelming
+force, the independent producer was generally compelled to give way to
+the demands of the big concerns or be driven to the wall. The
+helplessness of the individual under such conditions was strikingly
+expressed by Mr. Justice Harlan of the Supreme Court in a decision in a
+suit against the Standard Oil Company:
+
+    All who recall the condition of the country in 1890 will remember
+    that there was everywhere, among the people generally, a deep
+    feeling of unrest. The Nation had been rid of human slavery ...
+    but the conviction was universal that the country was in real danger
+    from another kind of slavery sought to be fastened on the American
+    people, namely, the slavery that would result from aggregations of
+    capital in the hands of a few ... controlling, for their own ...
+    advantage exclusively, the entire business of the country, including
+    the production and sale of the necessaries of life.
+
+Observers noted that fortunes which outstripped the possessions of
+princes were being amassed for the few by combinations which sometimes,
+if not frequently, resorted to illegal and unfair practices, and they
+compared these conditions with the labor unrest, the discontent and the
+poverty which was the lot of the many.
+
+In the meanwhile there had arisen a growing demand for action which
+would give relief from the conditions just described. As early as 1879
+the Hepburn committee appointed by the New York Assembly had
+investigated the railroads and had made public a mass of information
+concerning the relation of the transportation system to the industrial
+combinations. In 1880 Henry George had published _Progress and Poverty_
+in which he had contended that the entire burden of taxation should be
+laid upon land values, in order to overcome the advantage which the
+ownership of land gave to monopoly. In 1881 Henry D. Lloyd had fired
+his first volley, "The Story of a Great Monopoly," an attack on the
+Standard Oil Company which was published in the _Atlantic Monthly_ and
+which caused that number of the periodical to go through seven
+editions.[2] In 1888 Edward Bellamy's _Looking Backward_ had pictured
+a socialized Utopian state in which the luxuries as well as the
+necessities of life were produced for the common benefit of all the
+people. Societies had been formed for the propagation of Bellamy's
+ideas, and the parlor study of socialism had become popular.
+
+The platforms of the political parties had given evidence of a
+continuing unrest without presenting any definite proposals for relief.
+As far back as 1872 the Labor Reformers had condemned the "capitalists"
+for importing Chinese laborers; in the same year the Republicans and
+Democrats had opposed further grants of public land to corporations and
+monopolies--referring in the main to the railroads; in 1880 the
+Greenbackers and in 1884 the Anti-Monopolists, the Prohibitionists and
+the Democrats had denounced the corporations and called for government
+action to prevent or control them; and in 1888 the Union Labor party,
+the Prohibitionists and the Republicans had urged legislation for doing
+away with or regulating trusts and monopolies. By 1890 eight states had
+already passed anti-trust laws. Among unorganized forces, possibly the
+independent producers were as effective as any. Although usually
+overcome by the superior strength of their big opponents, they
+frequently conducted vigorous contests and sometimes carried the issue
+to the courts where damaging evidence was made public.
+
+The solution of the problem of trust control was not easy to discover.
+The amount of property involved was so great that forceful legislation
+would be fought to the last ditch; while legislation that was obviously
+weak, on the other hand, would not satisfy public opinion. Public
+officials were hopelessly divergent in their views. Cleveland had
+called attention to the evils of the trusts in his tariff message of
+1887, but had laid his emphasis on the need of reduced taxation rather
+than upon control of the great combinations. Blaine was opposed to
+federal action. Thomas B. Reed had characteristically ridiculed the
+idea that monopolies existed:
+
+    And yet, outside the Patent Office there are no monopolies in this
+    country, and there never can be. Ah, but what is that I see on the
+    far horizon's edge, with tongue of lambent flame and eye of forked
+    fire, serpent-headed and griffin-clawed?
+
+Surely it must be the great new chimera "Trust." Quick, cries every
+masked member of the Ways and Means. Quick, let us lower the tariff.
+Let us call in the British. Let them save our devastated homes.
+
+More serious was the almost universal lack of knowledge of the elements
+involved in the situation. Industrial leaders were unenlightened and
+wrapped up in the attempt to outdo rivals who were equally
+unenlightened and absorbed; the nation needed instruction and
+leadership, and neither was to be found. Instead, the poorer classes
+became more and more hostile to big business interests; the capitalist
+class set itself stolidly to the preservation of its interests. The one
+saw only the abuses, the other only the benefits of combinations.
+Thoughtful men felt that industrialism was afflicted with a malady
+which would kill the nation unless a remedy were found.
+
+The legal and constitutional position of the trusts was almost
+impregnable. Ever since the decision of the Supreme Court in the
+Dartmouth College case, handed down in 1819, franchises and charters
+granted by states to corporations had been regarded as contracts which
+could not be altered by subsequent legislation. Moreover, the Court had
+so interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment, as has been seen, that the
+states had found great difficulty in framing regulatory legislation
+that would pass muster before the judiciary.[3] It was doubtful
+whether federal attempts at regulation would be more fortunate. More
+fundamental still, for public opinion underlies even constitutional
+interpretation, American industrial and commercial expansion had run
+ahead of our conception of the possible and proper functions of
+government. Government as the protector of property was an ancient
+concept and commonly held in the United States; government as the
+guardian of the individual against the powerful holder of a great deal
+of property was a new idea and not generally looked upon with favor.
+
+It has already been seen that the prevailing economic theory, _laissez
+faire_, was diametrically opposed to government regulation of the
+economic activities of the individual. According to this view,
+unrestricted industrial liberty would result in adjustment by business
+itself on honorable lines. Men whose integrity was such that they were
+in control of great enterprises, asserted an attorney for the Standard
+Oil Company, would be the first to realize that a fair policy toward
+competitors and the public was the most successful policy. Combination
+was declared to be inevitable in modern life and reductions in the
+price of many commodities were pointed to as a justification for
+leaving the trusts unhampered.
+
+Public opinion, however, was reaching the point where it was prepared
+to brush aside theoretical difficulties. President Harrison, Senator
+Sherman and others urged action. Large numbers of anti-monopoly bills
+were presented in Congress. The indifference of some members and the
+opposition of others was somewhat neutralized by the fiery zeal of such
+men as Senator Jones of Arkansas, who declared that the fortunes made
+by the Standard Oil Company did not represent a single dollar of honest
+toil or one trace of benefit to mankind. "The sugar trust," declared
+the senator, "has its 'long, felonious fingers' at this moment in every
+man's pocket in the United States, deftly extracting with the same
+audacity the pennies from the pockets of the poor and the dollars from
+the pockets of the rich."
+
+After much study of the mass of suggested legislation, Congress relied
+upon its constitutional power to regulate commerce among the several
+states and passed the Sherman Anti-trust Act, which received President
+Harrison's signature on July 2, 1890. Its most significant portions are
+the following:
+
+    Sec. 1. Every contract, combination in the form of trust or
+    otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among
+    the several States, or with foreign nations, is ... illegal.
+
+    Sec. 2. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize,
+    or combine or conspire with any other such person ... to monopolize
+    any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with
+    foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of misdemeanor.
+
+The purpose of the framers of the Act seems clearly to have been to
+draw up a general measure whose terms should be those usual in the
+English common law and then rest on the assurance that the courts would
+interpret its meaning in the light of former practice. For some
+centuries restraint of trade had been considered illegal in England,
+but no contract was held to be contrary to law if it provided only a
+_reasonable_ restraint--that is, if the restraint was merely minor and
+subsidiary. The Sherman act was a Senate measure, was presented from
+the Judiciary Committee and was passed precisely as drawn up by it. In
+speaking from the Committee, both Edmunds and Hoar took the attitude
+which the latter expressed as follows: "The great thing that this bill
+does ... is to extend the common-law principles, which protected fair
+competition ... in England, to international and interstate commerce in
+the United States." Just how far the members of Congress who were not
+on the Judiciary Committee of the Senate shared in this view or really
+understood the bill can not be said. Indeed, many members of both
+chambers absented themselves when the bill came to a vote.[4]
+
+For a long time the Sherman Act like the Interstate Commerce Act was
+singularly ineffective and futile. Trusts were nominally dissolved, but
+the separate parts were conducted under a common and uniform policy by
+the same board of managers. The Standard Oil Company changed its form
+by selecting the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey as a "holding
+corporation." Stock of the members of the combination was exchanged for
+stock in the New Jersey organization, leaving control in the same hands
+as before. The "same business was carried on in the same way but 'under
+a new sign.'" The wide variety of conditions tolerated under the
+corporation laws of the several states made confusion worse confounded.
+In its early attempts to convict corporations of violation of the law,
+the government was uniformly defeated.
+
+In 1893 came the climax of futility. The American Sugar Refining
+Company had purchased refineries in Philadelphia which enabled it to
+control, with its other plants, ninety-eight per cent. of the refining
+business in the country. The government asked the courts to cancel the
+purchase on the ground that it was contrary to the Sherman law, and to
+order the return of the properties to their former owners. The Supreme
+Court declared that the mere purchase of sugar refineries was not an
+act of interstate commerce and that it could not be said to restrain
+such trade, and it refused to grant the request of the government.
+Unhappily the prosecuting officers of the Attorney-General's office had
+drawn up their case badly, making their complaint the purchase, not the
+resulting restraint. No direct evidence was presented to show that
+interstate commerce in sugar and the control of the sugar business and
+of prices were the chief objects of the combination. To the public it
+seemed that the corporations were impregnable, for even the United
+States government could not control them.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The early history of anti-trust agitation centers about Henry D. Lloyd.
+His earliest article, "The Story of a Great Monopoly," is in _The
+Atlantic Monthly_ (Mar., 1881); his classic account of trust abuses is
+_Wealth against Commonwealth_ (1894); consult also C.A. Lloyd, _Henry
+D. Lloyd_ (2 vols., 1912). Early and valuable articles in periodicals
+are in _Political Science Quarterly_, 1888, pp. 78-98; 1889, pp.
+296-319; W.Z. Ripley, _Trusts, Pools, and Corporations_ (rev. ed.,
+1916), is useful; B.J. Hendrick, _Age of Big Business_ (1919), is
+interesting and contains a bibliography. Ida M. Tarbell, _History of
+the Standard Oil Company_ (2 vols., 1904), is carefully done and a
+pioneer work. Other valuable accounts are: S.C.T. Dodd, _Trusts_
+(1900), by a former Standard Oil attorney; Eliot Jones, _The Anthracite
+Coal Combination in the United States_ (1914); J.W. Jenks, _Trust
+Problem_ (1900), contains a summary of the economies of large scale
+production; J.W. Jenks and W.E. Clark, _The Trust Problem_ (4th ed.,
+1917), is scholarly and complete; J.D. Rockefeller, _Random
+Reminiscences of Men and Events_ (1916), is a brief defence of the
+Standard Oil Company; W.H. Taft, _Anti-Trust Act and the Supreme Court_
+(1914), summarizes a few important decisions on the Sherman law. Edward
+Bellamy, _Looking Backward_ (1888), describes an economic Utopia. Early
+proposed anti-trust laws, together with the Congressional debates on
+the subject are in _Senate Documents_, 57th Congress, 2nd session, vol.
+14, No. 147 (Serial Number 4428). No complete historical study has yet
+been made of the effects of industrial development, immediately after
+the Civil War, on politics and the structure of American society.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Charles M. Schwab mentions an unusual example. Under the direction
+of Andrew Carnegie, the wealthy steel magnate, he had a new mill
+erected, which seemed likely to meet all the demands which would be
+placed upon it. But in the process of building it Schwab had seen a
+single way in which it could be improved. Carnegie at once gave orders
+to have the mill taken down before being used at all, and rebuilt on
+the improved plan.
+
+[2] It was not until 1894 that Lloyd published _Wealth Against
+Commonwealth_, but his pen had been busy constantly between 1881 and
+1894.
+
+[3] Cf. above, pp. 89-93, on Fourteenth Amendment.
+
+[4] The authorship of the Sherman law has often been a source of
+controversy. Senator John Sherman, as well as other members, introduced
+anti-trust bills in the Senate in 1888. Senator Sherman's proposal was
+later referred to the Judiciary Committee, of which he was not a
+member. The Committee thoroughly revised it. Senator Hoar, who was on
+the Committee, thought he remembered having written it word for word as
+it was adopted. Recent investigation seems to prove that the senator's
+recollection was faulty and that Edmunds wrote most of it, while Hoar,
+Ingalls and George wrote a section each and Evarts part of a sentence.
+If this is the fact, it seems most nearly accurate to say that Sherman
+started the enterprise and that almost every member of the Judiciary
+committee, especially Edmunds, shared in its completion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+DEMOCRATIC DEMORALIZATION
+
+In view of the fact that Harrison had been successful in 1888 and that
+Cleveland had been the most able Democratic leader since the Civil War,
+it seemed natural that their parties should renominate them in 1892.
+Yet the men at the oars in the Republican organization were far from
+enthusiastic over their leader. It is probable that Harrison did not
+like the role of dispenser of patronage and that he indicated the fact
+in dealing with his party associates; at any rate, he estranged such
+powerful leaders as Platt, Quay and Reed by his neglect of them in
+disposing of appointments. The reformers were no better satisfied; much
+had been expected of him because his party had taken so definite a
+stand in 1888, and when his choice of subordinates failed to meet
+expectations, the scorn of the Independents found forceful vent. Among
+the rank and file of his party, Harrison had aroused respect but no
+great enthusiasm.
+
+The friends of Blaine were still numerous and active, and they wished
+to see their favorite in the executive chair. Perhaps Blaine felt that
+there would be some impropriety in his becoming an active candidate
+against his chief, while remaining at his post as Secretary of State;
+at any rate he notified the chairman of the National Republican
+Committee, early in 1892, that he was not a candidate for the
+nomination. The demand for him, nevertheless, continued and relations
+between him and Harrison seem to have become strained. Senator Cullom,
+writing nearly twenty years afterward, related a conversation which he
+had had with Harrison at the time. In substance, according to the
+senator, the President declared that he had been doing the work of the
+Department of State himself for a year or more, and that Blaine had
+given out reports of what was being done and had taken the credit
+himself. Cullom's recollection seems to have been accurate, at least as
+far as relations between the two men were concerned, for three days
+before the meeting of the Republican nominating convention Blaine sent
+a curt note to the President resigning his office without giving any
+reason, and asking that his withdrawal take effect immediately. The
+President's reply accepting the resignation was equally cool and
+uninforming. If Blaine expected to take any steps to gain the
+nomination, the available time was far too short. That the act would be
+interpreted as hostile to the interests of Harrison, however, admitted
+of no doubt, and it therefore seems probable that Blaine had changed
+his mind at a late day and really hoped that the party might choose
+him.[1]
+
+Despite Blaine's apparent change of purpose, it seemed necessary to
+renominate Harrison in order to avoid the appearance of discrediting
+his administration, and on the first ballot Harrison received 535 votes
+to Blaine's 183 and was nominated. The only approach to excitement was
+over the currency plank in the platform. Western delegates demanded the
+free coinage of silver, which the East opposed. The plank adopted
+declared that
+
+    The Republican party demands the use of both gold and silver as
+    standard money, with such restrictions and under such provisions,
+    to be determined by legislation, as will secure the maintenance of
+    the parity of values of the two metals.
+
+It was a meaningless compromise, but it seems to have satisfied both
+sides.
+
+Cleveland, during the Harrison administration, had been an object of
+much interest and not a little speculation. After seeing President
+Harrison safely installed in office, he went to New York city where he
+engaged in the practice of law. He himself thought that he was retiring
+permanently and not a few enemies were quite willing that this should
+be the case. The eminent Democratic editor, Henry Watterson, remarked
+that Cleveland in New York was like a stone thrown into a river, "There
+is a 'plunk,' a splash, and then silence.". He was constantly invited,
+nevertheless, to address public assemblies, which provided ample
+opportunity for him to express his thoughts to the country. Moreover,
+the McKinley Act of 1890 and the political reversal which followed
+brought renewed attention to the tariff message of 1887 and to its
+author. In February, 1891, Cleveland was asked to address a meeting of
+New York business men which had been called by the Reform Club to
+express opposition to the free coinage of silver. The question of the
+increased use of silver as a circulating medium, as has been seen, was
+a controverted one; neither party was prepared to take a definite
+stand, and, indeed, division of opinion had taken place on sectional
+rather than partisan lines. While the subject was in this unsettled
+condition Cleveland received his invitation to the Reform Club, and was
+urged by some of his advisors not to endanger his chances of
+renomination by taking sides on the issue. The counsel had no more
+effect than similar advice had produced in 1887 when the tariff was in
+the same unsettled condition. Although unable to attend, Cleveland
+wrote a letter in which he characterized the experiment of free coinage
+as "dangerous and reckless." Whether right or wrong, he was definite;
+people who could not understand the intricacies of currency standards
+and the arguments of the experts understood exactly what Cleveland
+meant. Little doubt now existed but that the name of the ex-president
+would be a powerful one before the nominating convention, for he would
+have the populous East with him on the currency issue--unless David B.
+Hill should upset expectations.
+
+Hill was an example of the shrewd politician. Like Platt, whom he
+resembled in many ways, he was absorbed in the machinery and
+organization of politics, rather than in issues and policies. Beginning
+in 1870, when he was but twenty-seven years of age, he had held public
+office almost continuously. In the state assembly, as Mayor of Elmira,
+as Lieutenant-Governor with Cleveland and later as Governor, he
+developed an unrivalled knowledge of New York as a political arena. In
+1892 he was at the height of his power and the presidency seemed to be
+within his grasp. The methods which he used were typical of the
+man--the manipulation of the machinery of nomination.
+
+The national Democratic nominating convention was called for June 21,
+but the New York state Democratic committee announced that the state
+convention for the choice of delegates would meet on February 22. So
+early a meeting, four months before the national convention, was
+unprecedented, and at once it became clear that a purpose lay behind
+the call. It was to procure the election of members to the state
+convention who would vote for Hill delegates to the nominating
+convention, before Cleveland's supporters could organize in opposition.
+Furthermore, it was expected that the action of New York would
+influence other states where sentiment for Cleveland was not strong.
+Hill's plan worked out as he had expected--at least in so far as the
+state convention was concerned--for delegates pledged to him were
+chosen. Cleveland's supporters, however, denounced the "snap
+convention" and a factional quarrel arose between the "snappers" and
+the "anti-snappers"; outside of New York it was so obvious that the
+snap convention was a mere political trick that the Hill cause was
+scarcely benefited by it. Delegates were chosen in other parts of the
+country who desired the nomination of Cleveland.
+
+The convention met in Chicago on June 21 and proceeded at once to adopt
+a platform of principles. The silver plank was hardly distinguishable
+from that of the Republicans, except that it was enshrouded with a
+trifle more of ambiguity. The adoption of a tariff plank elicited
+considerable difference of opinion, but the final result was an extreme
+statement of Democratic belief. Instead of adopting the cautious
+position taken in 1884, the convention declared that the constitutional
+power of the federal government was limited to the collection of tariff
+duties for purposes of revenue only, and denounced the McKinley act as
+the "culminating atrocity of class legislation."
+
+Although it was evident when the convention met, that the chances of
+Hill for the nomination were slight indeed, the battle was far from
+over. Hill was a "straight" party man, a fact which he reiterated again
+and again in his famous remark, "I am a Democrat." Cleveland was not
+strictly regular, a fact which Hill apparently intended to emphasize by
+constant reference to his own beliefs. The oratorical champion of the
+Hill delegation was Bourke Cockran, an able and appealing stump
+speaker. For two hours he urged that Cleveland could not carry the
+pivotal state, New York, and that it was folly to attempt to elect a
+man who was so handicapped. Eloquence, however, was of no avail. The
+first ballot showed that the Hill strength was practically confined to
+New York, and Cleveland was easily the party choice. For the
+vice-presidency Adlai E. Stevenson, a partisan of the old school, was
+chosen.
+
+Among the smaller parties there appeared for the first time the
+"People's Party," later and better known as the "Populists." Their
+nominee was James B. Weaver, who had led the Greenbackers in 1880.
+Their platform emphasized the economic burdens under which the poorer
+classes were laboring and listed a series of extremely definite
+demands.
+
+The campaign was a quiet one as both Cleveland and Harrison had been
+tried out before. So unenthusiastic were the usual political leaders
+that Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll declared that each party would like
+to beat the other without electing its own candidates. Although the
+financial issue was kept in the background, the tariff was fought out
+again somewhat as it had been in 1888. The New York _Sun_ shed some
+asperity over the contest by calling the friends of Cleveland "the
+adorers of fat witted mediocrity," and the nominee himself as the
+"perpetual candidate" and the "stuffed prophet"; and then added a ray
+of humor by advocating the election of Cleveland. The adoption of the
+Australian ballot, before the election, in thirty-four states and
+territories constituted an important reform; thereafter it was
+impossible for "blocks of five" to march to the polls and deposit their
+ballots within the sight of the purchaser. The Homestead strike near
+Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, somewhat aided the Democrats. The Carnegie
+Steel Company, having reduced wages, precipitated a strike which was
+settled only through the use of the state militia. As the steel
+industry was highly protected by the tariff, it appeared that the wages
+of the laboring man were not so happily affected as Republican orators
+had been asserting.[2]
+
+The result of the election was astonishing. Cleveland carried not
+merely the South but Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Indiana,
+Illinois, Wisconsin and California, while five of Michigan's fourteen
+electoral votes and one of Ohio's twenty-three went to him. In the
+last-named state, which had never gone against the Republicans, their
+vote exceeded that of the Democrats by only 1,072. For the first time
+since Buchanan's day, both Senate and House were to be Democratic. More
+surprising and more significant for the future, was the strength of the
+People's Party. Over a million ballots, twenty-two electoral votes, two
+senators and eleven representatives were included among their trophies.
+It was an important fact, moreover, that twenty-nine out of every
+thirty votes cast for the People's Party were cast west of Pennsylvania
+and south of Maryland. Something apparently was happening, in which the
+East was not a sharer. The politician, particularly in the East, was
+quite content to dismiss the Populists as "born-tired theorists,"
+"quacks," "a clamoring brood of political rainmakers," and "stump
+electricians," but the student of politics and history must appraise
+the movement less provincially and with more information.
+
+It was in the nature of things that the Populist movement should come
+out of the West. From the days of Clay and Jackson the westerner had
+been characterized by his self-confidence, his assertiveness and his
+energy. He had possessed unlimited confidence in ordinary humanity,
+been less inclined to heed authority and more ready to disregard
+precedents and experience. He had expressed his ideals concretely, and
+with vigor and assurance. He had broken an empire to the plow, suffered
+severely from the buffetings of nature and had gradually worked out his
+list of grievances. One or another of his complaints had been presented
+before 1892 in the platforms of uninfluential third parties, but not
+until that year did the dissenting movement reach large proportions.
+
+It has already been seen that the people of the West were in revolt
+against the management of the railroads. They saw roads going bankrupt,
+to be sure, but the owners were making fortunes; they knew that lawyers
+were being corrupted with free passes and the state legislatures
+manipulated by lobbyists; and they believed that rates were
+extortionate. The seizure and purchase of public land, sometimes
+contrary to the letter of the law, more often contrary to its spirit,
+was looked upon as an intolerable evil. Moreover, the westerner was in
+debt. He had borrowed from the East to buy his farm and his machinery
+and to make both ends meet in years when the crops failed. In 1889 it
+was estimated that seventy-five per cent. of the farms of Dakota were
+mortgaged to a total of $50,000,000. Boston and other cities had scores
+of agencies for the negotiation of western farm loans; Philadelphia
+alone was said to absorb $15,000,000 annually. The advantage to the
+West, if conditions were right, is too manifest to need explanation.
+But sometimes the over-optimistic farmer borrowed too heavily;
+sometimes the rates demanded of the needy westerners were usurious;
+often it seemed as if interest charges were like "a mammoth sponge,"
+constantly absorbing the labor of the husbandman. The demand of the
+West for a greater currency supply has already been seen, for it
+appeared in the platforms of minor parties immediately after the Civil
+War. Sometimes it seemed as if nature, also, had entered a conspiracy
+to increase the hardships of the farmer. During the eighties a series
+of rainy years in the more arid parts of the plains encouraged the idea
+that the rain belt was moving westward, and farmers took up land beyond
+the line where adequate moisture could be relied upon. Then came drier
+years; the corn withered to dry stalks; farms were more heavily
+mortgaged or even abandoned; and discontent in the West grew fast.
+
+The complaints of the westerner naturally found expression in the
+agricultural organizations which already existed in many parts of the
+country. The Grange had attacked some of the farmer's problems, but
+interest in it as a political agency had died out. The National
+Farmers' Alliance of 1880 and the National Farmers' Alliance and
+Industrial Union somewhat later were both preceded and followed by many
+smaller societies. Altogether their combined membership began to mount
+into the millions. When, therefore, the Alliances began to turn away
+from the mere discussion of agricultural grievances and toward the
+betterment of conditions by means of legislation, and when their
+principles began to be taken up by discontented labor organizations, it
+looked as if they might constitute a force to be reckoned with.
+
+The remedies which the Alliances suggested for current ills were
+definite. Fundamentally they believed that the government, state and
+federal, could remedy the economic distresses of the people and that it
+ought to do so. At the present day such a suggestion seems commonplace
+enough, but in the eighties the dominant theory was individualism--each
+man for himself and let economic law remedy injustices--and the
+Alliance program seemed like dreaded "socialism." The counterpart of
+the demand for larger governmental activity was a call for the greater
+participation of the people in the operation of the machinery of
+legislation. This lay back of the demand for the initiative, the
+referendum, and the popular election of senators. Currency ills could
+be remedied, the farmers believed, by a national currency which should
+be issued by the federal government only--not by national banks. They
+desired the free coinage of silver and gold until the amount in
+circulation should reach fifty dollars per capita. Lesser
+recommendations were for an income tax and postal savings banks. In
+relation to the transportation system, they declared that "the time has
+come when the railroad corporations will either own the people or the
+people must own the railroads." In order to prevent the waste of the
+public land and to stop its being held for speculative purposes, they
+urged that none be allowed to remain in the hands of aliens and that
+all be taken away from the railroads and corporations which was in
+excess of actual needs.
+
+The power of the new movement first became evident in 1890 and
+distinctly disturbed both the Republican and the Democratic leaders.
+Determined to right their wrongs, the farmers deserted their parties in
+thousands, flocked to conventions and crowded the country schoolhouses
+for the discussion of methods and men. Perhaps it was true, as one of
+their critics asserted, that they put a "gill of fact and grievance
+into a gallon of falsehood and lurid declamation" so as to make an
+"intoxicating mixture." If so, the mixture took immediate effect.
+Alliance governors were elected in several southern states; many state
+legislatures in the South and West had strong farmer delegations; and
+several congressmen and senators were sent to Washington. Success in
+1890 made the Alliances jubilant and they looked to the possibility of
+a countrywide political organization and a share in the campaign of
+1892. The first national convention was held in Omaha in July, 1892, at
+which many of the farmers' organizations together with the Knights of
+Labor and other groups were represented. The name "People's party" was
+adopted, the principles just mentioned were set forth in a platform and
+candidates nominated. In the ensuing election the party exhibited the
+surprising strength which has been seen.
+
+It has taken more time to describe the Populist movement than its
+degree of success in 1892 would justify. But it deserves attention for
+a variety of reasons. Its reform demands were important; it was a
+striking indication of sectional economic interests; it gave evidence
+of an effective participation in politics by the small farmers, the
+mechanics and the less well-to-do professional people--the "middle
+class," in a word; it was a long step toward an expansion of the
+activities of the central government in the fields of economic and
+social legislation; and finally it emphasized the significance of the
+West, as a constructive force in American life. If the Populists should
+capture one of the other parties or be captured by it, nobody could
+foresee what the results would be on American political history.
+
+The second administration of Grover Cleveland, from 1893 to 1897, was
+the most important period of four years for half a century after the
+Civil War. For twenty-five years after 1865 American politicians had
+been sowing the wind. Issues had rarely been met man-fashion, in direct
+combat; instead, they had been evaded, stated with skilful ambiguity,
+or beclouded with ignorance and prejudice. Politics had been concerned
+with the offices--the plunder of government. It could not be that the
+whirlwind would never be reaped.
+
+The situation in 1893 was one that might well have shaken the stoutest
+heart. International difficulties were in sight that threatened unusual
+dangers; labor troubles of unprecedented complexity and importance were
+at hand; the question of the currency remained unsettled, the treasury
+was in a critical condition, and an industrial panic had already begun.
+Each of these difficulties will demand detailed discussion at a later
+point.[3]
+
+To no small degree, the settlement of the political and economic issues
+before the country was complicated by the unmistakable drift toward
+sectionalism, and by the particular characteristics of the President.
+If the administration pressed a tariff reduction policy, it would
+please the South and West but bring hostility in the East. The demands
+of the West, so far as the Populists represented them, were for the
+increased use of the powers of the federal government and the
+application of those powers to social and economic problems; but the
+party in power was traditionally attached to the doctrine of restricted
+activity on the part of the central authority. The sectional aspects of
+the silver question were notorious; and only the eastern Democrats
+fully supported their leader in his stand on the issue.
+
+The personal characteristics of President Cleveland have already
+appeared.[4] He had a burdensome consciousness of his own individual
+duty to conduct the business of his office with faithfulness; a
+courageous sense of justice which impelled him to fight valiantly for a
+cause that he deemed right, however unimportant or hopeless the cause
+might be; a reformer's contempt for hypocrisy and shams, and a blunt
+directness in freeing his mind about wrong of every kind. He had the
+faults of his virtues, likewise. Sure of himself and of the right of
+his position, he had the impatience of an unimaginative man with any
+other point of view; he was intransigent, unyielding, rarely giving
+way a step even to take two forward. It seems likely that his political
+experience had accentuated this characteristic. For years he had thrown
+aside the advice of his counsellors and had shown himself more nearly
+right than they. As Mayor of Buffalo he had used the veto and had been
+made Governor of the state; as Governor he had ruggedly made enemies
+and had become President; as President he had flown in the face of
+caution with his tariff message and his Reform Club letter and had
+three times received a larger popular vote than his competitor. And
+each time his plurality was greater than it had been before. If he
+tended to become over-sure of himself, it should hardly occasion
+surprise. Furthermore he looked upon the duties and possibilities of
+the presidential office as fixed and stationary, rather than elastic
+and developing. He was a strict constructionist and a rigid believer in
+the checks and balances of the Constitution. Although constantly aware
+of the needs and rights of the common people, such as composed the
+Populist movement, his adherence to strict construction was so complete
+that he was unable to advocate much of the federal legislation desired
+by them. It was only with hesitation and constitutional doubts, for
+example, that he had been able to sign even the Interstate Commerce
+Act. In brief, then, the western demand for social and economic
+legislation on a novel and unusual scale was to take its chances with
+an honest, dogged believer in a restricted federal authority.
+
+The experience of the administration with the patronage question
+illustrates how much progress had been made in the direction of reform
+since the beginning of Cleveland's first term in 1885. In the earlier
+year it had required a bitter contest to make even the slightest
+advance; in his second term he retained Roosevelt, a Republican
+reformer, on the Commission and gradually extended the rules so as to
+cover the government printing office, the internal revenue service, the
+pension agencies, and messengers and other minor officials in the
+departments in Washington. Finally on May 6, 1896, he approved an order
+revising the rules, simplifying them and extending them to great
+numbers of places not hitherto included, "the most valuable addition
+ever made at one stroke to the competitive service." The net result was
+that the number of positions in the classified service was more than
+doubled between 1893 and 1897, making a total of 81,889 in a service of
+somewhat over 200,000.[5] By the latter year the argument against
+reform had largely been silenced. The dismal prediction of opponents
+who had feared the establishment of an office-holding aristocracy had
+turned out to have no foundation. Agreement was widespread that the
+government service was greatly improved. There were still branches of
+the service for the reformers to work upon but the great fight was over
+and won.[6]
+
+Although the Democrats came into power in 1893 largely on the tariff
+issue, Cleveland felt that the most urgent need at the beginning of the
+administration was the repeal of the part of the Sherman silver law
+that provided for the purchase of 4,500,000 ounces of silver each
+month. The financial and monetary aspects of this controversy demand
+relation at another point.[7] Politically its results were important.
+Western and southern Democrats, friendly to silver, fought bitterly
+against the repeal, and became thoroughly hostile to Cleveland whom
+they began to distrust as allied to the "money-power" of the East. At
+the time, then, when the President was most in need of united partisan
+support, he found his party crumbling into factions.
+
+Other circumstances which have been mentioned combined to make the time
+inauspicious for a revision of the tariff--the slight Democratic
+majority in the Senate, the deficit caused by rising expenditure and
+falling revenue, the imminent industrial panic and the prevailing labor
+unrest. Nevertheless it seemed necessary to make the attempt. If the
+results of the election of 1892 meant anything, they meant that the
+Democrats were commissioned to revise the tariff.
+
+The chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means was William L.
+Wilson, a sincere and well-read tariff reformer who had been a lawyer
+and a college president, in addition to taking a practical interest in
+politics. The measure which he presented to the House on December 19,
+1893, was not a radical proposal, but it provided for considerable
+tariff reductions and a tax on incomes over $4,000. There was a slight
+defection in party support, but it was unimportant because of the large
+majority which the Democrats possessed, and the bill passed the House
+without unusual difficulty.
+
+In the Senate a different situation presented itself. The Democratic
+majority over the Republicans, provided the Populists voted with the
+former, was only nine; and in case the Populists became disaffected,
+the Democrats could outvote the opposition only by the narrow margin of
+three, even if every member remained with his party. Such a degree of
+unanimity, in the face of prevailing conditions, was extremely
+unlikely. The Louisiana senators were insistent upon protection for
+their sugar; Maryland, West Virginia and Alabama senators looked out
+for coal and iron ore; Senator Hill of New York was unalterably opposed
+to an income tax; Senator Murphy, of the same state, obtained high
+duties on linen collars and cuffs; and Senators Gorman and Brice were
+ready to aid the opposition unless appeased by definite bits of
+protection which they demanded. Many years later Senator Cullom, a
+Republican, explained the practical basis on which the Senate
+proceeded: "The truth is, we were all--Democrats as well as
+Republicans--trying to get in amendments in the interest of protecting
+the industries of our respective States."
+
+The 634 changes made in the Senate were, therefore, mainly in the
+direction of lessening the reductions made by the House. After the bill
+had passed the Senate, it was put into the hands of a conference
+committee, where further changes were made. At this stage of the
+proceedings, Wilson read to the House a letter from the President
+condemning the form which the bill had taken under Senate management,
+and branding the abandonment of Democratic principles as an example of
+"party perfidy and party dishonor." The communication had no effect
+except to intensify differences within the party, and senators made it
+evident that they would have their way or kill the measure. The House
+thereupon capitulated and accepted what became known as the
+Wilson-Gorman act--a law which was only less protectionist than the
+McKinley act. The President, chagrined at the breakdown of the party
+program, allowed the act to pass without his signature, but expressed
+his mingled disappointment and disgust in a letter to Representative
+T.C. Catchings:
+
+    There are provisions in this bill which are not in line with honest
+    tariff reform.... Besides, there were ... incidents accompanying the
+    passage of the bill ... which made every sincere tariff reformer
+    unhappy.... I take my place with the rank and file of the Democratic
+    party ... who refuse to accept the results embodied in this bill as
+    the close of the war, who are not blinded to the fact that the
+    livery of Democratic tariff reform has been stolen and worn in the
+    service of Republican protection, and who have marked the places
+    where the deadly blight of treason has blasted the counsels of the
+    brave in their hour of might.
+
+A few phases of the attempt at tariff reduction indicate the extent to
+which political decay and especially Democratic demoralization had
+gone. As it passed the House, the Wilson bill left both raw and refined
+sugar on the free list. This was unsatisfactory to the Louisiana sugar
+growers, who desired a protective duty on the raw product, and was
+objected to by the Louisiana senators. On the other hand, the American
+Sugar Refining Company, usually known as the "Sugar Trust," desired
+free raw materials but sought protective duties on refined sugar. In
+the Senate, a duty was placed on raw sugar, partly for revenue and
+partly to satisfy the Louisiana senators. On refined sugar, rates were
+fixed which were eminently satisfactory to the Trust. Rumors at once
+began to be spread broadcast over the country that the sugar interests
+had manipulated the Senate. The people were the more ready to believe
+charges of this sort because of experience with previous tariff
+legislation and because the Sugar Trust had been one of the earliest
+and most feared of the monopolies which had already caused so much
+uneasiness. A Senate committee was appointed, composed of two
+Democrats, two Republicans and a Populist, to investigate these and
+other rumors. Their report, which was agreed to by all the members,
+made public a depressing story. It appeared that one lobbyist had
+offered large sums of money for votes against the tariff bill on
+account of the income tax provision. Henry O. Havermeyer, president of
+the American Sugar Refining Company, testified that the company was in
+the habit of contributing to the campaign funds of one political party
+or the other in the states, depending on which party was in the
+ascendancy; that these contributions were carried on the books as
+expense; and that they were given because the party in power "could
+give us the protection we should have." Further, one or more officers
+of the company were in Washington during the entire time when the
+tariff act was pending in the Senate and had conferred with senators
+and committees. Senator Quay testified that he had bought and sold
+sugar stocks while the Senate was engaged in fixing the schedules and
+added: "I do not feel that there is anything in my connection with the
+Senate to interfere with my buying or selling the stock when I please;
+and I propose to do so." Finally the committee summarized the results
+of its investigation, taking the occasion to
+
+    strongly deprecate the importunity and pressure to which Congress
+    and its members are subjected by the representatives of great
+    industrial combinations, whose enormous wealth tends to suggest
+    undue influence, and to create in the public mind a demoralizing
+    belief in the existence of corrupt practices.
+
+Yet one more drop remained to fill the cup of Democratic humiliation to
+overflowing. The constitutionality of the income tax had been assumed
+to have been settled by previous decisions of the Supreme Court,
+especially that in the case Springer _v._ United States, which had been
+decided in 1880, and in which the Court had upheld the law. The new tax
+was brought before the Court in 1894, in Pollock _v._ Farmers' Loan and
+Trust Company. The argument against the tax was pressed with great
+vigor, not merely on constitutional grounds, but for evident social and
+economic reasons. Important financial interests engaged powerful legal
+talent and it became clear that the question to be settled was as much
+a class and sectional controversy as a constitutional problem. Counsel
+urged the Court that the tax scattered to the winds the fundamental
+principles of the rights of private property. Justice Field, deciding
+against the tax, declared it an "assault upon capital" and a step
+toward a war of the poor against the rich. There was fear among some
+that the exemption of the smaller incomes might result in placing the
+entire burden of taxation on the wealthy. Justice Field, for example,
+felt that taxing persons whose income was $4,000 and exempting those
+whose income was less than that amount was like taxing Protestants, as
+a class, at one rate and Catholics at another. The sectional aspects of
+the controversy were brought out in objections that the bulk of the tax
+would fall on the Northeast. The most important point involved was the
+meaning of the word "direct" as used in the Constitution in the phrase
+"direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States ... according
+to their respective Numbers." If an income tax is a direct tax, it must
+be apportioned among the states according to population. Unhappily the
+framers of the Constitution were not clear as to what they meant by
+the word direct, and specifically they could not have told whether an
+income tax was direct or not, because no such tax existed in England
+or America at that time. Hence the Supreme Court was placed in the
+awkward position of defining a word which the framers themselves could
+not define, although the uniform practice hitherto had been to regard
+the income tax as indirect and therefore constitutional, even if not
+apportioned according to population.
+
+The Pollock case was heard twice. The result of the first trial was
+inconclusive and on the central point the Court divided four to four.
+After a rehearing, Justice Jackson, who had been ill and not present at
+the first trial, gave his vote in favor of constitutionality, but in
+the meantime another justice had changed his opinion and voted against
+it. By the narrow margin of five to four, then, and under such
+circumstances, the income tax provision of the Wilson-Gorman act was
+declared null and void. Probably no decision since the Dred Scott case,
+with the single exception of the Legal Tender cases, has put the
+Supreme Court in so unfortunate a light. Certainly in none has it
+seemed more swayed by class prejudice, and so insecure and vacillating
+in its opinion.
+
+Before the question regarding the constitutionality of the income tax
+was settled, the Democrats reaped the political results of the
+Wilson-Gorman tariff act. The law went into force on August 27, 1894;
+the congressional elections came in November. The Democrats were almost
+utterly swept out of the House, except for those from the southern
+states, their number being reduced from 235 to 105. Reed was replaced
+in the speaker's chair; tariff reform had turned out to be
+indistinguishable from protection; and the Democracy, after its only
+opportunity since 1861 to try its hand at government, was demoralized,
+discredited, and in opposition again.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The election of 1892 is described in the standard histories of the
+period, and especially well in Peck.
+
+The rise and growth of the Populist movement resulted in a considerable
+literature of which the following are best: S.J. Buck, _The Agrarian
+Crusade_ (1920), is founded on wide knowledge of the subject and
+contains bibliography; F.J. Turner in _The Atlantic Monthly_ (Sept.,
+1896), gives a brief but keen account; other articles in periodicals
+are F.E. Haynes, in _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, X, 269, W.F.
+Mappin, in _Political Science Quarterly_, IV, 433, and F.B. Tracy, in
+_Forum_, XVI, 240; F.E. Haynes, _Third Party Movements_ (1916), is
+detailed; M.S. Wildman, _Money Inflation in the United States_ (1905),
+presents the psychological and economic basis of inflation; J.A.
+Woodburn, _Political Parties and Party Problems_ (1914); F.L. Paxson,
+_New Nation_ (1915).
+
+Cleveland's administration is well discussed by D.R. Dewey, _National
+Problems_ (1907), and by H.T. Peck, who also presents an unusual
+analysis of Cleveland in _The Personal Equation_ (1898). The income tax
+is best handled by E.R.A. Seligman, _The Income Tax_ (1914).
+Cleveland's own account of the chief difficulties of the administration
+are in his _Presidential Problems_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Blaine died on Jan. 27, 1893.
+
+[2] Below, p. 320, for an account of the strike as an industrial
+dispute.
+
+[3] Below, Chaps. XIII, XIV, XV.
+
+[4] Above, Chap. VIII.
+
+[5] The sweeping reform order of Cleveland late in his second term
+illustrated the most common and effective method of making advance.
+Late in his administration the President adds to the classified
+service; his successor withdraws part of the additions, but more than
+makes up at the end of his term,--a sort of two steps forward and one
+backward process.
+
+[6] Cleveland's second cabinet was composed of the following: W.Q.
+Gresham, Ill., Secretary of State; J.G. Carlisle, Ky., Secretary of
+the Treasury; D.S. Lamont, N.Y., Secretary of War; R. Olney, Mass.,
+Attorney-General; W.S. Bissell, N.Y., Postmaster-General; H.A. Herbert,
+Ala., Secretary of the Navy; Hoke Smith, Ga., Secretary of the
+Interior; J.S. Morton, Neb., Secretary of Agriculture.
+
+[7] Below, pp. 336-340.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+THE TREND OF DIPLOMACY
+
+After the international issues arising from the Civil War were settled,
+and before foreign relations began to become more important late in the
+nineties, our diplomatic history showed the same lack of definiteness
+and continuity that stamped the history of politics during the same
+years. Eleven different men held the post of Secretary of State during
+the thirty-four years from 1865 to 1898, one of them, Blaine, serving
+at two separate times. The political situation in Washington changed
+frequently, few men of outstanding capacity as diplomatists were in the
+cabinets, and most of the problems which arose were not such as would
+excite the interest of great international minds. That any degree of
+unity in our foreign relations was attained is due in part to the
+continuous service of such men as A.A. Adee, who was connected with the
+state department from 1878, and Professor John Bassett Moore, long in
+the department and frequently available as a counselor.[1]
+
+Even before the Civil War, Americans had been interested in the affairs
+of the nations whose shores were touched by the Pacific Ocean.
+Missionaries and traders had long visited China and Japan. During the
+years when the transcontinental railroads were built, as has been seen,
+the construction companies looked to China for a labor supply, and
+there followed a stream of Chinese immigrants who were the cause of
+a difficult international problem. Our relations with Japan were
+extremely friendly. Until the middle of the nineteenth century the
+Japanese had been almost completely cut off from the remainder of the
+world, desiring neither to give to the rest of humanity nor to take
+from them. In 1854 Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the United States
+Navy had succeeded in obtaining permission for American ships to take
+coal and provisions at two Japanese ports. Townsend Harris shortly
+afterwards had been appointed consul-general to Japan and his knowledge
+of the East and his tactful diplomacy had procured increased trade
+rights and other privileges. In 1863 a Japanese prince had sought to
+close the strait of Shimonoseki which connects the inland sea of Japan
+with the outside ocean. American, French and Dutch vessels had been
+fired upon, and eventually an international expedition had been sent to
+open the strait by force. Seventeen ships of war had quickly brought
+the prince to terms. An indemnity had been demanded, of which the
+United States had received a share. The fund remained in the treasury
+untouched until 1883 when it was returned to Japan. The latter received
+the refund as "a strong manifestation of that spirit of justice and
+equity which has always animated the United States in its relations
+with Japan."
+
+The purchase of Alaska in 1867, stretched a long, curved finger out
+towards the Asiatic coast, but there was little interest in the new
+acquisition and no knowledge of its size or resources.[2]
+
+The first tangible and permanent indication that the United States
+might extend its interests into the sphere of the Pacific Ocean
+appeared as early as 1872, when an arrangement with a Samoan chief gave
+us the right to use the harbor of Pagopago on the island of Tutuila.
+Tutuila is far from American shores, being below the equator on the
+under side of the world, but the harbor of Pagopago is an unusually
+good one and its relation to the extension of American commerce in the
+South Pacific was readily seen. Not long afterward, similar trading
+privileges were granted to Germany and Great Britain. Conditions in the
+islands had by no means been peaceful even before the advent of the
+foreigners with their intrigues and jealousies, and in 1885 the
+Germans, taking advantage of a native rebellion, hauled down the Samoan
+flag on the government building in Apia and seemed about to take
+control. In the following year, at the request of the Samoan king, the
+American consul Greenebaum proclaimed a protectorate and hoisted the
+United States flag. The act was unauthorized and was disavowed at once
+by the government at Washington. In the hope of establishing order in
+the islands, Bayard, Secretary of State in President Cleveland's first
+administration, suggested a triple conference of Germany, Great Britain
+and the United States in Washington. During a recess in the conference
+a native rebellion overturned the Samoan government and Germany assumed
+virtual control. While civil war raged among native factions, the
+Germans landed armed forces for the protection of their interests. The
+American and British governments, fearful of danger to their rights,
+already had war vessels in the harbor of Apia and armed conflict seemed
+almost inevitable when a sudden hurricane on March 16, 1889, destroyed
+all the vessels except one. The _Calliope_, (English), steamed out to
+sea in the teeth of the great storm and escaped in safety. In the face
+of such a catastrophe all smaller ills were forgotten and peace reigned
+for the moment in Samoa.
+
+Meanwhile, just as Cleveland was retiring from office for the first
+time, another conference of the three powers was arranged which
+provided a somewhat complicated triple protectorate. After a few years
+of quiet, another native insurrection called attention to the islands.
+Cleveland was again in the presidential chair, and in a message to
+Congress he expressed his belief that the United States had made a
+mistake in departing from its century-old policy of avoiding entangling
+alliances with foreign powers. A year later he returned to the subject
+more earnestly than ever. A report from the Secretary of State
+presented the history of our Samoan relations and ventured a judgment
+that the only fruits which had fallen to the United States were
+expense, responsibility and entanglement. The President thereupon
+invited an expression of opinion from Congress on the advisability of
+withdrawing from our engagements with the other powers. For the time
+nothing came of Cleveland's recommendation, but the continuance of
+native quarrels later necessitated another commission to the islands.
+The American member reported that the harbor of Apia was full of war
+vessels and the region about covered with armed men, but that "not the
+sail or smoke of a single vessel of commerce was to be seen there or
+about the coasts of these beautiful islands." In 1899, the triple
+protectorate was abandoned, as it had complicated the task of governing
+the islands. The United States received Tutuila with the harbor of
+Pagopago, Germany took the remainder of the group, and England retired
+altogether. The trend of Samoan relations was significant: our
+connection with the islands began with the desire to possess a coaling
+station; the possession first resulted in entanglements with other
+nations, and later in the question whether we ought not to withdraw;
+and eventually we withdrew from some of the responsibilities, but not
+from all. Despite its traditional policy of not contracting entangling
+alliances, the United States was in the Pacific to stay.
+
+When Cleveland came into power the first time, he found a long-standing
+disagreement with Canada over the fisheries of the northeastern coast.
+An arrangement which had resulted from the Treaty of Washington in 1871
+came to an end in 1885, and the rights of American fishermen in
+Canadian waters then rested upon a treaty of 1818. This treaty was
+inadequate owing to various changes which had taken place during the
+nearly seventy years that had elapsed since it was drawn up. Several
+difficulties lay in the way of the arrangement of a new treaty, an
+important one being the readiness of the Republican Senate to embarrass
+the President and thus discredit his administration. Matters came to a
+critical point in 1886 when Canadian officials seized two American
+vessels engaged in deep-sea fishing. Cleveland then arranged a treaty
+which provided for reciprocal favors, and when the Senate withheld its
+assent the administration made a temporary agreement, (_modus
+vivendi_), under which American ships were allowed to purchase bait and
+supplies and to use Canadian bays and harbors by paying a license
+fee.[3]
+
+The peculiar geographical configuration of Alaska was, meanwhile,
+bringing the United States into another diplomatic controversy. An arm
+or peninsula of the possession extends far out into the Pacific and is
+continued by the Aleutian Islands, which resemble a series of
+stepping-stones reaching toward Siberia.[4] The Bering Sea is almost
+enclosed by Alaska and the Islands. Within the Sea and particularly on
+the islands of St. Paul and St. George in the Pribilof group, large
+numbers of seals gathered during the spring and summer to rear their
+young. In the autumn the herds migrated to the south, passing out
+through the narrow straits between the members of the Aleutian group,
+and were particularly open to attack at these points. As early as 1870
+the United States government leased the privilege of hunting fur seals
+on St. Paul and St. George to the Alaska Commercial Company, but the
+business was so attractive that vessels came to the Aleutian straits
+from many parts of the Pacific, and it looked as if the United States
+must choose between the annihilation of the herds and the adoption of
+some means for protecting them. The revenue service thereupon began the
+seizure in 1886 of British sealing vessels, taking three in that year
+and six during the next. The British government protested against the
+seizures on the ground that they had taken place more than three miles
+from shore--three miles being the limit to the jurisdiction of any
+nation, according to international law. The Alaskan Court which upheld
+the seizures justified itself by the claim that the whole Bering Sea
+was part of the territory of Alaska and thus was comparable to a harbor
+or closed sea (_mare clausum_), but Secretary Blaine disavowed this
+contention. The United States then requested the governments of several
+European countries, together with Japan, to cooperate for the better
+protection of the fisheries, but no results were reached.
+
+Continuance of the seizures in 1889 brought renewed protests from Lord
+Salisbury, who was in charge of foreign affairs. Blaine retorted that
+the destruction of the herds was _contra bonos mores_ and that it was
+no more defensible even outside the three mile limit than destructive
+fishing on the banks of Newfoundland by the explosion of dynamite would
+be. Lord Salisbury replied that fur seals were wild animals, _ferae
+naturae_, and not the property of any individual until captured. An
+extended diplomatic correspondence ensued, which resulted in a treaty
+of arbitration in 1892.[5]
+
+A tribunal of seven arbitrators was established, two appointed by the
+Queen of England, two by the President, and one each by the rulers of
+France, Italy and Sweden and Norway, the last two being under one
+sovereign at that time. Several questions were submitted to the
+tribunal. What exclusive rights does the United States have in the
+Bering Sea? What right of protection or property does the United States
+have in the seals frequenting the islands in the Sea? If the United
+States has no exclusive rights over the seals, what steps ought to be
+taken to protect them? Great Britain also presented to the arbitrators
+the question whether the seizures of seal-hunting ships had been made
+under the authority of the government of the United States.
+
+The decisions were uniformly against the American contention. It was
+decided that our jurisdiction in the Bering Sea did not extend beyond
+the three mile limit and that therefore the United States had no right
+of protection or property in the seals. A set of regulations for the
+protection of the herds was also drawn up. Another negotiation resulted
+in the payment of $473,000 damages by the United States for the illegal
+seizures of British sealers.[6]
+
+Relations with the Latin American countries south of the Mexican border
+had been unstable since the Mexican War, an unhappy controversy that
+left an ineradicable prejudice against us. John Quincy Adams and Henry
+Clay had hoped for a friendly union of the nations of North and South
+America, led by the United States, but this ideal had turned out to
+have no more substance than a vision. Moreover, the increasing trade
+activity of Great Britain and later of Germany had made a commercial
+bond of connection between South America and Europe which was, perhaps,
+stronger than that which the United States had established. Yet some
+progress was made. Disputes between European governments and the
+governments of Latin American countries were frequently referred to the
+United States for arbitration. An old claim of some British subjects,
+for example, against Colombia was submitted for settlement in 1872 to
+commissioners of whom the United States minister at Bogota was the most
+important. The problem was studied with great care and the award was
+satisfactory to both sides. In 1876 a territorial dispute between
+Argentina and Paraguay was referred to the President of the United
+States. In the case of a boundary controversy between Costa Rica and
+Nicaragua, President Cleveland appointed an arbitrator; Argentina and
+Brazil presented a similar problem which received the attention of
+Presidents Harrison and Cleveland.
+
+It fell to James. G. Blaine to revive the idea of a Pan-American
+conference which had been first conceived by Adams and Clay. As a
+diplomat, Blaine was possessed of outstanding patriotism and
+enthusiastic imagination, even if not of vast technical capacity or of
+an international mind. As Secretary of State under President Garfield
+in 1881 he invited the Latin American countries to share with the
+United States in a conference for the discussion of arbitration. The
+early death of Garfield and the ensuing change in the state department
+resulted in the abandonment of the project for the time being. Blaine,
+however, and other interested persons continued to press the plan and
+in 1888 Congress authorized the President to invite the governments of
+the Latin American countries to send delegates to a conference to be
+held in Washington in the following year. By that time President
+Harrison was in power. Blaine was again Secretary of State and was
+chosen president of the conference. Among the subjects for discussion
+were the preservation of peace, the creation of a customs union,
+uniform systems of weights, measures and coinage, and the promotion of
+frequent inter-communication among the American states. Little was
+accomplished, beyond a few recommendations, except the establishment of
+the International Bureau of American Republics. This was to have no
+governmental power, but was to be supported by the various nations
+concerned and was to collect and disseminate information about their
+laws, products and customs. The Bureau has become permanent under the
+name Pan American Union and is a factor in the preservation of friendly
+relations among the American republics. The reciprocity measure which
+Blaine pressed upon Congress during the pendency of the McKinley tariff
+bill was designed partly to further Pan-American intercourse.
+
+In the case of a disagreement with Chile, Blaine was less successful. A
+revolution against the Chilean President, Balmaceda, resulted in the
+triumph of the insurgents in 1891. The American minister to Chile was
+Patrick Egan, an Irish agitator who sympathized with President
+Balmaceda against the revolutionists and who was _persona non grata_ to
+the strong English and German colonies there. While Chilean affairs
+were in this strained condition, the revolutionists sent a vessel, the
+_Itata_, to San Diego in California for military supplies, and American
+authorities seized it for violating the neutrality laws. While the
+vessel was in the hands of our officers, the Chileans took control of
+it and made their escape. The cruiser _Charleston_ was sent in pursuit
+and thereupon the revolutionists surrendered the _Itata_. Not long
+afterward, however, a United States Court decided that the pursuit had
+been without justification under international law and ordered the
+release of the _Itata_. The result was that the United States seemed to
+have been over-ready to take sides against the revolutionists, and the
+latter became increasingly hostile to Americans.
+
+Relations finally broke under the strain of a street quarrel in the
+city of Valparaiso in the fall of 1891. A number of sailors from the
+United States ship _Baltimore_ were on shore leave and fell in with
+some Chilean sailors in a saloon. A quarrel resulted--just how it
+originated and just who was the aggressor could not be determined--but
+at any rate the Americans were outnumbered and one was killed. The
+administration pressed the case with vigor, declining to look upon the
+incident as a sailors' brawl and considering it a hostile attack upon
+the wearers of an American uniform. For a time the outbreak of war was
+considered likely, but eventually Chile yielded, apologized for its
+acts and made a financial return for the victims of the riot. Later
+students of Chilean relations have not praised Egan as minister or
+Blaine's conduct of the negotiations, but it is fair to note that the
+Chileans were prejudiced against the American Secretary of State
+because of an earlier controversy in which he had sided against them,
+and that the affair was complicated by the presence of powerful
+European colonies and by the passions which the revolution had aroused.
+
+Blaine was compelled to face another embarrassing situation in dealing
+with Italy in 1891-1892. In October, 1890, the chief of police of New
+Orleans, D.C. Hennessy, had been murdered and circumstances indicated
+that the deed had been committed by members of an Italian secret
+society called the Mafia. A number of Italians were arrested, of whom
+three were acquitted, five were held for trial and three were to be
+tried a second time. One morning a mob of citizens, believing that
+there had been a miscarriage of justice, seized the eleven and killed
+all of them. The Italian government immediately demanded protection for
+Italians in New Orleans, as well as punishment of the persons concerned
+in the attack, and later somewhat impatiently demanded federal
+assurance that the guilty parties would be brought to trial and an
+acknowledgment that an indemnity was due to the relatives of the
+victims of the mob. Failing to obtain these guarantees, the Italian
+government withdrew its minister. When a grand jury in New Orleans
+investigated the affair it excused the participants and none of them
+was brought to trial.
+
+The government at Washington was hampered by the fact that judicial
+action in such a case lies with the individual state under our form of
+government, whereas diplomatic action is of course entirely federal. If
+the states are tardy or derelict in action, the national government is
+almost helpless. President Harrison urged Congress to make offenses
+against the treaty rights of foreigners cognizable in the federal
+courts, but this was never done. Diplomatic activity, however, brought
+better results, and an expression of regret on the part of the United
+States, together with the payment of an indemnity of $24,000 closed the
+incident.
+
+Among the many troublesome questions that faced President Cleveland
+when he entered upon the Presidency in 1893 for the second time, the
+status of the Hawaiian Islands was important. Since the development of
+the Pacific Coast of the United States in the forties and fifties,
+there had been a growing trade between the islands and this country.
+Reciprocity and even annexation had been projected. In 1875 a
+reciprocity arrangement was consummated, a part of which was a
+stipulation that none of the territory of Hawaii should be leased or
+disposed of to any other power. In this way a suggestion was made of
+ultimate annexation. Moreover the commercial results of the treaty were
+such as to make a friendly connection with the United States a matter
+of moment to Hawaii. The value of Hawaiian exports had increased,
+government revenues enlarged, and many public improvements had been
+made. In 1884 the grant of Pearl Harbor to the United States as a naval
+station made still another bond of connection between the islands and
+their big neighbor.
+
+The King of Hawaii during this period of prosperity was Kalakaua.
+During a visit to the United States, and later during a tour of the
+world he was royally received, whereupon he returned to his island
+kingdom with expanded theories of the position which a king should
+occupy. Unhappily he dwelt more on the pleasures which a king might
+enjoy than upon the obligations of a ruler to his people. At his death
+in 1891 Princess Liliuokalani became Queen and at once gave evidence of
+a disposition to rule autocratically. Because of her attempts to revise
+the Hawaiian system of government so as to increase the power of the
+crown, the more influential citizens assembled, appointed a committee
+of public safety and organized for resistance. On January 17, 1893, the
+revolutionary elements gathered, proclaimed the end of the monarchical
+regime and established a provisional government under the leadership of
+Judge S.B. Dole. The new authorities immediately proposed annexation to
+the United States and a treaty was promptly drawn up in accord with
+President Harrison's wishes, and presented to the Senate. At this point
+the Harrison administration ended and Cleveland became President.
+
+Cleveland immediately withdrew the treaty for examination and sent
+James H. Blount to the islands to investigate the relation of American
+officials to the recent revolution. The appointment of Blount was made
+without the advice and consent of the Senate and was denounced by the
+President's enemies, although such special missions have been more or
+less common since the beginning of our history.[7] Blount reported
+that the United States minister to Hawaii, J.L. Stevens, had for some
+time been favorably disposed to a revolution in the islands and had
+written almost a year before that event asking how far he and the naval
+commander might deviate from established international rules in the
+contingency of a rebellion. "The Hawaiian pear is now fully ripe,"
+Stevens had written to the State Department, early in 1893, "and this
+is the golden hour for the United States to pluck it." Blount also
+informed the President that the monarchy had been overturned with the
+active aid of Stevens and through the intimidation caused by the
+presence of an armed naval force of the United States.
+
+The blunt language which Cleveland employed in his message to Congress
+on the subject, left no doubt about his opinion of the transaction.
+"The control of both sides of a bargain acquired in such a manner is
+called by a familiar and unpleasant name when found in private
+transactions." Believing that an injustice had been done and that the
+only honorable course was to undo the wrong, he sent A.S. Willis as
+successor to Stevens to express the President's regret and to attempt
+to make amends. One of the conditions however which President Cleveland
+placed upon the restoration of the Queen was a promise of amnesty to
+all who had shared in the revolution. The Queen was at first unwilling
+to bind herself and when she later agreed, a new obstacle appeared in
+the refusal of the provisional government to surrender its authority.
+Indeed it began to appear that the President's sense of justice was
+forcing him to attempt the impossible. The provisional government had
+already been recognized by the United States and by other powers, the
+deposition of the Queen was a _fait accompli_ and her restoration
+partook of the nature of turning back the clock. Moreover, force would
+have to be used to supplant the revolutionary authorities,--a task for
+which Americans had no desire. The President, in fact, had exhausted
+his powers and now referred the whole affair to Congress. The House
+condemned Stevens for assisting in the overturn of the monarchy and
+went on record as opposed to either annexation or an American
+protectorate. Sentiment was less nearly uniform in the upper chamber.
+The Democrats tended to uphold the President, the Republicans to
+condemn him. Although a majority of the committee on foreign relations
+exonerated Stevens, yet no opposition appeared to a declaration which
+passed the Senate on May 31, 1894, maintaining that the United States
+ought not to intervene in Hawaiian affairs and that interference by any
+other government would be regarded as unfriendly to this country.
+
+In the outcome, these events merely delayed annexation; they could not
+prevent it. In Hawaii the more influential and the propertied classes
+supported the revolution and desired annexation. In the United States
+the desire for expansion was stimulated by the fear that some other
+nation might seize the prize. The military and naval situation in 1898
+increased the demand for annexation, and in the summer of that year the
+acquisition was completed by means of a joint resolution of the two
+houses of Congress.[8] While negotiations were in progress Japan
+protested that her interests in the Pacific were endangered. Assurances
+were given, however, that Japanese treaty rights would not be affected
+by the annexation and the protest was withdrawn. The United States was
+now "half-way across to Asia."
+
+Most dangerous in its possibilities was the controversy with Great
+Britain over the boundary between British Guiana and Venezuela. British
+Guiana lies on the northern coast of South America, next to Venezuela
+and extends inland, with its western boundary roughly parallel to the
+valley of the Orinoco River. A long-standing disagreement had existed
+about the exact position of the line between the two countries--a
+disagreement which harked back to the claims of the Dutch, who had
+acquired Guiana in 1613 and had turned it over to the British in 1814.
+In 1840 England commissioned a surveyor named Schomburgk to fix the
+boundary but his decision was objected to by the Venezuelans who
+claimed that he included a great area that rightfully belonged to them.
+Gradually the British claims included more and more of the territory
+claimed by Venezuela, and the discovery of gold in the disputed region
+not only drew attention to the necessity of a settlement of the
+boundary but also attracted prospectors who began to occupy the land.
+In 1876 Venezuela began negotiations for some means of deciding the
+dispute and came to the conclusion that arbitration was her only
+recourse. On the refusal of Great Britain to heed her protests, the
+Venezuelan government suspended diplomatic relations in 1887, although
+the United States attempted to prevent a rupture by suggesting the
+submission of the difference to an arbitral tribunal. This offer was
+not accepted by Great Britain, and repeated exertions on the part of
+both Venezuela and the United States at later times failed to produce
+better results. When Cleveland returned to the presidency in 1893 he
+again became interested in the Venezuelan matter and Secretary of State
+Gresham urged the attention of the British government to the
+desirability of arbitration.
+
+President Cleveland was a man of great courage and had a very keen
+sense of justice. In his opinion a great nation was playing the bully
+with a small one, and the injustice stirred his feelings to the depths.
+With the President's approval Secretary Olney, who had succeeded
+Gresham on the death of the latter, drew up an exposition of the Monroe
+doctrine which was communicated to Lord Salisbury. This despatch, which
+was dated July 20, 1895, brought matters to a climax. In brief the
+administration took the position that under the Monroe doctrine the
+United States adhered to the principle that no European nation might
+deprive an American state of the right and power of self-government.
+This had been established American policy for seventy years. The
+Venezuelan boundary controversy was within the scope of the doctrine
+since Great Britain asserted title to disputed territory, substantially
+appropriating it, and refused to have her title investigated. At the
+same time Secretary Olney disclaimed any intention of taking sides in
+the controversy until the merits of the case were authoritatively
+ascertained, although the general argument of the despatch seemed to
+place the United States on the side of Venezuela. Moreover, Secretary
+Olney adopted a swaggering and aggressive, not to say truculent tone.
+He drew a contrast between monarchical Europe and self-governing
+America, particularly the United States, which "has furnished to the
+world the most conspicuous ... example ... of the excellence of free
+institutions, whether from the standpoint of national greatness or of
+individual happiness." The United States, he asserted, is "practically
+sovereign on this continent" because "wisdom and justice and equity are
+the invariable characteristics" of its dealings with others and because
+"its infinite resources combined with its isolated position render it
+master of the situation ... as against any or all other powers."
+
+Lord Salisbury did not reply to Secretary Olney for more than four
+months. He then asserted that President Monroe's message of 1823 had
+laid down two propositions: that America was no longer to be looked
+upon as a field for European colonization; and that Europe must not
+attempt to extend its political system to America, or to control the
+political condition of any of the American communities. In Lord
+Salisbury's opinion Olney was asserting that the Monroe doctrine
+conferred upon the United States the right to demand arbitration
+whenever a European power had a frontier difference with a South
+American community. He suggested that the Monroe doctrine was not a
+part of international law, that the boundary dispute had no relation to
+the dangers which President Monroe had feared and that the United
+States had no "apparent practical concern" with the controversy between
+Great Britain and Venezuela. He also raised some objections to
+arbitration as a method of settling disputes and asserted the
+willingness of Great Britain to arbitrate her title to part of the
+lands claimed. The remainder, he declared, could be thought of as
+Venezuelan only by extravagant claims based on the pretensions of
+Spanish officials in the last century. This area he expressly refused
+to submit to arbitration. The language of the Salisbury note was
+diplomatically correct, a fact which did not detract from the effect of
+the patronizing tone which characterized it.
+
+President Cleveland doggedly proceeded with his demands. On December
+17, (1895), he laid before Congress the correspondence with Lord
+Salisbury, together with a statement of his own position on the matter.
+Disclaiming any preconceived conviction as to the merits of the
+dispute, he nevertheless deprecated the possibility that a European
+country, by extending its boundaries, might take possession of the
+territory of one of its neighbors. Inasmuch as Great Britain had
+refused to submit to arbitration, he believed it incumbent upon the
+United States to take measures to determine the true divisional line.
+He suggested therefore that Congress empower the executive to appoint a
+commission to investigate and report. His closing words were so grave
+as to arouse the country to a realization of the dangerous pitch to
+which negotiations had mounted:
+
+    When such report is made and accepted it will in my opinion be the
+    duty of the United States to resist ... the appropriation by Great
+    Britain of any ... territory which after investigation we have
+    determined of right belongs to Venezuela. In making these
+    recommendations I am fully alive to the responsibility incurred,
+    and keenly realize all the consequences that may follow. I am
+    nevertheless firm in my conviction that while it is a grievous thing
+    to contemplate the two great English-speaking peoples ... as being
+    otherwise than friendly ... there is no calamity ... which equals
+    that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice.
+
+Congress at once acceded to Cleveland's wishes and appropriated
+$100,000 for the proposed investigation. For a brief moment neither
+Great Britain nor America quite realized the meaning of the President's
+warlike utterance. In America it had generally been felt previously
+that his foreign policy was conciliatory rather than aggressive and,
+besides, the Venezuelan dispute had but little occupied popular
+attention. When it became evident that war was a definite possibility,
+public interest followed every step with anxiety. Newspaper sentiment
+divided. The press generally judged Cleveland's stand strong and
+"American." On the other hand, a few periodicals like the _Nation_
+insinuated that the President was actuated by the desire to make
+political capital for a third term campaign and characterized his
+action as "criminally rash and insensate," "ignorant and reckless,"
+"impudent and insulting." Influential citizens in both countries made
+energetic attempts to prevent anything that might make war inevitable.
+The Prince of Wales and Lord Roseberry threw their influence on the
+side of conciliation. A.J. Balfour declared that a conflict with the
+United States would carry something of the "horror of civil war" and
+looked forward to the time when the country would "feel that they and
+we have a common duty to perform, a common office to fulfill among the
+nations of the world."
+
+The President appointed a commission which set to work to obtain the
+information necessary for a judicial settlement of the boundary, and
+both Great Britain and Venezuela tactfully expressed a readiness to
+cooperate. Their labors, however, were brought to a close by a treaty
+between the two disputants providing for arbitration. A prominent
+feature of the treaty was an agreement that fifty years' control or
+settlement of an area should be sufficient to constitute a title, a
+provision which withdrew from consideration much of the territory to
+which Venezuela had laid claim. In October, 1899, the arbitration was
+concluded. The award did not meet the extreme claims of either party,
+but gave Great Britain the larger share of the disputed area, although
+assigning the entire mouth of the Orinoco River to Venezuela.
+
+Besides giving new life to the Monroe doctrine as an integral part of
+our foreign policy, the incident served to illustrate the dangers of
+settling international disputes in haphazard fashion. In January, 1897,
+therefore, Secretary Olney and the British Ambassador at Washington,
+Sir Julian Pauncefote, negotiated a general treaty for the settlement
+of disputes between the two countries by arbitration. Even with the
+example of the possible consequences of the Venezuelan controversy
+before it, however, the Senate failed to see the necessity for such an
+expedient, defeated the treaty by a narrow margin and left the greatest
+problem of international relations--the settlement of controversies on
+the basis of justice rather than force--to the care of a future
+generation.
+
+On the whole, as has already been noted, the history of American
+diplomacy from 1877 to 1897 is scarcely more than an account of a
+series of unrelated incidents. Not only did the foreign policy of
+Blaine differ sharply from that of Cleveland, but there was no great
+question upon which public interest came to a focus, except temporarily
+over the Venezuelan matter, and no lesser problems that continued long
+enough to challenge attention to the fact that they remained unsolved.
+There were visible, nevertheless, several important tendencies. Our
+attitude toward Samoa and Hawaii indicated that the instinctive desire
+to annex territory had not disappeared with the rounding out of the
+continental possessions of the United States; American interest in
+arbitration as a method of settling disputes was expressed again and
+again; the place of the Monroe doctrine in American international
+policy was clearly shown; and the determination of the United States to
+be heard in all affairs that touched her interests was demonstrated
+without any possibility of doubt.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The most complete and reliable authority is J.B. Moore, _A Digest of
+International Law_ (8 vols. 1906), by one who was intimately connected
+with many of the incidents of which he wrote; the text of the treaties
+is in W.M. Malloy, _Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, etc.,
+between the United States of America and other Powers_ (2 vols., 1910).
+Valuable single volumes are: J.B. Moore, _American Diplomacy_ (1905);
+and C.B. Fish, _American Diplomacy_ (1915). W.F. Johnson, _America's
+Foreign Relations_ (2 vols., 1916), is interesting but somewhat marred
+by the author's tendency to take sides on controversial points; see
+also J.B. Henderson, _American Diplomatic Questions_ (1901). J.S.
+Bassett, _Short History of the United States_ (1913), contains a brief
+and compact chapter.
+
+Essential material on particular incidents is found in the following.
+On Japan, "Our War with One Gun" in _New England Magazine_, XXVIII,
+662; J.M. Callahan, _American Relations in the Pacific and the Far
+East_ (1901); W.E. Griffis, _Townsend Harris_ (1896). On Samoa, J.W.
+Foster, _American Diplomacy in the Orient_ (1903); R.L. Stevenson,
+_Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa_ (1892). On the seal fisheries, J.W.
+Foster, _Diplomatic Memoirs_ (2 vols., 1909). On Hawaii, Cleveland's
+message in J.D. Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the Presidents_,
+IX, 460. On Venezuela, Grover Cleveland, _Presidential Problems_,
+Chap. IV.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The development of the United States as a commercial power was
+seen in the increased use of consuls as agents for procuring and
+publishing industrial and commercial information.
+
+[2] Cf. Fish, _American Diplomacy_, 398.
+
+[3] For later aspects of the controversy, see below, pp. 532-533.
+
+[4] Cf. map p. 10.
+
+[5] J.W. Foster, who was intimately connected with the case, suggests
+that the defects in the American argument were due partly to following
+briefs prepared by an agent of the Alaska Commercial Company in
+Washington. The agent was interested in getting everything possible for
+his company but his knowledge of the law in the case was slight. Cf.
+Foster, _Memoirs_, II, 26 f.; Moore, _American Diplomacy_, 97-104.
+
+[6] The attempts to protect the herds by government regulation failed
+to have any important results. An international arrangement was made in
+1911, but the slaughter had proceeded so far that grave question arose
+whether any agreement would be effective short of absolute prohibition.
+In 1912 Congress passed a law forbidding any killing on the land for a
+term of five years; in 1917 when the restrictions were released the
+herds had greatly increased. In 1918 the seals numbered 530,480.
+_American Year Book_, 1918, 503-4.
+
+[7] Cf. _Political Science Review_, Aug., 1916, 481-499.
+
+[8] Cf. below, p. 387 ff. Hawaii was brought into the Union as a
+territory in 1900.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+THE RISE OF THE WAGE EARNER
+
+In their handling of the labor problem, the governments of the states
+and the nation showed greater ignorance and less foresight than
+characterized their treatment of any of the other issues of the
+quarter century following the Civil War. Yet the building of the
+railroads and their consolidation into great systems, the development
+of manufacturing and its concentration into large concerns, and the
+growth of an army of wage earners brought about a problem of such size
+and complexity as to demand all the information and vision that the
+country could muster.
+
+The phenomenal accumulation of wealth in the fields of mining,
+transportation and manufacturing which characterized the new
+industrial America formed the basis of a powerful propertied class.
+Some of the wealth was amassed by such unscrupulous methods as those
+which caused the popular demand for government regulation of the
+railroads and trusts. The prizes of success were big. The men who made
+their way to the top--men like Gould, Fisk, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller
+and Carnegie--were pioneers whose courage, foresight, and daring were
+combined with sufficient ruthlessness to enable them to triumph where
+others failed. A few of them, like Carnegie, had some slight
+conception of the meaning of the labor problem; most of them did not.
+Linked to the industrial pioneer by community of interest was the
+holder of the war bonds of the federal government. These securities
+were purchased with depreciated paper currency but increased very
+greatly in value after the successful outcome of the struggle, and
+formed an investment whose value it is extremely difficult to
+estimate. The owners of the stocks and bonds of the railroads and
+manufacturing combinations further swelled the ranks of the propertied
+class. Stability, continuous business and large earnings were the
+immediate considerations to this group. Anything which interfered was,
+naturally, a thing to be fought. Never before, unless in the South in
+slavery days, had a more powerful social class existed in the United
+States. A large fraction of the group was composed of men who had
+risen from poverty to wealth in a short time. From one point of view
+such a man is a "self-made" man, industrious, frugal, able, energetic,
+bold. From another point of view he is a _parvenu_, narrow,
+overbearing, ostentatious, proud, conceited, uncultivated. The
+relatively small size of the propertied class and an obvious community
+of interest tended to make its members reach a class consciousness
+even during the Civil War. The success of the group in preventing all
+tariff reduction after 1865 was a striking example of the solidarity
+of its membership and its readiness for action.
+
+Class consciousness among the wage earners developed much more slowly,
+and in the nature of things was much less definite. Nevertheless the
+history of the industrial turmoil of the quarter century after the
+Civil War is the history of a class groping for political, social and
+economic recognition.
+
+At the close of the war the labor situation was confused and
+complicated. A million and a half of men in the North and South had to
+be readmitted to the ranks of industry. Approximately another million
+had died or been more or less disabled during the conflict. A stream
+of immigrants, already large and constantly increasing, was pouring
+into the North and seeking a means of livelihood. As has been seen,
+most of these settled in the manufacturing and mining sections of the
+northern and eastern states, helped to crowd the cities, and
+overflowed into the fertile, free lands of the mid-West. Nearly
+800,000 of them reached the United States in one year, 1882. Most of
+them were men--an overwhelming portion of them men of working age,
+unskilled, frequently illiterate and hence compelled to seek
+employment in a relatively small number of occupations. Both the
+chances of unemployment and the danger of a lowered standard of living
+were increased by the immigrants.
+
+The greater use of machinery during the progress of the war has
+already been alluded to, but some of its results demand further
+mention.[1] Most evident was the huge increase in the volume and
+value of the products of the factories. The labor of a single worker
+increased in effectiveness many times; in other words, the labor cost
+of a unit of production greatly diminished with the improvement of
+mechanical devices. The labor cost of making nails by hand in 1813 was
+seventy fold the cost of making them by machinery in 1899; loading ore
+by hand was seventy-three times as expensive in 1891 as machine
+loading was in 1896. Increased production encouraged greater
+consumption, enhanced competition for markets, and opened the world to
+the products of American labor. Moreover, the introduction of
+machinery emphasized the importance of capital. When iron was rolled
+by hand, when cloth was produced by the use of the spinning wheel and
+hand-loom, when fields were tilled by inexpensive plow and hoe,
+relatively small amounts of capital were needed by the man who started
+in to work. Mechanical inventions revolutionized the situation. A
+costly power-loom enabled its owner to eliminate handworking
+competitors. If a workman could raise sufficient money or credit to
+purchase a supply of machines he could "set up in business," employ a
+number of "hands" and merely direct or manage the enterprise. Under
+such a system the employer must make enough profit to pay interest on
+his investment and to repair and replace his equipment. His attention
+was fixed on these elements of his industrial problem and the
+well-being of the laborer sank to a lower plane of importance. If the
+employer found the labor supply plentiful he had the upper hand in
+setting the wage-scale; the unorganized employee was almost completely
+at his mercy, because the employer could find another workman more
+easily than the workman could find another job. Meanwhile the workman
+knew the increased product which he was turning out, and became
+discontented because he did not see a corresponding increase in his
+remuneration.
+
+From about 1830, when the rapid development of the use of mechanical
+appliances began, to the late eighties and early nineties when the new
+regime was meeting its sternest conflicts in the trust problem and the
+militant labor unions, the army of the wage earner was growing faster
+than the population. Between 1870 and 1890, for example, the
+population increased 63 per cent., while the number of laborers
+engaged in manufacturing increased nearly 130 per cent. By the latter
+year, 6,099,058 persons, about a tenth of the total population, were
+employed in transportation, mining and manufacturing.
+
+It was noticeable, also, that the wage earners tended to concentrate.
+The laborers engaged in manufacturing were to be found, for the most
+part, in the Northeast, and especially in such leading industrial
+cities as New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. Furthermore, the
+development of the factory system and the consolidation of many small
+companies into a few great ones tended to localize the labor problem
+still further--in a relatively small number of plants. The
+concentration of industry in great factories where large numbers of
+workers labored side by side ended the paternal care which the
+old-time employer had expended upon his employees. With the
+introduction of machinery, the danger of accidents due to the
+ignorance or carelessness of fellow workmen increased. The use of
+mechanical appliances also gave opportunity for the employment of
+women and children, and thus raised the question whether any
+restrictions ought to be placed upon the employment of these classes
+of people. The construction of factories, their ventilation, sanitary
+appliances, and safe-guards for health and comfort became subjects of
+importance.
+
+With the example of consolidation before them that was presented by
+the railroads and the corporations, it was inevitable that the wage
+earners should organize for their protection and advancement. Labor
+organizations of wage earners have existed in the United States since
+1827, and between that time and 1840 came a considerable awakening
+among the laboring classes which was part of a general humanitarian
+movement throughout the country. Robert Owen, an English industrial
+idealist, had visited this country about 1825 and provided the
+initiative for a short-lived communistic settlement at New Harmony,
+Indiana. Similar enterprises were established at other points; the
+most famous of these was that at Brook Farm in Massachusetts, which
+enlisted the interest and support of many of the literary people of
+New England. The expanding humanitarian and idealistic movement was
+cut short by the Civil War, but the development of industrialism went
+on uninfluenced by the spirit of social progress which might have
+permeated it. After reconstruction was over, a new generation had to
+become impressed with the evils which needed correction and to set
+itself to the task which civil strife had thrust aside.
+
+The need of a responsible organization of wage earners was indicated
+by the career of the Molly Maguires. The Molly Maguires constituted an
+inner circle of Irish Catholics who controlled the activities of the
+branches of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in the hard-coal counties
+of eastern Pennsylvania. During the war and immediately after it the
+group gained a little power in local politics, and also undertook to
+punish mine owners, bosses and superintendents who offended members of
+the Order. Intimidation became common, and even murder was resorted to
+until the region was fairly terrorized. It seemed impossible to combat
+the Mollies because their activities were shrouded in secrecy.
+Usually, for example, when a murder was to be committed, a member
+would be brought in from an outside district in order that he might
+not be recognized if discovered, and he would be aided in escaping
+after the crime. Finally the president of the Philadelphia and Reading
+Railroad procured a Pinkerton detective named James McParlan who went
+into the region and remained for two years. During this time he posed
+as a fugitive from justice and as a counterfeiter, became a member of
+the Order, a confidant of the Molly Maguires, and collected evidence.
+Armed with the knowledge acquired by McParlan, the officials were able
+to arrest and convict twenty-four criminals, of whom ten were
+executed, and the career of the Mollies came to an end.
+
+The activities of the Molly Maguires were symptomatic of what might
+occur throughout the ranks of labor during the confused period of
+adjustment after the war, and yet they were temporary and local in
+their effect on the development of the labor movement. The history of
+the great labor controversies after the war properly begins with the
+Knights of Labor, an association which originated in Philadelphia in
+1869 as the result of the efforts of a garment cutter named Uriah S.
+Stephens.[2] In the beginning, the affairs of the Knights were veiled
+in dense secrecy; even the name of the society was never mentioned but
+was indicated by five stars--*****. As the number of members increased,
+however, all manner of disquieting and untruthful rumors spread
+concerning its purposes, so that the element of secrecy was done away
+with in 1881 and a declaration of principles was made public. The
+fundamental purpose of the Knights was the formation of an order which
+should include all branches of the wage earners and which should aim
+to improve their economic, moral, social and intellectual condition.
+Emphasis was placed, that is to say, on the welfare of the laboring
+classes as a whole, rather than upon that of any particular trade or
+craft. The organization was centralized and the interests of the group
+were developed on a national scale. The growth of the association was
+extremely rapid at times, reaching a climax in the middle eighties
+when about 700,000 members, both men and women, made it a power in
+industrial disputes. Some of the members taken in at this time were
+extremists--European anarchists, for example--who urged a violent
+policy and got almost if not quite out of control of the officers
+during 1886. In the late eighties the membership dwindled rapidly,
+owing to the failure of strikes instituted by the order, and its place
+and influence were largely taken by the American Federation of Labor.
+
+The latter body was the outgrowth of a convention held in Pittsburg in
+1881, but it did not adopt its final name until 1886. Its purpose was
+to group labor organizations of all kinds, leaving the government of
+each affiliated body with the body itself. Each of the members of the
+Federation is composed of workers in a given trade or industry, like
+the International Typographical Union, the United Mine Workers, and
+many others. The annual convention is composed of delegates from the
+constituent societies. The growth of the organization was rapid and
+continuous. Coincidently with the expansion of the Knights of Labor
+and the growth of the American Federation came the great development
+of the labor press. Professor Ely estimated late in the eighties that
+possibly five hundred newspapers were devoted to the needs of the
+labor movement. The numerous farmers' organizations, typified by the
+Patrons of Husbandry, are other examples of the growing tendency
+toward cohesion among the less powerful classes. Indeed, the Grange
+originated only a year earlier than the Knights of Labor, and like it
+was a secret order.
+
+The wage earners, then, were rapidly becoming class-conscious. They
+had found conditions which seemed to them intolerable, had formed
+organizations on a national scale and had drawn up a definite program
+of principles and reforms. The exact grievances which inspired the
+Knights, the Federation and other less important organizations are
+therefore of immediate importance.
+
+In order to secure for the wage earner a sufficient money return for
+his work, and sufficient leisure for the education of his intellectual
+and religious faculties, and to enable him to understand and perform
+his duties as a citizen, the Knights demanded the establishment of
+bureaus of labor for the collection of information; the reservation of
+the public lands for actual settlers; the abrogation of laws that did
+not bear equally on capital and labor; the adoption of measures for
+the health and safety of the working classes; indemnity for injuries
+due to the lack of proper safeguards; the recognition of the
+incorporation of labor unions; laws compelling corporations to pay
+laborers weekly; arbitration in labor disputes; and the prohibition of
+child labor. The Knights of Labor also favored state ownership of
+telegraphs and railroads, as well as an eight hour working day. The
+purposes of the American Federation scarcely differed from this
+program, although its methods and its form of organization were quite
+distinct.
+
+At the present time, when most of these demands have been met in one
+degree or another, it is difficult to see why there should have been
+delay and contention in agreeing to a program which, so far as it
+deals with labor problems pure and simple, appears both modest and
+reasonable. But the state of mind of a large fraction of the nation
+was not in accord with ambitions which doubtless seemed excessively
+radical. Fundamentally a great portion of the propertied classes held
+a low estimate of the value and rights of the laboring people, as well
+as of the possibilities of their development, and feared that evil
+results would follow from attempts to improve their condition. The
+employment of children in factories, it was thought, would inculcate
+in them the needed habits of industry, and the reduction of the
+working hours would merely provide time which would be spent in the
+acquirement of vicious practices. If, in addition, the employers
+opposed such changes as the abolition of child labor and the reduction
+of the working day to eight hours on the ground of the financial
+sacrifice which seemed to be involved, their attitude was in keeping
+with the ruthless exploitation of the human resources of the country
+which was common during this period. It should be remembered, too,
+that the lofty conception which most Americans held of the
+opportunities and customs of their country stood in the way of a frank
+study of conditions and an equally frank admission of abuses. For
+decades we had reiterated that America was the land of opportunity,
+that economic, political and social equality were the foundations of
+American life and that the American workingman was the best fed and
+the best clothed workingman in the world. In the face of this view of
+industrial affairs it was difficult to be alert to manifold abuses and
+needed reforms. To one holding this view of affairs--and it was a
+common view--the laborer who demanded better conditions was
+unreasonable and unappreciative of how "well off" he was. Hence the
+blame for the labor unrest was frequently laid on the foreigner, who
+was supposed to bring to America the opposition to government which
+had been fostered in him by less democratic institutions abroad.
+Undoubtedly immigration greatly complicated industrial conditions, as
+has been indicated, yet essentially the labor question arose from the
+upward progress of a class in American society and was as inevitable,
+foreigner or no foreigner, as the coming of a new century.
+
+Two illustrations will throw light upon some of the demands which the
+wage earners frequently presented. Writing in August, 1886, Andrew
+Carnegie, the prominent steel manufacturer, discussed the proper
+length of the working day. Every ton of pig-iron made in the world,
+with the exception of that made in two establishments, he asserted,
+was made by men working twelve hours a day, with neither holiday nor
+Sunday the year round. Every two weeks it was the practice to change
+the day workers to the night shift and at that time the men labored
+twenty-four hours consecutively. Moreover, twelve to fifteen hours
+constituted a day's work in many other industries. Working hours for
+women and children had almost equally slight reference to their
+physical well-being.
+
+The "truck-system" was a less widespread abuse, but one that caused
+serious trouble at certain points. Under this plan, a corporation
+keeps a store at which employees are expected to trade, or are
+sometimes forced to do so. Obviously such a store might be operated to
+the great benefit of the workman and without loss to the employer, but
+the temptation to make an unfair profit and to keep the laborer always
+in debt to the company was very great. A congressional committee which
+investigated conditions in Pennsylvania in 1888 found that prices
+charged in company stores ran from ten per cent. to 160 per cent.
+higher than prices in other stores in the vicinity, and that a workman
+was more likely to keep his position if he traded with the company.
+
+The most insistent cause of industrial conflict was the question of
+wages. Forty-one per cent. of all the strikes between 1881 and 1900
+were for more pay; twenty-six per cent., for shorter hours. Between
+the close of the war and the early nineties, industrial prosperity was
+widespread except for the period of prostration following 1873 and the
+less important depression of 1884. Not unnaturally the laborer desired
+to have a larger share of the product of his work. The individual,
+however, was impotent before a great corporation, when the wage-scale
+was being determined; hence workmen found it advantageous to combine
+and bargain collectively with their employer, in the expectation that
+he would hesitate to risk the loss of all his laboring force, whereas
+the loss of one or a few would be a matter of indifference.
+
+In the meanwhile, a little ameliorative labor legislation was being
+passed by state legislatures and by Congress. A Massachusetts law of
+1866 forbade the employment of children under ten years of age in
+manufacturing establishments, prohibited the employment of children
+between the ages of ten and fourteen for more than eight hours per
+day, and provided that children who worked in factories must attend
+school at least six months in the year. In 1868 a federal act
+constituted eight hours a day's work for government laborers, workmen
+and mechanics, but some doubt arose as to the intent of part of it and
+the law was not enforced. In many states eight-hour bills were
+introduced, but were defeated in all except six, of which Connecticut,
+Illinois and California were examples, and even in these cases the
+laws were not properly drawn up or were not enforced. In 1869 a Bureau
+of Statistics of Labor was established in Massachusetts which led the
+way for similar enterprises in other states. It collected information
+concerning labor matters and reported annually to the legislature. In
+1874 a Massachusetts ten-hour law forbade the employment of women and
+minors under eighteen for more than sixty hours a week, although
+refraining from the regulation of working hours for men. In 1879, in
+imitation of English factory acts, Massachusetts passed a general law
+relating to the inspection of manufacturing establishments. It
+provided that dangerous machinery must be guarded, proper ventilation
+secured, elevator wells equipped with protective devices and
+fire-escapes constructed. Other states followed slowly, but
+legislation was frequently negatived by lack of effective
+administration. In brief, then, agitation previous to 1877 had
+resulted in the passage of a few protective acts, but even these were
+restricted to a few states and were not well enforced. It was,
+therefore, more than a mere coincidence that the first general strike
+movement spread over the country in this same year, 1877.
+
+It will be remembered that the great railroad strikes of that year
+extended over many of the northern roads but caused most trouble in
+Martinsburg, West Virginia, Pittsburg and other railway centers. Much
+property was destroyed, lives were lost, and the strikers failed to
+obtain their ends.[3] Other effects of the controversy, moreover,
+made it an important landmark in the history of the labor question.
+The inconvenience and suffering which the strike caused in cities far
+distant from the scene of actual conflict indicated that the
+transportation system was already so essential a factor in welding the
+country together that any interruption to its operation had become
+intolerable. The hostility of some of the railway managers to union
+among their laborers and the rumors that they were determined to crush
+such organizations augured ill for the future. The hordes of
+unemployed workmen and the swarms of tramps which had resulted from
+the continued industrial depression of 1873 insured rioting and
+violence during the strike, whether the strikers themselves favored it
+and shared in it or not. The destruction of property which resulted
+from the strike caused many state legislatures to pass conspiracy laws
+directed against labor; more attention was paid to the need of trained
+soldiers for putting down strikes, and the construction of many
+armories followed; and the courts took a more hostile attitude toward
+labor unions. Equally important was the effect on the workmen
+themselves. When the strike became violent and the state militia
+failed to check it, the strikers found themselves face to face with
+federal troops. President Hayes could not, of course, refuse to
+repress the rioters; nevertheless his action aligned the power of the
+central government against the strikers, and seemed to the latter to
+align the government against the laborers as a class. Of a sudden,
+then, the labor problem took on a new and vital interest; workingmen's
+parties "began to spring up like mushrooms"; and the laboring men saw
+more clearly than ever the essential unity of their interests.
+
+Industrial unrest increased rather than diminished during the
+prosperous eighties; for the first five years of the decade, strikes
+and lockouts together averaged somewhat over five hundred annually.
+The climax came in "the great upheaval" of 1884 to 1886.[4] In the
+latter year nearly 1600 controversies involved 610,024 men and a
+financial sacrifice estimated at $34,000,000. Early in May, 1886,
+occurred the memorable Haymarket affair in the city of Chicago. The
+city was a center of labor agitation, some of it peaceful, some of it
+in the hands of radical European anarchists whose methods were shown
+in a statement of one of their newspapers, _The Alarm_, on February
+21, 1885:
+
+    Dynamite! Of all the good stuff, this is the stuff. Stuff several
+    pounds of this sublime stuff into an inch pipe ... plug up both
+    ends, insert a cap with a fuse attached, place this in the
+    immediate neighborhood of a lot of rich loafers ... and light
+    the fuse. A most cheerful and gratifying result will follow.
+
+On May 1 strikes began for the purpose of obtaining an eight hour day.
+During the course of the strike some workmen gathered near the
+McCormick Reaper Works; the police approached, were stoned, and
+retorted by firing upon the strikers, killing four and wounding many
+others. Thereupon the men called a meeting in Haymarket Square to
+protest against the action of the police; in the main they were
+orderly, for Mayor Carter Harrison was present and found nothing
+objectionable. Later in the evening, when the Mayor and most of the
+audience had left, remarks of a violent nature seem to have been made,
+and at this point a force of 180 police marched forward and ordered the
+meeting to disperse. Just then a bomb was thrown into the midst of the
+police, killing seven and wounding many others. The entire nation was
+shocked and terrified by the event, as hitherto anarchy had seemed to
+be a far-away thing, the product of autocratic European governments.
+The thrower of the bomb could not be discovered, but numerous
+anarchists were found who themselves possessed such weapons or had
+urged violence in their speeches or writings. Eight of them, nearly all
+Germans, were tried for murder on the ground that the person who threw
+the bomb must have read the speeches or writings of the accused
+anarchists and have been thereby encouraged to do the act. The
+presiding judge, Joseph E. Gary, was of the opinion that the
+disposition in the guilty man to throw the bomb was the result of the
+teaching and advice of the prisoners. The counsel for the accused
+declared that since the guilty person could not be found it was
+impossible to know whether he had ever heard or read anything said or
+written by the prisoners, or been influenced by their opinions.
+Eventually seven anarchists were convicted, of whom four were hanged,
+one committed suicide, and three were imprisoned. In 1893 the Governor
+of Illinois, John P. Altgeld, pardoned the three prisoners, basing his
+action mainly on the ground that no proof had been brought forward to
+show that they were in any way acquainted with the unknown
+bomb-thrower. The result of the conviction was the break-up of the
+radical anarchistic movement and also the temporary discrediting of the
+general agitation for an eight hour day, although neither the Knights
+of Labor nor the Federation of Labor had any connection with the
+anarchists, and both deprecated violence.
+
+In the meanwhile, Congress had concerned itself slightly with the labor
+problem. In 1884 a Bureau of Labor had been established to collect
+information on the relation of labor and capital. Two years later, just
+before the Haymarket affair, President Cleveland had sent a message to
+Congress in which he adverted to the many disputes which had recently
+arisen between laborers and employers, and urged legislation to meet
+the exigency. Considerations of justice and safety, he thought,
+demanded that the workingmen as a class be looked upon as especially
+entitled to legislative care. Although Cleveland deprecated violence
+and condemned unjustifiable disturbance, he believed that the
+discontent among the employed was due largely to avarice on the part of
+the employing classes and to the feeling among workmen that the
+attention of the government was directed in an unfair degree to the
+interests of capital. On the other hand, he suggested that federal
+action was greatly limited by constitutional restrictions. He
+accordingly urged that the Bureau of Labor be enlarged and that
+permanent officers be appointed to act as a board of arbitration in
+industrial disputes. The legislative branch was not inclined to follow
+Cleveland's lead, although he returned to the subject after the
+Haymarket affair, for it was commonly felt that his suggestion was too
+great a step in the direction of centralization of government. Two
+years later, in 1888, a modest act was passed which provided for the
+investigation of differences between railroads and their employees, but
+only when agreed to by both parties, and no provision was made for the
+enforcement of the decision of the investigators. The practical results
+were not important. Similar action had already been taken in a few
+states. By 1895 fifteen states had laws providing for voluntary
+arbitration, but the results were slight in most cases.
+
+Very little progress was being made in the states in the passage of
+other industrial legislation. In Alabama and Massachusetts in the
+middle eighties acts extended and regulated the liability of employers
+for personal injuries suffered by laborers while at work.[5] At the
+same time the attitude of the legislatures and the courts in some
+states toward strikes underwent a slight modification. In many states
+where the legislatures had not passed definite statutes to the
+contrary, it had been held by the courts that strikers could be tried
+and convicted for conspiracy. In a few cases, states passed acts
+attempting to define more exactly the legal position of strikers. A New
+York court in 1887, for example, held that the law of the state
+permitted workmen to seek an increase of wages by all possible means
+that fell short of threats or violence. Before the close of Cleveland's
+second administration, considerable progress had been made in state
+legislation concerning conditions and hours of labor for women and
+children, protection of workers from dangerous machinery, the payment
+of wages, employer's liability for accidents to workmen, and other
+subjects. On the other hand, in some cases unreasonable or
+ill-considered actions on the part of the unions or their active
+agents--the "walking delegates"--turned popular sentiment against them.
+Particularly was this true in cases of violence and of strikes or
+boycotts by unions in support of workmen in other trades at far distant
+points.
+
+During the presidential campaign of 1892 a violent strike at the
+Carnegie Steel Company's works in Homestead, Pennsylvania, arose from a
+reduction in wages and a refusal of the Company to recognize the Iron
+and Steel Workers' Union. An important feature of this disturbance was
+the use of armed Pinkerton detectives by the Company for the protection
+of its buildings. Armed with rifles they fell into conflict with the
+workmen, a miniature military campaign was carried on, lives were lost
+and large amounts of property destroyed. Eventually the entire militia
+of the state had to be called out to maintain peace.
+
+It remained, however, for Chicago and the year 1894 to present one of
+the most far-reaching, costly and complex labor upheavals that has ever
+disturbed industrial relations in America. So ill understood at the
+time were the real facts of the controversy that it is doubtful whether
+it is possible even now to distinguish between truth and rumor in
+regard to some of its aspects.
+
+The town of Pullman, near Chicago, was the home of the Pullman Palace
+Car Company, a prosperous corporation with a capital of $36,000,000. It
+provided houses for its employees, kept up open stretches of lawn,
+flower beds and lakes. In 1893 and 1894, when general business
+conditions were bad, the Company reduced the wages of its workmen about
+twenty-five per cent. A committee of the men asked for a return to
+former rates, but they were refused, three members of the committee
+were laid off, and the employees then struck. Late in June, 1894, the
+American Railway Union, to which many of the workmen belonged, took up
+the side of the men, and the General Managers' Association, comprising
+officials of twenty-four roads entering Chicago, took the side of the
+Company. Through the entry of the Union and the Association, the
+relatively unimportant Pullman affair expanded to large proportions.
+Violence followed; cars were tipped over and burned; property was
+stolen and tracks ruined; and eventually the United States government
+was drawn into the controversy.
+
+Numerous complaints having reached Washington that the mails were being
+obstructed and interstate commerce interfered with, President Cleveland
+decided to send troops to Chicago. The Constitution requires that the
+United States protect states against domestic violence on the application
+of the legislature, or of the executive when the legislature is not
+in session. Moreover the statutes of the United States empower the
+President to use federal force to execute federal laws. The position
+taken by the Governor of Illinois, John P. Altgeld, was expressed in
+his telegram to President Cleveland protesting against the action of
+the executive:
+
+    Should the situation at any time get so serious that we cannot
+    control it with the State forces, we will promptly and freely ask
+    for Federal assistance; but until such time I protest with all due
+    deference against this uncalled-for reflection upon our people,
+    and again ask for the immediate withdrawal of these troops.
+
+The President replied that troops were being sent in accordance with
+federal law upon complaint that commerce and the passage of the mails
+were being obstructed. A somewhat acrimonious correspondence between
+the Governor and the President resulted but the troops were retained
+and assisted in bringing the strike to a conclusion.
+
+The attitude of the courts, meanwhile, had brought up a serious
+situation. On July 2 a "blanket injunction" was issued by the United
+States District Court of Illinois and posted on the sides of the cars.
+It forbade officers, members of the Union and all other persons to
+interfere in any way with the operation of trains or to force or
+persuade employees to refuse to perform their duties. Under existing
+law, anybody who disobeyed the injunction could be brought before the
+Court for contempt, and sentenced by the judge without opportunity to
+bring witnesses and to be tried before a jury. When Eugene V. Debs, the
+president of the Union, and other officers continued to direct the
+strike they were arrested for contempt of court and imprisoned.[6]
+With federal troops against them and their officers gone, the strikers
+could hardly continue and gave up in defeat. The loss in property and
+wages had already reached $80,000,000.
+
+The apportionment of the blame for so appalling a controversy was not a
+simple task. On the one hand, a writer in the _Forum_ declared that
+
+    The one great question was of the ability of this Government to
+    suppress insurrection. On the one, side was the party of lawlessness,
+    of murder, of incendiarism, and of defiance of authority. On the
+    other side was the party of loyalty to the United States.
+
+But this was a superficial view. A commission of investigation
+appointed by President Cleveland looked into the matter more deeply.
+Its unanimous report made important assertions: the Pullman Company,
+while providing a beautiful town for its employees, charged rents
+twenty to twenty-five per cent. higher than were charged in surrounding
+towns for similar accommodations, and the men felt a compulsion to
+reside in the houses if they wished to retain their positions; when
+wages were reduced, the salaries of the better paid officers were
+untouched, so that the burden of the hard times was placed on the
+poorest paid employees; there was no violence or destruction of
+property in Pullman, and much of the rowdyism in Chicago, but not all
+of it was due to the lawless adventurers and professional criminals who
+filled the city at that time;[7] when various public officials and
+organizations attempted to get the Company to arbitrate the dispute,
+the uniform reply was that the points at issue were matters of fact and
+hence not proper subjects for arbitration; and the Managers'
+Association selected, armed and paid 3,600 federal deputy marshals who
+acted both as railroad employees and as United States officers, under
+the direction of the Managers.
+
+In view of the amount of labor disturbance after the Civil War, it was
+noteworthy that it attracted the interest of political parties to so
+slight a degree previous to 1896. In general the national platforms of
+the two large parties reflected an indefinite if not remote concern
+with the welfare of the wage earner. It was urged, to be sure, by both
+protectionists and tariff reformers that customs duties should be
+framed with the welfare of the laborer in mind, but the sincerity of
+this concern was sometimes open to question. The smaller parties, as
+usual, were far less vague in their demands. The Labor Reformers in
+1872 demanded the eight-hour day, for example; the Greenbackers had a
+definite program for relief in 1880; the Anti-Monopolists in 1884 and
+the Union Labor and the United Labor parties in 1888. By 1892 the great
+parties found themselves face to face with a growing labor vote. The
+labor planks in the two platforms of that year were strikingly similar.
+Each called for federal legislation to protect the employees of
+transportation companies, but looked to the states for the relief of
+employees engaged in manufacturing. Neither the Socialist Labor party
+nor the Populists, however, were greatly troubled by the question of
+the proper distribution between state and nation of the responsibility
+for the welfare of the wage earner. Both proposed definite action; both
+urged the reduction in length of the working day. The Populists
+condemned the use of Pinkertons in labor disputes and the Socialists
+urged arbitration, the prohibition of child labor, restrictions on the
+employment of women in unhealthful industries, employers' liability
+laws and the protection of life and limb.
+
+In brief, then, the situation of the wage-earning classes in the middle
+nineties was becoming accurately defined. The strike as a weapon was
+open to serious objections. The leaders of the two large parties had
+given no evidence of an effective and immediate interest in labor
+unrest. The other political parties were too small to afford chances of
+success. If less reliance was to be placed upon the strike and more
+upon political action, either a third party must be constructed or the
+leadership in one of the old ones must be seized. When the conference
+of labor officials met in Chicago and concluded that the Pullman strike
+was lost, it issued an address to the members of the American Railway
+Union advising a return to work, closer organization of the laboring
+class and the correction of industrial wrongs at the ballot box. If
+this advice should be taken, and if the wage earner should attempt to
+control legislation for his economic interest, as the propertied class
+had long been doing for its benefit, the struggle might be shifted to
+the political arena. The interest of the workers in the South and West
+in the Populist movement suggested the possibility that such a shift
+might occur.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+Surprisingly little attention has been paid to the social aspects of
+the growth of the laboring classes before 1896. There is ample
+material, however, on the more obvious sides of the labor movement,
+such as the growth of the organizations and the use of the strike.
+
+The _Documentary History of American Industrial Society_ (10 vols.,
+1910-1911), contains a little documentary material on the period after
+1865; J.R. Commons and others, _History of Labour in the United States_
+(2 vols., 1918), is the best and most recent historical account; T.S.
+Adams and H.L. Sumner, _Labor Problems_ (1905), is useful; consult also
+R.T. Ely, _Labor Movement in America_ (3rd ed., 1890); C.D. Wright,
+_The Industrial Evolution of the United States_ (1897), by a practical
+expert; G.E. McNeill, _The Labor Movement_ (1887); J.R. Buchanan,
+_Story of a Labor Agitator_ (1903); S.P. Orth, _The Armies of Labor_
+(1919), contains a good bibliography; John Mitchell, _Organized Labor_
+(1903); T.V. Powderly, _Thirty Years of Labor_ (1890); _Quarterly
+Journal of Economics_ (Jan., 1887), Knights of Labor; J.H. Bridge,
+_Inside History of the Carnegie Steel Co._ (1903). On the Haymarket
+affair, compare _Century Magazine_ (Apr., 1893), and J.P. Altgeld,
+_Reasons for Pardoning Fielden, Neebe and Schwab_; on the Pullman
+strike, Grover Cleveland, _Presidential Problems_, and the report of
+the commission of investigation in Senate Executive Documents, 53rd
+Congress, 3rd session, vol. 2 (Serial Number 3276). Edward Stanwood,
+_History of the Presidency_, contains political platform planks on
+labor. The reports of the Commissioner of Labor (1886-), and of the
+state bureaus of statistics of labor in such states as Massachusetts
+(1870-), and New York (1884-), are essential for the investigator.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Cf. above, p. 64
+
+[2] Two earlier organizations had a brief existence, the National
+Labor Union and the Industrial Brotherhood.
+
+[3] Above, pp. 133-134.
+
+[4] For the effect on the Knights of Labor, see p. 310.
+
+[5] For the legal side of this matter, consult Wright, _Industrial
+Evolution_, 278-282.
+
+[6] The Court based its action mainly on the provisions of Section 2
+of the Sherman anti-trust law, which thus had an unforeseen effect. The
+Supreme Court upheld the action, although on broader grounds. Above, p.
+256, cf. 159 _U.S. Reports_, 564.
+
+[7] In 1893 the "World's Fair" in Chicago had celebrated the four
+hundredth anniversary of the landing of Columbus, and many of the
+criminals attracted by the event had remained in the city.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+MONETARY AND FINANCIAL PROBLEMS
+
+The critical monetary and financial situation during Cleveland's second
+administration is understandable only in the light of a series of acts
+which were passed between 1878 and 1893. It will be remembered that in
+the former year the Bland-Allison act had provided for the purchase and
+coinage of two million to four million dollars' worth of silver bullion
+per month, and that the force behind the measure had been found chiefly
+among westerners who wished to see the volume of the currency increased
+and among mine owners who were producing silver.
+
+The passage of the law did not end all opposition to the greater use of
+silver, nor did it solve all our monetary difficulties. In the first
+place, the United States sent delegates to an International Monetary
+Conference in Paris, in conformity with one of the provisions of the
+Bland-Allison act, to discuss a project for the utilization of silver
+through an agreement among the commercial nations of the world. No
+tangible results were obtained, however, so that it was plain that for
+the time, at least, the United States would be alone in its attempt to
+bring about the greater use of the white metal. In the meantime the law
+was put into operation, and the secretary of the treasury exercised his
+option by purchasing the minimum amount, two million dollars' worth of
+bullion. It was impossible to keep the coins in circulation, however,
+mainly because of their weight, and the policy was therefore adopted
+of storing part of the silver in the government vaults and issuing
+paper "silver certificates" in its place. As these were of small
+denominations and circulated on a par with gold, no immediate
+difficulty was experienced in making them part of the currency supply
+of the country.
+
+The currency question, nevertheless, remained as complicated as ever
+and the differences of opinion upon it as diverse as before. The market
+price of silver steadily declined through the eighties and the bullion
+value of the metal in a dollar sank from ninety-three cents in 1878 to
+less than seventy-one cents in 1889. Both Republican and Democratic
+secretaries of the treasury gave warning that the inflow of silver into
+the currency supply was too great. President Arthur urged the repeal of
+the Bland-Allison act in his first annual message; President Cleveland
+again and again reiterated the same advice, warning Congress of the
+danger that silver would be substituted for gold. The argument of the
+opponents of silver could hardly be stated in more concise or complete
+terms. As soon as the supply of currency became too great, he asserted,
+the unnecessary portion would go out of circulation;[1] it was the
+experience of nations that the more desirable coin--gold, in this
+case--would be hoarded by banks and speculators; it would then become
+apparent that the bullion value of the gold dollar was greater than
+that of the silver dollar and the two coins would part company; those
+who, in such a contingency, could get gold dollars would demand a
+premium for them, while the laboring man, unable to demand gold, would
+find his silver dollar sadly shrunken in value.
+
+Although the coinage of silver in the twelve years during which the
+Bland-Allison act was in force amounted to $378,000,000, the danger
+that Cleveland's prophecy would come to pass was lessened by several
+facts. The country was, in the first place, passing through a period of
+industrial expansion that required an enlarged circulating medium; the
+revenues of the government were exceeding expenditures, and part of the
+surplus was being stored in the vaults in Washington; and the volume of
+the national bank notes shrank more than $158,000,000 between 1880 and
+1890. Falling prices for agricultural products continued to keep
+western discontent alive and far from being convinced by Cleveland's
+warnings, western conventions and representatives in Congress continued
+to urge legislation to increase the amount of silver to be coined, and
+free-coinage bills were constantly introduced and frequently near
+passage. Manifestly the demand that something more be done for silver
+was not at an end.
+
+Although agitation over the use of silver currency resulted in no
+further important legislation for the time being, the general financial
+situation was complicated by a series of important acts. During the
+eighties the federal revenues mounted to an unprecedented height and as
+expenses did not increase proportionately, a surplus of large and
+finally of embarrassing and dangerous size appeared.
+
+[Illustration:
+Financial Operations, 1875-1897 in millions]
+
+Between 1880 and 1890 it averaged more than $100,000,000 annually.
+Although part of it was used to reduce the public debt, the remainder
+began to accumulate in the treasury and thereby seriously reduced the
+amount of currency available for the ordinary needs of business. In
+1888, for example, the surplus in the treasury was one-fourth as great
+as the entire estimated sum outside. The one device for doing away with
+the surplus upon which all leaders could unite was the reduction of the
+national debt. Between 1879 and 1890 over $1,000,000,000 were thus
+disposed of. Yet even this process raised difficulties. Although a
+portion of the debt came due in 1881 and could be redeemed at the
+pleasure of the government, other bonds were not redeemable until 1891
+and 1907, unless the federal authorities chose to go into the market
+and buy at a premium. Eventually this was done for a time, although
+prices were thereby forced up to 130 in 1888, and as a result the
+redemption of $95,000,000 during the year cost more than $112,000,000.
+The treasury also adopted the expedient of depositing surplus funds in
+banking institutions, but the plan was open to serious objections. In
+order to qualify for receiving government deposits the banks had to
+present United States bonds as security, but these were already at a
+high premium because of purchase by the treasury itself. There
+remained, therefore, two general policies which might be
+followed--reduction of revenue or enlargement of expenditure.
+
+Both parties were theoretically committed to the economical conduct of
+the nation's business, but Republican advocacy of a high tariff tended
+to restrict that party's answer to the surplus problem. The revenue
+came largely from tariff and internal taxes. The latter were reduced,
+as has been seen, by the tariff act of 1883, but the redundant income
+continued. The Republicans then faced the alternative of lowering the
+customs or turning to the policy of increased expenditure. The latter
+policy would delay the reduction of duties and was in line with the
+Republican tendency toward increased federal activity. For the
+Democrats the problem was easier. Since the party was tending toward
+advocacy of low customs duties, had constantly condemned Republican
+extravagance in administration and was traditionally the party of a
+restricted national authority, it was logical to turn to severe
+reduction of revenue in order to solve the problem of the surplus.
+
+President Cleveland's political and personal philosophy led toward
+economy in expenditure and therefore toward revenue reduction. By
+nature he was frugal; in politics, a strict constructionist. In vetoing
+an appropriation bill he succinctly set forth his creed:
+
+    A large surplus in the Treasury is the parent of many ills, and
+    among them is found a tendency to an extremely liberal, if not
+    loose, construction of the Constitution. It also attracts the gaze
+    of States and individuals with a kind of fascination, and gives
+    rise to plans and pretensions that an uncongested Treasury never
+    could excite.
+
+The Republicans were becoming committed to the policy of large
+expenditures. President Harrison, to be sure, in his first annual
+message urged the reduction of receipts, declaring that the collection
+of money not needed for public use imposed an unnecessary burden upon
+the people and that the presence of a large surplus in the treasury was
+a disturbing element in the conduct of private business. Nevertheless
+such party leaders as Reed and McKinley, who effectively controlled the
+legislation of the Harrison administration, acted on the philosophy of
+Senator Dolph:
+
+    If we were to take our eyes off the increasing surplus in the
+    Treasury and stop bemoaning the prosperity of the country, ... and
+    to devote our energies to the development of the great resources
+    which the Almighty has placed in our hands, to increasing (our
+    products) ... to cheapening transportation by the improving of our
+    rivers and harbors, ... we would act wiser than we do.
+
+Congress was more inclined to follow the policy suggested by Dolph than
+that proposed by Cleveland. One project was the return of the direct
+tax which had been levied on the states at the outbreak of the Civil
+War. At that time Congress had laid a tax of $20,000,000 apportioned
+among the states according to population. About $15,000,000 had been
+collected, mainly, of course, from the northern states. It was
+suggested that the levy be returned, a plan which would give the
+northern states a return in actual cash and the southern states "the
+empty enjoyment of the remission from a tax which no one now dared to
+suggest was ever to be made good." President Cleveland had vetoed such
+a bill, during his first administration, believing it unconstitutional
+and also objectionable as a "sheer, bald gratuity." Under the Harrison
+administration the scheme was revived and carried to completion, March
+2, 1891.
+
+Pension legislation was even more successful as a method of reducing
+the unwieldy surplus. Garfield had declared in 1872, when introducing
+an appropriation bill in the House of Representatives, "We may
+reasonably expect that the expenditures for pensions will hereafter
+steadily decrease, unless our legislation should be unwarrantably
+extravagant," and in fact the cost of pensions for 1878 had been lower
+by more than $7,000,000 than in 1871. The Arrears act of 1879 had given
+a decided upward tendency to pension expense, which amounted to over
+$20,000,000 more in 1880 than in 1879. The surplus was a constant
+invitation to careless generosity. Liberality to the veteran was a
+patriotic duty which lent itself to the fervid stump oratory of the
+time and presented an opportunity to the undeserving applicant to place
+his name on the rolls of pensioners along with his more worthy
+associates. Besides, an administration which seemed niggardly in its
+attitude toward the veterans was certain to lose the soldier vote, and
+neither party was willing to incur such a risk. Hence, despite
+Cleveland's vetoes of private pension legislation, hundreds of such
+measures passed during his first term. The Harrison administration
+proceeded upon the President's theory that it "was no time to be
+weighing the claims of old soldiers with apothecary's scales." A
+dependent pension bill like that which President Cleveland vetoed in
+1887 was passed in 1890. The list of pensioners more than doubled in
+length; the number of applications for aid increased tenfold in two
+years. It became necessary for President Harrison to displace his
+over-liberal commissioner of pensions, but the mischief was already
+done. The total yearly pension expenditure quickly mounted beyond the
+one hundred million mark, where it has remained ever since. Indeed, the
+cost of pensions in 1872 when Garfield made his prophecy was less than
+one-sixth as great as in 1913. Large pension expenditure was clearly a
+permanent charge.
+
+The improvement of the rivers and harbors of the country has always
+been a ready means of disposing of any embarrassing surplus and of
+assisting Congressmen to get money into their districts. "Promoters of
+all sorts of schemes, beggars for the widening of rivulets, the
+deepening of rills" clustered about the treasury during the eighties.
+During the early seventies expenditure on this account had not reached
+$6,500,000 annually, although in 1879 it exceeded $8,000,000. In 1882,
+the year of the mammoth surplus, Congress passed over Arthur's veto a
+bill carrying appropriations which amounted to almost nineteen million
+dollars.[2] Expenditures were somewhat reduced in the years
+immediately following, and Cleveland continued the repressive policy of
+his predecessor. Harrison in his first message to Congress in December,
+1889, recommended appropriations for river and harbor improvement,
+although deprecating the prosecution of works not of public advantage.
+The recommendation fell upon willing ears and appropriations for
+undertakings of this sort at once increased again. Expenditure for
+rivers and harbors, like that for pensions, remained at a high level,
+the wise and necessary portions of such measures being relied upon to
+carry the unwise and unnecessary ones.
+
+A project which lacked many of the unpleasant features of river and
+harbor legislation was the Blair educational bill, which proposed to
+distribute a considerable portion of the surplus among the states. As
+discussion of the Blair bill proceeded, it became clear that its
+results might be more far-reaching than had been anticipated. A gift
+from the national government seemed sure to retard local efforts at
+raising school funds and would initiate a vicious tendency to rely on
+federal bounty. Hence although the Senate passed the bill in 1884, 1886
+and 1888, it never commended itself sufficiently to the House and
+eventually was dropped.
+
+A small portion of the increased expenditure in the eighties was due to
+improvements in the navy, in which both parties shared. Presidents
+Arthur and Cleveland urged upon Congress the need of modern defences.
+Progress was slow and difficult. Although the day of steel ships had
+come, the American navy was composed of wooden relics of earlier days.
+The manufacture of armor and of large guns had to be developed, and
+skill and experience accumulated. Results began to appear in the late
+eighties when the number of modern steel war vessels increased from
+three to twenty-two in four years. Expenditures mounted from less than
+$14,000,000 in 1880 to over $22,000,000 in 1890.
+
+As effective as new expenditure was the McKinley tariff act of 1890,
+the details of which from the point of view of tariff history have
+already been noted.[3] The extremely high rates levied under that
+legislation caused a slight reduction in customs revenue in 1891 and a
+sharp decline in 1892. Moreover the coincidence of instability in the
+currency system, business depression and the relatively high
+Wilson-Gorman tariff schedules of 1894 continued the decline of income
+from customs during the middle nineties.
+
+In the meantime the silver agitation, which had been somewhat repressed
+by the well-known attitude of Cleveland during his first administration
+revived with increased vigor. The election of 1888, it will be
+remembered, had turned wholly on the tariff and had been a victory for
+the Republicans. The western states had almost uniformly supported
+Harrison in the election and during 1889 four more were admitted to the
+Union. Their representatives in Congress were mainly silver advocates.
+In his first message to Congress the President declared that the evil
+anticipations which had accompanied the use of the silver dollar had
+not been realized but he feared nevertheless that either free coinage
+or any "considerable increase" of the present rate of coinage would be
+"disastrous" and "discreditable." He announced that a plan would be
+presented by the Secretary of the Treasury, to which he had been able
+to give only a hasty examination. The scheme for expanding the silver
+coinage which the Secretary, William Windom, presented was not
+acceptable to Congress, but the result of the agitation was the law
+generally known as the Sherman silver purchase act, which was passed on
+July 14, 1890. It directed the secretary of the treasury to purchase
+4,500,000 ounces of silver bullion per month and to issue in payment
+"Treasury notes of the United States." These notes were legal tender
+for all debts and were receivable for customs and all public dues.
+Further, the secretary was directed to redeem the notes in gold or
+silver at his discretion, "it being the established policy of the
+United States to maintain the two metals on a parity with each other."
+
+[Illustration:
+Total Silver Coinage, 1873-1894, in millions of dollars]
+
+The silver to be purchased was substantially the total output of the
+American mines. Fearing the strength of the silver element in the
+Senate and doubtful of the position which the President might take,
+former Secretary Sherman, now in the Senate, supported the act,
+although confessing that he was ready to vote for repeal at any time
+when it could be done without substituting free coinage. The provision
+for the purchase of four and one-half million ounces instead of four
+and one-half million dollars' worth was introduced at Sherman's
+suggestion. This clause kept the amount to be absorbed at a uniform
+level, whereas the purchase of a fixed number of dollars' worth would
+have increased the coinage when the price of bullion fell. The vote on
+the Sherman act was strictly partisan--no Republicans opposing it and
+no Democrats favoring it when the measure was finally passed, although
+116 members of the House failed to answer to their names on the
+roll-call.
+
+In view of the fact that the industrial and commercial countries of
+Europe were almost universally reducing their silver coinage, the
+passage by the United States of an act which substantially doubled
+the amount of silver purchased under the Bland-Allison law seems
+extraordinary. Moreover, only six years later a presidential campaign
+was fought almost wholly on the silver issue and at that time the
+Republican party resolutely opposed free coinage. It is obvious that
+powerful forces must have been at work to align the party so unitedly
+in behalf of the Sherman law. It was to be expected that western
+Republicans would support it, but the eastern members were found
+voting for it as well. Doubtless many things contributed to the
+result. Some perhaps agreed with Sherman that the silver advocates
+were so strong that free coinage would result in case Congress refused
+to pass legislation of any kind. Some may have feared with Platt of
+Connecticut, that a party split would ensue unless the wishes of the
+westerners were acceded to--hence an act which gave liberal assistance
+to silver to please the West and South but stopped short of free
+coinage so as to please the East. That opportunist politics had an
+influence with certain members is indicated by the remarks of a
+Massachusetts Republican representative who later favored the gold
+standard:
+
+    It is pure politics, gentlemen; that is all there is about it.
+    We Republicans want to come back and we do not want you (to
+    the Democratic side) to come back in the majority, because,
+    on the whole, you must excuse us for thinking we are better
+    fellows than you are. That is human nature, that is all there
+    is in this silver bill (laughter on the Republican side); pure
+    politics.
+
+A Democrat who favored free coinage denounced the act as "Janus-Faced,"
+moulded so as to look like silver to the West and gold to the East.
+Important, also, seems to have been the attitude of the western members
+on the tariff. The party had returned to power on the tariff issue and
+it seemed necessary to pass some sort of legislation on the subject.
+Yet the party majority in Senate and House was slight and the
+westerners were understood to be ready to defeat the McKinley bill
+which was then pending, unless something was done for silver. Harrison
+seems to have been unwilling to endanger successful tariff legislation
+by opposing the considerable extension of the coinage of silver.[4]
+
+Contrary to the expectations of the proponents of the act, the price of
+silver fell gradually until the value of the bullion in a dollar was
+sixty cents in 1893 and forty-nine cents in 1894. They who had opposed
+the law saw their fears verified; as they had prophesied, silver began
+to replace gold in circulation; the latter was hoarded and used for
+foreign shipments; customs duties, which had hitherto been paid largely
+in gold, were now paid in paper currency; since gold was now more
+desired than silver, large amounts of paper were presented to the
+government for redemption in the more valuable metal. To be sure, the
+Sherman law allowed the secretary of the treasury to redeem the
+treasury notes of 1890 in gold or silver at his discretion, but it
+contained a proviso that the established policy of the United States
+was to maintain the two metals on a parity or equality. The secretary
+believed that if he refused to redeem the treasury notes in whatever
+coin the holder desired, that is if he insisted on redemption in silver
+only, a discrimination would be made in favor of gold and the equality
+of the two metals would be destroyed. Parity would be maintained, the
+government held, only when any kind of money could be exchanged for any
+other kind, at the option of the holder.
+
+For the redemption of the greenbacks, the government had since 1879
+maintained a fund known as the gold reserve. No law fixed its amount,
+but custom had set $100,000,000 as the minimum. Hitherto a negligible
+amount of paper had been presented for redemption, but as soon as the
+Sherman law came into effective operation the demand for gold became
+increasingly great and the level of the reserve promptly fell. Between
+July 1, 1890, and July 15, 1893, the supply of gold in the treasury
+decreased more than $132,000,000, while the stock of silver increased
+over $147,000,000. Evidently silver was replacing gold in the treasury,
+and it was equally clear that a continuation of the process would
+result in forcing the government to pay its obligations in silver and
+to refuse to redeem paper in gold--in other words, go upon a silver
+standard.
+
+The situation when Cleveland's second administration began on March 4,
+1893, was complex and critical. The annual expenditures had increased
+by $119,000,000 between 1880 and 1893, while the revenue had expanded
+by only half that amount; the surplus had decreased every year during
+Harrison's administration and a deficit had been avoided only by the
+cessation of payments on the public debt; the supply of currency in
+circulation was being heavily increased by the operation of the Sherman
+law; and the gold reserve had been kept at the traditional amount only
+through extraordinary efforts on the part of Harrison's Secretary of
+the Treasury as the administration came to a close.
+
+Cleveland's attitude toward the Sherman law was well-known. He had long
+urged the repeal of the Bland-Allison act; before the election of 1892
+he had predicted disaster in case the nation entered upon "the
+dangerous and reckless experiment of free, unlimited, and independent
+silver coinage"; it was his belief that the distresses under which the
+country labored were due principally to the Sherman silver purchase
+law. He therefore called a special session of Congress for August 7,
+(1893), sent a message giving a succinct account of the operation of
+the law and urged its immediate repeal.[5] In the House, repeal was
+voted with surprising promptness, although a strong free-silver element
+fought vigorously to prevent it. That party lines were broken was
+indicated by the fact that two-thirds of the Democrats and four-fifth
+of the Republicans voted in accord with the President's request.
+
+In the Senate the silver advocates were stronger. The entire history of
+coinage was discussed at length. Members who favored repeal disliked to
+overturn the tradition of the Senate which allowed unlimited debate,
+and the silver senators therefore filibustered through the summer and
+early fall. Senator Jones of Nevada made a single speech that filled a
+hundred dreary pages of the _Congressional Record_. Senator Allen of
+Nebraska quoted more than thirty authorities, ranging from the Pandects
+of Justinian to enlivening doggerel poetry. Feeling ran high. In the
+West, Jones, Allen and others were looked upon as heroes; in the East,
+as villains. To a satirical onlooker it seemed that the nation had
+become insanely obsessed with the question of repeal:
+
+    All men of virtue and intelligence know that all the ills of
+    life--scarcity of money, baldness, the comma bacillus, Home
+    Rule, ... and the Potato Bug--are due to the Sherman Bill. If it
+    is repealed, sin and death will vanish from the world, ... the
+    skies will fall, and we shall all catch larks.
+
+Not until October 30 were the silver supporters overcome. Including
+members who were paired, twenty-two Democrats and twenty-six
+Republicans favored repeal, and twenty-two Democrats, twelve
+Republicans and three Populists opposed. Again the West and South were
+aligned against the North and East. The Democratic party was divided
+and charges and countercharges had been made that augured ill for party
+success, as has been seen, in dealing with the tariff and other
+important problems.[6] Worst of all, the chief question--the volume
+and content of the currency--was still unanswered. Something had been
+done for silver--and undone--but there was no scientific settlement of
+the problem.
+
+The disastrous financial and industrial crisis of 1893 made yet more
+complex the already tangled skein of economic history during President
+Cleveland's second administration. The catastrophe has been ascribed to
+a variety of causes but the relative importance of the various factors
+is still a matter of disagreement. Rash speculation on the part of
+industrial interests here and abroad seems to have made weak links in
+the international commercial chain; financial conditions both in
+Germany and in Great Britain were precarious during the early part of
+1890; the collapse of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad in
+February, 1893, and of the National Cordage Company soon afterwards
+were warnings of what was to follow; the silver purchase law produced
+widespread fear that the United States would not be able to continue
+the redemption of paper currency; and the change of political control
+had produced the usual feeling of uncertainty. The dwindling of the
+gold reserve, which has already been mentioned, assisted in causing a
+critical situation. Foreign investors, fearful of financial conditions
+here, sold their American railroad and other securities and received
+payment in gold. The one place where the yellow metal could be readily
+obtained was the United States treasury and upon it the strain
+centered. People attempted to turn property of all kinds into gold
+before the existing standard should change to a depreciated silver
+basis. At the same time there was a rush to the banks to withdraw
+funds, and the visible supply of currency therefore was seriously
+reduced. "Under these conditions gold seemed scarce. In reality gold
+was only relatively scarce in comparison with the abnormal offering of
+property for sale on account of the fear of the silver standard." In an
+incredibly short time, currency became so scarce as to create a genuine
+panic and was purchased like any commodity at premiums ranging from one
+to three per cent. In order to enable their families to pay the running
+expenses of every day at the summer resorts, business men were
+compelled to buy bills and coin and send them in express packages. The
+national banks were unable to supply the demand for currency so
+quickly, and 158 of them failed in 1893 and hundreds of state and
+private financial institutions were forced to close their doors.
+Industrial firms were affected by the uncertainty and panic and over
+15,000 failures resulted, with liabilities amounting to $347,000,000 in
+the single year. Production of coal and iron fell sharply; railway
+construction nearly ceased and the value of securities shrank to a
+fraction of their former value. The distress among the wage-earners
+became extreme; unemployment was common; strikes, like that beginning
+in Pullman in 1894, were bitter and prolonged. "Coxey's army," composed
+of unemployed workmen, marched to Washington with a petition for
+relief.
+
+As is usually the case in our politics, the blame for the industrial
+disturbance was laid at the door of the party in power. The argument of
+an Ohio congressman in the debate over the repeal of the Sherman law
+typified the political use made of the crisis of 1893. Until November,
+1892, the orator declared, prosperity was undimmed. "Iron furnaces
+throughout the country were in full blast, and their cheerful light was
+going up to heaven notifying the people of the United States of
+existing prosperity and warning them against change of conditions."
+Then came the election of the party "which had declared war on the
+system upon which our whole industrial fabric had been erected." "One
+by one the furnaces went out, one by one the mines closed up, one after
+another the factories shortened their time." Business interests, he
+asserted, were fearful of Democratic rule and especially of tariff
+reform; hence prosperity and confidence could be renewed only by
+leaving the Sherman law intact and by refusing to undertake any
+sweeping revision of the protective tariff.
+
+[Illustration:
+Net Gold in the Treasury, by months,
+Jan., 1883 to Feb., 1896, in millions of dollars]
+
+Further to complicate the financial trials of the burdensome mid-nineties,
+the depletion of the gold reserve demanded immediate attention. During
+the closing months of President Harrison's administration, in fact, the
+Secretary of the Treasury had ordered the preparation of plates for
+engraving an issue of bonds by which to borrow sufficient gold to
+replenish the redemption fund. By a personal appeal to New York bankers,
+however, he was able to exchange paper for gold and so keep the level
+above the one hundred million mark, and when Cleveland succeeded to
+the chair, the reserve was $100,982,410. In the meantime the scarcity
+of gold continued, and the combination of large expenditures and
+slender income severely embarrassed the government in its attempts to
+obtain a sufficient supply of gold to keep the reserve intact. The
+administration, indeed, was all but helpless. Paper presented for
+redemption in gold had to be paid out to meet expenses and was then
+turned in for gold again. Hence, as Cleveland ruefully reminded
+Congress, "we have an endless chain in operation constantly depleting
+the Treasury's gold and never near a final rest." On April 22, 1893,
+the reserve fell momentarily below $100,000,000 and later in the year
+it was apparent that the reduction was likely to become permanent.
+By January, 1894, the reserve was less than $70,000,000, while
+$450,000,000 in paper which might be presented for redemption were in
+actual circulation. Only one resource seemed available--borrowing gold.
+The treasury therefore sold bonds to the value of $50,000,000. Even
+this, however, did not remedy the ill. Bankers obtained gold to
+purchase bonds by presenting paper currency to the government for
+redemption. Relief was temporary. On the last day of May the reserve
+amounted to only $79,000,000; in November, to $59,000,000. Another
+issue of bonds was resorted to in November, but the results were not
+better than before. At the same time the Pullman strike during the
+summer months, the Wilson-Gorman tariff fiasco and an unfortunate
+harvest seemed to indicate that man and nature were determined to make
+1894 a year of ill-omen.
+
+By February, 1895, the treasury found itself confronted with a reserve
+of only $41,000,000. It seemed useless to attempt borrowing under the
+usual conditions, and Cleveland therefore resorted to a new device. A
+contract was made with J.P. Morgan and a group of bankers for the
+purchase of 3,500,000 ounces of gold to be paid for with United States
+four per cent. bonds. In order to protect the reserve from a renewed
+drain, the bankers agreed that at least half the gold should be
+obtained abroad, and they promised to exert all their influence to
+prevent withdrawals of gold from the treasury while the contract was
+being filled. The terms of the contract were favorable to the bankers,
+but the President defended the agreement on the ground that the
+promise to protect the reserve entitled the bankers to a favorable
+bargain. The fact, however, that the Morgan Company was able to market
+the bonds with the public and make a large profit, increased the
+demand that the administration sell directly to the people and make
+the profit itself. In January, 1896, occurred a fourth sale--to the
+public, this time--and 4,640 bids were received, for a total several
+times greater than the $100,000,000 called for. By this time, business
+conditions were improving, confidence was restored among the financial
+classes and gold again began to flow out of hiding and into the
+treasury. The endless chain was broken.
+
+The denunciation which Cleveland received for the untoward monetary and
+industrial events of his administration was unusual even for American
+politics in the middle nineties. Such extreme silver men as Senator
+Stewart of Nevada declared that Cleveland's second administration was
+probably the worst administration that ever occurred in this or any
+other country; that he was a bold and unscrupulous stock-jobber; that
+he deliberately caused the panic of 1893 and that he sent the Venezuela
+message in order to divert the attention of the people from the silver
+question. The New York _World_ described the transaction between the
+government and the Morgan Company as a "bunco" game, and charged that
+Cleveland had dishonest, dishonorable and immoral reasons for bringing
+about the transaction and that he did it for a "consideration."
+Representative W.J. Bryan, who belonged to the President's party and
+who ordinarily was chivalrous to his opponents, declared that Cleveland
+could no more escape unharmed from association with the Morgan
+syndicate than he could expect to escape asphyxiation if he locked
+himself up in a room and turned on the gas. The Democratic party, he
+thought, should feel toward its leader as a confiding ward would feel
+toward a guardian who had squandered a rich estate, or as a passenger
+would feel toward a trainman who opened a switch and precipitated a
+wreck.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The standard works, mentioned under Chapter V, by Dewey, Hepburn and
+Noyes continue valuable. The attitude of Hayes and of succeeding
+Presidents is found in J.D. Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the
+Presidents_; F.W. Taussig, _The Silver Situation in the United States_
+(1892), is concise; _Political Science Quarterly_, III, 226, discusses
+the surplus revenue; _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, III, 436, on the
+direct tax; W.H. Glasson, _Federal Military Pensions_, has already been
+mentioned. W.J. Lauck, _Causes of the Panic of 1893_ (1907), lays the
+blame for the industrial distress of 1893 wholly on the silver law of
+1890. On the gold reserve, consult Grover Cleveland, _Presidential
+Problems_; D.R. Dewey, _National Problems_ (1907); _Political Science
+Quarterly_, X, 573; and _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, XIII, 204.
+"The Silver Debate of 1890," in _Journal of Political Economy_, I, 535,
+contains a detailed account of the discussion in Congress. W.J. Bryan,
+_First Battle_ (1897), should be consulted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] According to the principle known as Gresham's law, bad money tends
+to drive out good; or overvalued money to drive out undervalued money.
+If the face value of a coin is more than its worth as bullion, it is
+"overvalued." Thus, if coins of equal face value, but of different
+bullion value, circulate side by side, there will be a tendency for the
+possessors of the coins to pass on the currency with the smaller
+bullion value and to withdraw the others for sale as bullion and for
+use in the arts.
+
+[2] Above, p. 164.
+
+[3] Above, pp. 238-240.
+
+[4] The law remained in force about three years. During that interval
+nearly $156,000,000 worth of silver bullion was purchased with the new
+treasury notes. The government began retiring these notes in 1900.
+
+[5] The call for the extra session, together with news of the
+suspension of free-coinage in India, sent the bullion price of silver
+down twenty-one cents per ounce in two weeks. The President was
+seriously handicapped at this time by a cancerous growth in the jaw,
+necessitating an operation, news of which was withheld from the public
+for fear of its ill effect on the financial situation. Cf. _Saturday
+Evening Post_, 22 Sept., 1917.
+
+[6] Above, p. 274.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+1896
+
+The political situation in 1896, when the parties began to prepare for
+the presidential election, was more complex than it had been since
+1860. The repeal, in 1893, of the purchase clause of the Sherman silver
+act had divided the Democrats into factions; the financial and
+industrial distress in the same year had been widely attributed to fear
+of Democratic misgovernment; the Wilson-Gorman tariff act of 1894 had
+discredited the party and aroused ill-feeling between the President and
+Congress; the Pullman strike and the use of the injunction had aroused
+bitterness in the labor element against the administration; the income
+tax decision of 1895 had done much to shake popular confidence in the
+Supreme Court; the Hawaiian and Venezuelan incidents had caused minor
+dissent in some quarters; and the bond sales had made Cleveland
+intensely unpopular in the West and South. The Democratic party was
+demoralized and leaderless. The Republicans were better off because
+they had been out of power during the years of dissension and panic,
+but they had been without a leader since the death of Blaine in 1893
+and were far from united in regard to the most pressing issues. Indeed,
+the sectional differences in both parties, and the unexpected strength
+of the Populist movement caused no little anxiety among the political
+leaders. And finally, the volume and character of the currency was
+still undetermined. The Democrats had divided on the question. The
+Republicans were almost as little united; they had played politics in
+passing the Sherman silver act and three years later had assisted a
+President of the opposite party in accomplishing the repeal of its most
+important provision. From the standpoint of the silver supporters
+neither party organization was to be trusted. The outstanding political
+questions of 1896, therefore, were whether the supporters of silver
+could capture the machinery of one of the parties and whether the other
+unsettled issues could ride into the campaign on the strength of the
+financial agitation. The answers to these questions gave the campaign
+and election its peculiar significance.
+
+The background of 1896 is to be found in the South and West, where the
+farmers' alliances and the Populist party continued their success in
+arousing and directing the ambitions of the discontented classes. In
+1892, it will be remembered, the Populists had cast more than a million
+ballots and had chosen twenty-two presidential electors, two senators,
+and eleven representatives. In 1894, at the time of the congressional
+election, they had increased their voting strength more than forty per
+cent., and had elected six senators and six members of the House,
+besides several hundreds of state officials. In the Senate it happened
+that the two great parties had been almost equally strong, after the
+election of 1894, so that the Populist group had held the balance of
+power. The insistence of the South and West that Congress do something
+further for silver had not lessened. A measure providing for the
+coinage of a portion of the silver bullion in the treasury had been
+defeated in 1894 only through the President's veto. Indeed the only
+hope of the East and of the supporters of the gold standard was the
+unflinching determination of the head of a party to which the East and
+the gold supporters were, in the main opposed.
+
+The growing enthusiasm for silver which was sweeping over the South and
+West and rapidly developing into something resembling frenzy was
+difficult for the more stolid East to comprehend. Not merely the
+politician, but the man on the street and in the store, the
+school-teacher, the farmer and the laborer, in those portions of the
+country, fell to discussing the virtues of silver as currency and the
+effect of a greater volume of circulating medium upon prices and
+prosperity. The two metals became personified in the minds of the
+people. Gold was the symbol of cruel, snobbish plutocracy; silver of
+upright democracy. Gold deserted the country in its hour of need;
+silver remained at home to minister to the wants of the people. Such
+arguments as those presented in _Coin's Financial School_, published in
+1894, brought financial policy within the circle of the emotions of its
+readers even if they did not satisfy the more critical student of
+monetary problems. This influential little volume, written by W.H.
+Harvey, acted as a hand-book of free coinage, cleverly setting forth
+the major arguments for the increased use of silver and bringing
+forward objections which were triumphantly demolished. Simple
+illustrations enforced the lessons taught by its pages: a wood-cut of a
+cripple with one leg indicated how handicapped the country was without
+the free coinage of two metals; in another, Senator Sherman and
+President Cleveland were depicted digging out the silver portion of the
+foundations of a house which had been erected on a stable basis of both
+gold and silver; in a third, western farmers were seen industriously
+stuffing fodder into a cow which capitalists were milking for the
+benefit of New York and New England.[1] With the enthusiasm and the
+sincerity of the early crusaders, the people assembled in ten thousand
+schoolhouses to debate the absorbing subject of the currency. Indeed
+the South and West had become convinced that the miseries inflicted
+upon mankind by war, pestilence and famine had been less "cruel,
+unpitying, and unrelenting than the persistent and remorseless
+exaction" which the contraction of the volume of the currency had made
+upon society. Low prices, the stagnation of industry, empty and idle
+stores, workshops and factories, the increase of crime and
+bankruptcy--all were laid at the door of the gold standard.
+
+The East looked upon the rising in the West at first with amusement,
+and was quite ready to accept the diagnosis of a western newspaper man,
+quoted by Peck in his _Twenty Years of the Republic_:
+
+    What's the matter with Kansas?
+
+    We all know; yet here we are at it again. We have an old
+    moss-back Jacksonian who snorts and howls because there is a
+    bath-tub in the State House. We are running that old jay for
+    Governor.... We have raked the ash-heap of failure in the State
+    and found an old human hoop-skirt who has failed as a business
+    man, who has failed as an editor, who has failed as a preacher,
+    and we are going to run him for Congressman-at-large.... Then we
+    have discovered a kid without a law practice and have decided to
+    run him for Attorney-General.
+
+Later the East looked upon tendencies in the West with more concern:
+Roosevelt, although admitting the honesty of the Populists, characterized
+their ignorance as "abysmal"; others were more inclined to doubt their
+sincerity; their conventions were supposed to be made up of cranks and
+unsexed women; and their principles were looked upon as "wild and crazy
+notions."
+
+In fact it was no simple task to distinguish between the legitimate
+grievances and ambitions of the westerners, and their eccentricities
+and errors. Nor was this difficulty lessened by the reputation with
+which some of the proponents of silver were justly or unjustly
+credited. "Sockless Jerry" Simpson and Mrs. Lease were among them--the
+Mrs. Lease to whom was ascribed the remark "Kansas had better stop
+raising corn and begin raising hell!"[2] Benjamin R. Tillman was
+another--a rough, forceful character, leader of the poor whites and
+small farmers of South Carolina, organizer of the "wool hats" against
+the "silk hats" and the "kid gloves"--Governor of the state and later
+member of the federal Senate. Although a Democrat, he was thoroughly at
+odds with Cleveland, and publicly declared it was his ambition to stick
+his pitchfork into the President's sides.[3] Richard P. Bland, of
+Missouri, had the disadvantage of having been one of the earliest of
+the silver supporters, since he had initiated the bill which resulted
+in the Bland-Allison act, and was looked upon in the East as a
+thorough-going, free-silver radical. Governor Altgeld, of Illinois,
+leader of the Democrats of that state from 1892 to 1896, was a
+successful lawyer who was looked upon by his friends as a
+liberal-minded humanitarian, the friend of
+
+    The mocked and the scorned and the wounded,
+    the lame and the poor,
+
+whose sympathies with the laboring classes had given him the support of
+the reformers and the wage earners. But his pardon of the Haymarket
+anarchists and his attitude during the Pullman strike had led the East
+to regard him as a dangerous revolutionist and an enemy to society.[4]
+
+The free-silver movement nevertheless continued to gather momentum. For
+some years influential silver advocates had been associated in the
+Bimetallic League, an organization which supported the free coinage
+of both gold and silver. Among its members were prominent Democrats,
+Republicans and Populists, especially from the western states, and some
+of the foremost labor leaders. At one of its meetings in 1893 it was
+determined to invite every labor and industrial organization in the
+country to send delegates. A few experts, even in the East, gave some
+scientific support to the argument for the greater use of silver.
+Eastern Republicans like Senator Henry Cabot Lodge proposed free coinage
+of both metals by an international agreement, which, they thought,
+might be brought about through threats of tariff discrimination against
+nations refusing to adhere to the arrangement. A silver convention in
+Nebraska in 1894 was attended by a thousand delegates. From the point of
+view of party harmony the subject was a nuisance. Democratic state
+conventions were badly divided. Thirty of them adopted resolutions
+distinctly favorable to free coinage and fourteen opposed. Ten of the
+latter committed themselves definitely to the gold standard. The
+fourteen included all the northeastern states, together with Michigan,
+Wisconsin and Minnesota. Such gold Democrats as President Cleveland
+sought to stem the tide, but Cleveland's control over his followers was
+rapidly dwindling, and it seemed likely that the silver element of the
+party might reach out to seize the organization and displace the former
+leaders.
+
+The Republican professional politicians were as ignorant of technical
+monetary problems as the Democrats, and moreover did not wish to risk
+popular disapproval in any section by utterances which might be
+offensive to that part of the country. The first Republican state
+convention during 1896 was that in Ohio. Its financial plank was
+awaited with interest, because of the early date of the meeting and
+because its proceedings were in the hands of friends of the most
+prominent candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. The
+convention dodged the issue by demanding that all our currency be
+"sound as the Government and as untarnished as its honor," and that
+both metals be used as currency and kept at parity by legislative
+restrictions. The New York _Tribune_ thought that this could mean
+nothing but a gold standard; the _Times_ was fearful that it would lead
+to silver; the _Springfield Republican_ condemned it as "chock full of
+double-dealing." Its ambiguity, however, was in line with the purposes
+and ambitions of two men who were actively preparing for the campaign
+of 1896--Marcus A. Hanna and Major William McKinley.
+
+Marcus A. Hanna, or "Mark" Hanna as he was universally known, was an
+Ohioan, born in 1837.[5] As a young man he entered upon a business
+career in Cleveland, first in a wholesale grocery company, later in a
+coal and iron firm and finally in a variety of industrial and
+commercial enterprises which his energy and ability opened to him. The
+expansion of industrial America after the Civil War was coincident with
+the greater part of Hanna's career and he was a typical product of that
+period in his political, economic and social philosophy. After he had
+attained a degree of business success he became actively interested in
+politics and took a prominent part in placing Joseph B. Foraker in the
+governor's chair in Ohio in 1885. Strained relations between the two
+turned Hanna's attention to the fortunes of John Sherman. When it
+became apparent in 1888 that the presidential campaign would turn upon
+President Cleveland's tariff principles, Hanna, who looked upon the
+protective tariff as synonymous with industrial expansion and even of
+industrial safety, threw his weight upon the side of Sherman, who was
+again seeking the Republican nomination. The failure of Sherman was a
+blow to Hanna, but it called to his attention the pleasing personality
+of a more prominent protectionist, William McKinley. He was an
+important agent in McKinley's successful campaign for the governorship
+of Ohio in 1891. Two years later the Governor met serious financial
+reverses, and again Hanna proved to be a firm friend. Aided by other
+men of means he rescued McKinley from bankruptcy. Between the two there
+sprang up a mutual admiration of unusual strength, and finally, in
+1894-1895, Hanna withdrew from his business enterprises in order to
+devote his entire time to the political fortunes of his friend.
+
+Mark Hanna had extraordinary capacity for leadership. Sociable,
+open-handed, full of energy, direct, aggressive, shrewd, daring, a hard
+fighter, a loyal friend, an organizer and a man of his word, he was
+essentially a man of action. In politics he was practical and
+straight-forward. He wanted results, not reforms, and results meant
+accepting the prevailing methods and using them. When he wished a
+street-railway franchise in Cleveland, he bought enough influence with
+the city government to get what he wanted, as others of his day did. He
+was a strict party man; good government and safety to industry, he
+believed, were dependent upon Republican control. Patriotism therefore
+demanded his utmost energy in getting Republicans elected. In political
+campaigns his counsel, his energy and his money were always available.
+A protective customs tariff, a "sound" currency system and a free hand
+in the conduct of business were the things which he most desired from
+the government.
+
+William McKinley would have been a formidable competitor for the
+presidential nomination in 1896 even without the assistance of his
+rugged friend. His personality was attractive, in a pleasing, soothing,
+tactful, ingratiating way. His military career had been honorable even
+if not famous. For most of the time from 1877 to 1891 he had been a
+member of the House of Representatives, becoming identified
+particularly with the high protective tariff and acting as sponsor for
+the McKinley act of 1890. After being defeated for re-election, just
+subsequent to the passage of the tariff law, he had become Governor of
+Ohio for two terms. The panic of 1893 and the ill-fated Wilson-Gorman
+tariff act during the time when he was Governor caused the tide of
+popular favor to swing away from the Democrats; McKinley, as the
+apostle of protection, appeared in a more favorable light; and his
+partisans began to press him forward as the logical nominee for 1896
+and as "the advance agent of Prosperity." The fact that his home was in
+a populous state in the Middle West was also in his favor, because the
+Republicans had frequently chosen their candidate from this debatable
+ground rather than from the Northeast, where success was to be had
+without a struggle.
+
+Hanna's first care upon determining to devote himself to the interests
+of McKinley was to keep the candidate before the people as the one man
+who could rescue the nation from industrial depression. To that end he
+widely circulated the Cleveland _Leader_, a strong McKinley organ, for
+eighteen months at his own expense; he rented a house in Georgia,
+entertained Governor McKinley there and brought numbers of southern
+politicians to meet the candidate; and experienced political workers
+were sent all over the country and especially to the South to prepare
+the way for the election of delegates to the nominating convention.
+Hanna himself went to the East to discover on what terms the support of
+some of the states in that section could be obtained. On his return he
+reported that aid would be assured by a guarantee that the patronage of
+the administration would go to certain powerful politicians; Hanna
+thought the bargain a desirable one, but the candidate objected and
+Hanna acquiesced. The campaign of publicity and of personal canvass for
+delegates and influence continued. First and last, it is estimated,
+Hanna contributed over $100,000 for this purpose, urging his assistants
+always to use funds only for legitimate ends, although promising
+McKinley partisans who aided in the work that they would be "consulted"
+in the disposition of patronage.
+
+Two difficulties stood in the way of completely ensuring the choice of
+McKinley as the candidate by the convention. Several states had
+"favorite sons" whom they would be sure to present, and if so many of
+these should appear as to prevent McKinley's nomination on the first
+ballot or at least on an early one, there might be a stampede to an
+unknown man--a "dark horse"--and then Hanna's ambitions would be
+frustrated. Thomas B. Reed of Maine was an especial source of anxiety
+as he possessed considerable strength throughout New England. To guard
+against such a danger, Hanna sedulously cultivated the popular demand
+for Governor McKinley and also fought in the state conventions for
+delegates even against favorite sons. A crucial state was Illinois,
+where Senator Cullom was powerful. The Senator says that a
+representative of McKinley offered him "all sorts of inducements" to
+withdraw, but McKinley's biographer mentions no such attempt at a
+bargain. Eventually Cullom made the fight and was defeated, and from
+then on, the nomination of McKinley seemed sure unless he should be
+tripped by the currency issue.
+
+The silver question was the second obstacle in the way of success. Not
+only was the party divided, but McKinley's record on the subject was
+far from consistent. He had voted for the Bland free-silver bill in
+1877, for the Bland-Allison act in 1878 and for the passage of that act
+over President Hayes's veto. In 1890 he had urged the passage of the
+Sherman silver purchase law, intimating that he would support a free
+coinage measure if it were possible to pass it. Hardly more than a year
+later he was campaigning for the governorship of Ohio, and there he
+denounced the free coinage of silver and advocated international
+bimetallism. In 1896 McKinley feared that a definite public utterance
+on the one side or the other of the question would widen the division
+in the party, prevent his nomination and lose the election. Hence the
+ambiguous currency plank in the Ohio state convention and hence, also,
+the refusal of the candidate to commit himself openly. Nevertheless he
+commissioned a friend to go to the East and explain his attitude
+privately to certain leaders and prominent business men, urging them
+not to force a declaration for gold before the convention met. In this
+way, he thought, the currency issue might be subordinated, the tariff
+emphasized and the party held together. In this state of uncertainty
+the currency situation was allowed to rest until the convention met at
+St. Louis on June 16.
+
+The platform adopted was, for the most part, of the usual sort. It
+urged popular attention to the matchless achievements of thirty years
+of Republican rule and contrasted that period of "unequalled success
+and prosperity" with the "unparalleled incapacity, dishonor, and
+disaster" of Democratic government; it promised the "most ample
+protection" to the products of mine, field and factory; generous
+pensions, American control of Hawaii, a Nicaragua canal, the Monroe
+doctrine, restricted immigration and the arbitration of labor disputes
+affecting interstate commerce received the support of the party.
+
+It was the currency plank, however, that differentiated the platform of
+1896 from that of other campaigns. Many Republican leaders and business
+men, particularly in the East, were disposed to call for a definite
+party statement in favor of a gold standard and had reached the point
+where they could not be put off by the usual meaningless straddle.
+Thomas C. Platt, Henry Cabot Lodge, Joseph B. Foraker, Charles W.
+Fairbanks and other party chiefs were among them. Hanna was ready to
+declare for gold after he had been assured of the nomination of his
+candidate. McKinley was willing to stand for gold, although he
+preferred not to mention that word in the plank and hoped to make the
+contest on the tariff. Moreover so many silver delegates had already
+been elected to the Democratic convention, which was soon to be held,
+that a definite utterance from that party seemed a certainty. The
+Prohibitionists had already divided into halves over the dominant
+issue. It was almost imperative, therefore, for the Republican
+convention to be more explicit than it had hitherto ventured to be. As
+leader after leader arrived who was insistent upon a gold standard, it
+became increasingly evident to Hanna that he must proceed with caution.
+If McKinley committed himself to gold, the silver advocates would balk
+at his candidacy, and perhaps unite on somebody else; if he committed
+himself to silver, he would lose the eastern leaders. The astute Hanna
+therefore allowed sentiment in favor of the gold plank to gather force,
+although holding the discussion as far as possible under cover, and
+kept McKinley from making a definite statement. Then at the last
+minute, when the McKinley delegates were numerous enough to ensure the
+nomination of the Major and when it was too late for the silver forces
+to agree upon an opposition candidate, Hanna gave way to the pressure
+for gold and agreed to the plank which he had always favored.[6]
+
+Despite the canny management of Hanna a defection took place over the
+decision on the currency issue. As soon as the platform was read,
+Senator Henry M. Teller, of Colorado, moved to replace the gold plank
+by one advocating the free coinage of silver. The earnestness with
+which Teller urged the adoption of the substitute was an indication of
+the sincerity of the western wing of the party. He had been a strict
+Republican since the formation of the party in the mid-fifties, yet he
+now found himself forced to accept a policy which he believed to be
+pernicious or break the political bonds which had held him for forty
+years. The majority of the convention, however, was determined to adopt
+the gold plank and overwhelmingly defeated the Teller amendment,
+whereupon the Senator and thirty-three other silver supporters solemnly
+withdrew from the hall.
+
+The way was now clear for the nomination of a candidate. Thomas B.
+Reed, Senator Quay and other favorite sons received but scant support,
+and McKinley was nominated by an overwhelming majority on the first
+ballot. Garrett A. Hobart, a lawyer and business man whose reputation
+was confined to New Jersey, his home state, was nominated for the
+vice-presidency. The platform and the candidate were generally hailed
+with favor in the East. To be sure, critical newspapers were inclined
+to look askance upon McKinley's past. The New York _Evening Post_, for
+example, favored a gold standard but decried the candidate's "absence
+of settled convictions about leading questions of the day, and his want
+of clear knowledge on any subject." Yet on the whole, the platform and
+the candidate were popular, and, in view of the serious factional
+disputes among the Democrats, the Republicans seemed likely to make
+good their boast that victory would be so easy that they could nominate
+and elect a "rag baby" if they chose. The redoubtable Hanna was
+appointed chairman of the National Republican Committee, from which
+office he was to direct the campaign. McKinley still believed that the
+contest would be of the old-fashioned sort and that it would turn on
+the tariff, despite the platform utterance of the party. And so it
+might have proved had it not been for an important change of purpose
+and leadership in the opposition.
+
+The friends of free silver coinage went to the Democratic convention at
+Chicago on July 7 with the same determination to get a definite
+statement on the currency question that had characterized the eastern
+leaders at the Republican convention. Without the loss of a moment they
+wrested the control of the organization from the former leaders by
+defeating Senator Hill of New York, a gold Democrat, for the temporary
+chairmanship and electing Senator Daniel of Virginia, a recognized
+proponent of free silver. Hill's support came mainly from the
+Northeast; Daniel's, from the West and South. Senator White of
+California, a representative of the silver wing, was then chosen
+permanent chairman and the convention was ready for the contest over
+the platform. While it awaited that document, however, it listened to
+several favorite leaders, of whom Senator Tillman and Governor Altgeld
+of Illinois were the best known. From the sentiments expressed by these
+men it was clear that the radical Democrats believed that they were
+speaking for the masses of the people and that they were bent upon
+making far-reaching changes both in the organization and the creed of
+the party.
+
+A disquieting feature was a degree of turbulence beyond that which
+usually characterizes our nominating conventions. The official
+proceedings record the following, for example, while Senator Tillman
+was addressing the delegates:
+
+    I hope that when this vast assembly shall have dispersed to its home
+    the many thousands of my fellow-citizens who are here will carry
+    hence a different opinion of the pitchfork man from South Carolina
+    to that which they now hold. I come to you from the South--from the
+    home of secession--from that State where the leaders of--(the
+    balance of the sentence of the speaker was drowned by hisses). Mr.
+    Tillman (resuming): There are only three things in the world that
+    can hiss--a goose, a serpent, and a man....
+
+    In the last three or four or five years the Western people have come
+    to realize that the condition of the South and the condition of the
+    West are identical. Hence we find to-day that the Democratic party
+    of the West is here almost in solid phalanx appealing to the South,
+    and the South has responded--to come to their help.... Some of my
+    friends from the South and elsewhere have said that this is not a
+    sectional issue. I say it is a sectional issue. (Long prolonged
+    hissing.)
+
+At length, the platform was presented. It was a summary of the
+complaints against the East which had been forming in the West and
+South ever since the days of the Greenbackers and the "Ohio idea." It
+recognized first that the money question was paramount to all others;
+laid hard times at the door of the gold standard, which it denounced as
+a British policy; and demanded the free coinage of both metals at the
+existing legal ratio, under which sixteen parts of silver by weight
+were declared equivalent to one part of gold in minting coins. Nor
+would the party wait for the consent of any other nation. It opposed
+the issuance of interest-bearing bonds in time of peace, condemned the
+bond transactions of the Cleveland administration and denounced the
+national bank-note system. The McKinley tariff was declared a prolific
+breeder of trusts which enriched the few at the expense of the many.
+The plank concerning the income tax, which had so recently been
+declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, excited much
+condemnation among Republicans and conservative Democrats, who
+denounced it as an attack on the Court. It noted that the Court had
+uniformly sustained income taxes for nearly a hundred years and
+declared it to be the duty of Congress
+
+    to use all the constitutional power which remains after that
+    decision, or which may come from its reversal by the court as
+    it may hereafter be constituted, so that the burdens of taxation
+    may be equally and impartially laid, to the end that wealth may
+    bear its due proportion of the expenses of the government.
+
+The reaction of the party on the labor disputes of recent years and
+especially the Pullman strike was clearly in evidence. Arbitration of
+such controversies was called for; "interference" by federal
+authorities in local affairs was condemned; government by injunction
+was objected to; and the passage of such laws was demanded as would
+protect all the interests of the laboring classes.
+
+A minority of the platform committee now presented the opposing point
+of view. It objected to many of the planks; complained that some were
+ill-considered, others revolutionary; and offered two amendments,
+one advocating the gold standard, the other expressing commendation
+of Cleveland's administration. The contest was then on. Tillman
+excoriated Cleveland and declared that the East held the West and
+South in economic bondage; Hill denounced the currency, income tax and
+Supreme Court planks as furiously as any Republican could have wished.
+The currency plank, he thought, was unwise, that on the income tax
+unnecessary, that on the Court assailed the supreme tribunal, and the
+entire program was "revolutionary."
+
+As yet, nobody had quite expressed the feelings of the convention.
+Tillman was too crude; Hill had no remedy for long-standing ills. At
+this juncture William J. Bryan stepped upon the platform. He was a
+young man--only thirty-six years of age--and known but slightly as a
+representative from Nebraska who possessed many of the arts and
+abilities of an orator. Bryan began with a modest and tactful
+declaration that his opposition to the gold wing of the party was
+based solely on principles and not at all on personalities. The
+convention had met, he insisted, not to debate but to register a
+judgment already rendered by the people. Old leaders had been cast
+aside because they had refused to express the desires of those whom
+they aspired to lead. Briefly he outlined the reply of the radicals
+to the objections made by Hill and the gold wing to the proposed
+platform. The conservatives, Bryan declared, had complained that
+free silver coinage would disturb business:
+
+    We say to you that you have made the definition of a business man
+    too limited in its application. The man who is employed for wages is
+    as much a business man as his employer; the attorney in a country
+    town is as much a business man as the corporation counsel in a great
+    metropolis; the merchant at the cross-roads store is as much a
+    business man as the merchant of New York; the farmer who goes forth
+    in the morning and toils all day--who begins in the spring and toils
+    all summer--and who by the application of brain and muscle to the
+    natural resources of the country creates wealth, is as much a
+    business man as the man who goes upon the board of trade and bets
+    upon the price of grain; the miners who go down a thousand feet into
+    the earth, or climb two thousand feet upon the cliffs, and bring
+    forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured into
+    the channels of trade are as much business men as the few financial
+    magnates who, in a back room, corner the money of the world. We come
+    to speak for this broader class of business men.
+
+The time was at hand, Bryan insisted, when the currency issue must be
+squarely met:
+
+    We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned; we have
+    entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded; we have
+    begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came. We beg no
+    longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them.
+
+The radical wing of the Democracy had now found its orator. Every word
+was driven straight to the hearts of the sympathetic hearers. The income
+tax law had been constitutional, Bryan complained, until one of the
+judges of the Supreme Court had changed his mind; the tariff was less
+important than the currency because "protection has slain its thousands,
+the gold standard has slain its tens of thousands." Fundamentally, he
+insisted, the contest was between the idle holders of idle capital and
+the struggling masses who produce the capital:
+
+    If they come to meet us on that issue we can present the history of
+    our nation. More than that; we can tell them that they will search
+    the pages of history in vain to find a single instance where the
+    common people of any land have ever declared themselves in favor of
+    the gold standard. They can find where the holders of fixed
+    investments have declared for a gold standard, but not where the
+    masses have....
+
+    You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the
+    gold standard; we reply that the great cities rest upon our broad and
+    fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your
+    cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and
+    the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country....
+
+    Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world,
+    supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and
+    the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold
+    standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow
+    of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a
+    cross of gold.
+
+The frenzy of approval which this brief speech aroused was proof that
+the West and South had found a herald. Whether wisely or not, the
+radicals acclaimed their leader and the party was embarked upon a
+program that made the campaign of 1896 a memorable one. Without further
+ado, the amendments of the conservatives were voted down--the vote
+being sectional, as before. Proposals that changes in the monetary
+standard should not apply to existing contracts and that if free
+coinage should not effect a parity between gold and silver at a ratio
+of 16 to 1 within a year, it should be suspended, were both voted down
+without so much as a division. The platform was then adopted by an
+overwhelming majority and radical democracy had the bit in its teeth.
+In the East the platform was viewed with amazement. The New York
+_World_, a Democratic newspaper, expressed the opinion that the only
+doubt about the election would be the size of McKinley's victory. The
+Republican _Tribune_ thought that the party was afflicted with
+"lunacy"; that it had become the "avowed champion of the right of
+pillage, riot and trainwrecking"; that the platform was an anarchist
+manifesto and a "call to every criminal seeking a chance for outrage."
+
+Before Bryan's speech it had been impossible to foretell who the party
+candidate for the presidency would be, although the veteran free silver
+leader, Richard P. Bland, had been looked upon as a logical choice in
+case his well-known principles should become those of the convention.
+After the speech, however, it was clear that Bryan embodied the
+feelings of many of his colleagues and on the fifth ballot he was
+chosen as the candidate. The vice-presidential choice was Arthur
+Sewall, of Maine, a shipbuilder and banker who believed in the free
+coinage of silver.
+
+The gold Democrats were now in a quandary. Many of them had refrained
+from voting at all in the convention after the silver element had
+gained control. Strict partisans, however, adopted the position of
+Senator Hill who was asked after the convention whether he was a
+Democrat still. "Yes," he is said to have retorted, "I am a Democrat
+still--very still." Some frankly turned toward the Republican party,
+while others organized the National Democratic party and adopted a
+traditional Democratic platform, with a gold plank. After considering
+the possibility of nominating President Cleveland for a third term, the
+party chose John M. Palmer for the presidency and Simon B. Buckner for
+the vice-presidency. Soon after the Democratic convention, the People's
+party and the Silver party met in St. Louis. Both nominated Bryan for
+the presidency, and thereafter the Democrats and the Populists made
+common cause.
+
+At the opening of the campaign, then, it was evident that class and
+sectional hatreds would enter largely into the contest. The Populists
+and the radical Democrats felt that they were fighting the battle of
+the masses against "plutocracy"--the subtle and corrupting control of
+public affairs by the possessors of great fortunes; they thought that
+they saw arrayed against them the forces of wealth and the
+corporations, seeking to enslave them. The conservative Democrats and
+the gold Republicans saw in their opponents an organized attempt to
+carry out a program of dishonesty and socialism. The one side believed
+that the creditor class desired to scale debts upward; the other, that
+the debtor class wished to scale them down. The radicals believed that
+the Supreme Court was in the control of the wealthy; the conservatives,
+that their opponents sought to assail the highest tribunal in the land.
+The peculiar circumstances preceding the year 1896, however, focussed
+attention on the monetary standard rather than upon the other demands
+of the Populist-Democratic fusion.
+
+Each candidate adopted a plan of campaign that was suited to his
+individual situation. Bryan was relatively unknown and he therefore
+decided to appeal directly to the people, where his powers as a speaker
+would have great effect. The usual "notification" meeting was held in
+Madison Square Garden, in New York City, so as to carry the cause into
+the heart of "the enemy's country." During the few months of the
+campaign the Democratic candidate travelled 18,000 miles, made 600
+speeches and addressed nearly five million people. The effect was
+immediate. The forces of social unrest, hitherto silent in great
+measure, were becoming vocal and nobody could measure their extent.
+McKinley had prophesied that thirty days after the Republican
+convention nothing would be heard about the currency. When the thirty
+days had passed, on the contrary, scarcely anything was heard except
+that very question. Whatever his personal wishes, McKinley must meet
+the problem face to face, and in alarm, Hanna and the Republican
+campaign leaders put forth unparalleled efforts to save the party from
+defeat.
+
+The share of McKinley in these efforts was a novel one. Instead of
+going upon the stump, he remained at his home in Canton, Ohio. A
+constant stream of visiting delegations of supporters from all points
+of the compass came to hear him speak from his front porch. Some of the
+delegations came spontaneously; the visits of others were prearranged;
+but in all cases the speeches delivered were looked over beforehand
+with great care. The candidate memorized or read his own remarks and
+carefully revised those which the spokesman of the visitors planned to
+offer. In this way, any such untoward incident as the Burchard affair
+was avoided and the accounts of the front-porch speeches which went out
+through the press contained nothing which would injure the chances for
+success. The effectiveness of the plan was attested on all sides.
+
+In addition, extraordinary attempts were put forth to instruct the
+people on various aspects of the currency question. A small army was
+organized to distribute literature and address rallies; 120,000,000
+documents were distributed from the Chicago and New York headquarters;
+newspapers were supplied with especially prepared matter; posters and
+buttons were scattered by the carload. At the dinner-table, on the
+street corner, in the railroad train, in store, office and shop, the
+people gave themselves over to a heated discussion of the merits of
+gold and silver as currency and to the feasibility of free coinage at a
+ratio of 16 to 1. The amount of money which these efforts required was
+unusually large. Business men and banking institutions, especially in
+New York, contributed liberally. The Standard Oil Company gave
+$250,000; large life insurance companies helped freely, although the
+fact was well concealed at the time. Business men were fearful that
+Bryan's election would mean a great shrinkage in the value of their
+properties. Many feared that the Democrats would assail the Supreme
+Court and that their leader would surround himself with advisors of a
+reckless and revolutionary character. Funds therefore poured into the
+Republican war-chest to an amount estimated at three and a half million
+dollars.
+
+Before the close of the campaign a feeling akin to terror swept over
+the East; contracts were made contingent upon the election of McKinley;
+employees were paid on the Saturday night before election day and
+notified that they need not return to work in the event of Democratic
+success. Although caution and good manners characterized the utterances
+of the two candidates, their supporters were hardly so restrained. The
+following, for example, is typical of the editorial utterances of the
+New York _Tribune_:
+
+    Let us begin with the Ten Commandments. "Thou shalt not take the
+    name of the Lord thy God in vain." The Bryan campaign from beginning
+    to end has been marked with such a flood of blasphemy, of taking
+    God's name in vain, as this country, at least, has never known
+    before. "Thou shalt not steal." The very foundation of the Bryan
+    platform is wholesale theft. "Thou shalt not bear false witness."
+    In what day have Bryan and his followers failed to utter lies,
+    libels and forgeries? "Thou shalt not covet." Why, almost every
+    appeal made by Bryan, or for him, has been addressed directly to
+    the covetousness, the envy, and all the unhallowed passions of
+    human nature. A vote for Bryan is a vote for the abrogation of
+    those four Commandments.
+
+At the close of the campaign _The Nation_ sagely observed, "Probably no
+man in civil life has succeeded in inspiring so much terror, without
+taking life, as Bryan."
+
+The result of the election was decisive. McKinley and a Republican
+House of Representatives were elected, and the choice of a Republican
+Senate assured. The successful candidate received seven million
+votes--a half million more than his competitor. All the more densely
+populated states, together with the large cities--where the greatest
+accumulations of capital had taken place--were carried by the
+Republicans. Not a state north of the Potomac-Ohio line and east of
+the Mississippi was Democratic, and even Kentucky, by a narrow margin,
+and West Virginia crowded their way into the Republican column. On
+the other hand Bryan's hold on the South and West was almost equally
+strong. Never before had any presidential candidate received so great a
+vote and not for twenty years did a Democratic candidate surpass it.
+Moreover, although the Democratic vote on the Atlantic seaboard was
+less than that received by Cleveland in 1892, Bryan's support in the
+Middle West showed considerable gains over the earlier year, while
+Kansas, Nebraska and all the mining states except California were
+carried by the silver cause. On the whole the election seemed to
+indicate that the voters of the country, after unusual study of the
+issues of the campaign, clearly distrusted the free-silver program, but
+that class and sectional discontent had reached large proportions.
+
+[Illustration:
+The Presidential Election of 1896--the shaded states
+gave Bryan pluralities]
+
+The political results of the election of 1896 were important. It
+definitely fixed the attitude of the Republican party on the currency
+question; it gave the party control of the executive chair and of
+Congress at an important time; and it ensured the domination of the
+propertied classes and the _laissez faire_ philosophy in the party
+organization. On the other hand, the Democratic party had incurred the
+suspicion and hostility of the East, with hardly a compensating
+increase of strength in the West; its principles had become radical for
+that day and had abruptly changed from those of previous years; its
+membership included more of the discontented classes than before; and
+its leadership had been snatched from the hands of an experienced and
+conservative leader and placed in the care of an untried radical. It
+remained to be seen whether the victors would attempt to study and meet
+the complaints of the farmer and the wage earner; whether the new
+Republican leaders would be able to preserve the _laissez faire_
+attitude toward the railroads and the corporations; and whether the
+forces of dissent represented in Populism and radical Democracy had
+received a death blow or only a rebuff.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+Peck contains one of the most illuminating accounts of the rising in
+the West, together with the campaign of 1896. H. Croly, _Marcus A.
+Hanna_ (1912), is one of the few critical biographies of leaders who
+have lived since the Civil War. W.J. Bryan, _The First Battle_ (1897),
+is indispensable; C.S. Olcott, _William McKinley_ (2 vols., 1916), is
+uncritical and eulogistic, but makes important material available; C.A.
+Beard, _Contemporary American History_ (1914), contains a good chapter;
+W.H. Harvey, _Coin's Financial School_ (1894), is mentioned in the
+text; Carl Becker's clever essay in _Turner Essays in American History_
+(1910), throws light on Kansas psychology; S.J. Buck, _Agrarian
+Crusade_ (1920), is excellent. Consult also D.R. Dewey, _National
+Problems_ (1907); J.A. Woodburn, _Political Parties and Party Problems_
+(1914); _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, X, 269; and F.E. Haynes,
+_Third Party Movements_ (1916). The files of _The Nation_, and the New
+York _Tribune_ and _Sun_ well portray eastern opinion. The references
+to the rise of the populist movement under Chap. XII are also of
+service.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] I have drawn at this point upon Peck, _Twenty Years of the
+Republic_, 453-456.
+
+[2] Peck, 451-453.
+
+[3] For brief accounts of Tillman, see Leupp, _National Miniatures_,
+117; N.Y. _Times_, July 4, 1918; N.Y. _Evening Post_, July 3, 1918.
+
+[4] Cf. Whitlock, _Forty Years of It_, 64 ff.; Altgeld, _Live
+Questions_ and _The Cost of Something for Nothing_.
+
+[5] In connection with the following pages, consult Croly, _Marcus A.
+Hanna_, one of the few satisfactory biographies of this period.
+
+[6] As finally adopted, the gold plank asserted: "We are unalterably
+opposed to every measure calculated to debase our currency or impair
+the credit of our country. We are, therefore, opposed to the free
+coinage of silver, except by international agreement with the leading
+commercial nations of the world, which we pledge ourselves to promote,
+and until such agreement can be obtained the existing gold standard
+must be preserved. All our silver and paper currency must be maintained
+at parity with gold, and we favor all measures designed to maintain
+inviolably the obligations of the United States and all our money,
+whether coin or paper, at the present standard, the standard of the
+most enlightened nations of the earth." Several leaders claimed to
+have been the real author of the gold plank. It seems more nearly true
+that many men came to the convention prepared to insist on a definite
+statement and that each thought himself the originator of the party
+policy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+REPUBLICAN DOMINATION AND WAR WITH SPAIN
+
+The ceremonies attendant upon the inauguration of William McKinley on
+March 4, 1897, were typical of the care-taking generalship of Mark
+Hanna. The details of policing the crowds had been foreseen and
+attended to; the usual military review was effectively carried out to
+the last particular; "the Republican party was coming back to power as
+the party of organization, of discipline, of unquestioning obedience to
+leadership."[1]
+
+The political capacity, the characteristics and the philosophy of the
+new President were sufficiently representative of the forces which were
+to control American affairs for the next few years to make them matters
+of some interest. McKinley was a traditional politician in the better
+sense of the word. As an executive he was patient, calm, modest, wary.
+Ordinarily he committed himself to a project only after long
+consideration, and with careful propriety he avoided entangling
+political bargains. His engaging personality, his consummate tact and
+his thorough knowledge of the temper and traditions of Congress enabled
+him to lead that body, where Cleveland failed to drive it. As a speaker
+he seldom rose above an ordinary plane, but he was simple and sincere.
+His messages to Congress breathed an atmosphere of serenity and of
+deferential reliance upon the wise and judicious action of the
+legislative branch. Their smug and genial tone formed a sharp contrast
+with his predecessor's anxious demands for multifarious reforms; while
+Cleveland inveighed against narrow partisanship and selfish aims,
+McKinley benignantly observed: "The public questions which now most
+engross us are lifted far above either partisanship, prejudice, or
+former sectional differences."
+
+The political philosophy of McKinley typified that of his party. The
+possibilities which he saw in protective tariffs, which occupied the
+foremost position among his principles, were well set forth in his
+message to Congress on March 15, 1897. Additional duties should be
+levied on foreign importation, he asserted,
+
+    to preserve the home market, so far as possible, to our own
+    producers; to revive and increase manufactures; to relieve and
+    encourage agriculture; to increase our domestic and foreign
+    commerce; to aid and develop mining and building; and to render
+    to labor in every field of useful occupation the liberal wages
+    and adequate rewards to which skill and industry are justly
+    entitled.
+
+Like most American presidents, McKinley was a peace-lover, pleasantly
+disposed toward the arbitration of international difficulties and
+prepared to welcome any attempt to further that method of preserving
+the peace of the world. His conception of the presidential office
+differed somewhat sharply at several points from that of his
+predecessor. Like Cleveland he looked upon himself as peculiarly the
+representative of the people, but he was far less likely either to lead
+public opinion or to attempt to hasten the people to adopt a position
+which he had himself taken. This fact lay at the bottom of the
+complaints of his critics that he always had his "ear to the ground" in
+order that he might be prepared to go with the majority. On the other
+hand, although he was aware of constitutional limitation upon the
+functions of the executive, he was not so continually hampered by the
+strict constructionist view of the powers of the federal government as
+Cleveland had been. McKinley's attitude toward Congress was far more
+sagacious than Cleveland's. He distributed the usual patronage with
+skill; he approached Congressmen individually with the utmost tact; he
+appointed them to serve on commissions and boards of arbitration, and
+later, when matters upon which the commissions had been engaged came
+before Congress in the form of treaties or legislation, these men found
+themselves in a position to lead in the adoption of the principles
+which the President desired. All this indicated an ability to "touch
+elbows" with Congress that has rarely been exceeded. When coupled with
+the organizing power of Hanna, the harmonizing sagacity of the
+President soon brought about a notable degree of party solidarity. As a
+political organization, the Republican party reached a climax.
+
+McKinley was hardly an idealist, and distinctly not a reformer.
+Although sensitive to pressure from the reform element, he was not
+ahead of ordinary public opinion on matters of economic and political
+betterment. Leaders in federal railroad regulation found the President
+cold toward projects to strengthen the Interstate Commerce law; the
+Sherman Anti-trust Act was scarcely enforced at all during McKinley's
+administration, and the parts of his messages which relate to the
+regulation of industry are vague and lacking in purpose. One searches
+these documents in vain for any indication that the Republican leader
+had either vigorous sympathy with the economic and social unrest which
+had made the year 1896 so momentous or even any thorough understanding
+of it. Even if he had possessed both sympathy and understanding,
+however, it is doubtful whether he could have made real progress in the
+direction of economic legislation and the enforcement of the acts
+regulating railroads and industry, in view of his long-continued and
+close affiliation with business leaders of the Mark Hanna type and his
+deep obligation to them at the time of his financial embarrassments in
+1893.
+
+McKinley's cabinet was composed of men whose advanced age and
+conservative characteristics indicated that his advisers would commend
+themselves to the business world and would instinctively avoid all
+those radical proposals that were coming to be known as "Bryanism." The
+dean of the cabinet in age and experience as well as in reputation and
+ability was John Sherman, who was now almost seventy-four years of age
+and had been occupying a position of dignity and honor in the Senate.
+Two reasons have been given for his appointment to the post of
+Secretary of State. In the first place, important diplomatic affairs
+were on hand, in the settlement of which his long experience as a
+member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations would be of obvious
+advantage. The second reason was the ambition of Hanna to enter the
+Senate. Since Sherman and Hanna were both from Ohio, it was possible to
+call the former to the cabinet and rely upon the Governor of the state
+to appoint the latter to the Senate. The propriety of this course of
+action depended somewhat on the question of Sherman's physical
+condition. Rumor declared that he was suffering from mental decay, due
+to his age, but McKinley believed the rumor to be baseless, summoned
+him to the cabinet, and Hanna was subsequently appointed to the Senate.
+When Sherman took up the duties of his office it appeared that the
+rumor had been all too true, and a serious lapse of memory on his part
+in a diplomatic matter forced his immediate replacement by William R.
+Day. Somewhat more than a year later Day retired and John Hay assumed
+the position. Many critics have asserted that McKinley was aware of the
+precise condition of Sherman and that he made the choice despite this
+knowledge, but it now seems likely that he was guilty only of bad
+judgment and carelessness in failing to inform himself about Sherman's
+infirmities. Another error of judgment was made in the choice of
+Russell A. Alger as Secretary of War. Alger failed to convince popular
+opinion that he was an effective officer and he resigned in 1899. As in
+the case of Sherman, McKinley then somewhat retrieved his mistake by
+appointing a successor of undoubted ability, in the person of Elihu
+Root.[2] It thus came about that the political and economic theories
+which had been characteristic of the leaders of both parties during the
+seventies and eighties, but more particularly of the Republican party,
+were again in the ascendancy. The President and his cabinet were
+uniformly men who had grown up during the heyday of _laissez faire_,
+and Hanna, who would inevitably be regarded as the mouthpiece of the
+administration in the Senate, was the embodiment of that philosophy.
+
+McKinley's experience with the distribution of the offices emphasized
+the progress that had been made since civil service reform had been
+inaugurated. One of the steps which President Cleveland had taken
+during his last administration, it will be remembered, was to increase
+the number of positions under control of the Civil Service Commission.
+The immediate result, of course, was to increase the demand for places
+in the unclassified service. John Hay picturesquely described the
+situation in the State Department a few years later:
+
+    All other branches of the Civil Service are so rigidly provided
+    for that the foreign service is like the topmost rock which you
+    sometimes see in old pictures of the Deluge. The pressure for a
+    place in it is almost indescribable.
+
+Both in his inaugural address and in his message to Congress on
+December 6, 1897, McKinley expressed his approval of the prevailing
+system, but suggested the possibility of exempting some positions then
+in the classified service. President Cleveland had, indeed, admitted
+to the Civil Service Commission that a few modifications might be
+necessary. The Senate promptly ordered an investigation and discovered
+10,000 places which it believed could be withdrawn, but because of
+other events further action was delayed. In 1899 the President returned
+to the subject and promulgated an order authorizing the withdrawal of
+certain positions from competitive examination and the transfer of
+others from the Commission to the Secretary of War--a total of somewhat
+less than 5,000 changes.[3] It appeared, in view of the circumstances
+under which the change had occurred, that a retrograde step had been
+taken, and McKinley received the condemnation of the reformers.
+
+The first legislation undertaken by the administration was that
+relating to the tariff. The election of 1896, to be sure, had been
+fought out on the silver issue, but it was not deemed feasible to
+proceed at once to legislation on the subject, because of the strong
+silver contingent within the party. Several other considerations
+combined to draw attention away from the currency question and toward
+the tariff. The Wilson-Gorman Act of 1894 had been passed under
+circumstances that had caused the Democratic President himself to
+express his shame and disappointment; the period of industrial
+depression following the panic of 1893 had been attributed so widely to
+Democratic tariff legislation that a Republican tariff act could be
+hailed as a harbinger of prosperity; and the annual deficit which had
+continued since 1893 indicated a genuine need of greater revenue, if
+the current scale of expenditures was to be continued. The President
+and the party leaders in Congress were men who were prominently
+identified with the protective system, and it was not likely that the
+business interests which profited from protection, which believed in
+its beneficent operation, and which had contributed generously to the
+Republican war-chest would remain inactive in the presence of an
+opportunity to revise the tariff.
+
+Immediately after his succession to office, therefore, McKinley called
+a special session of Congress to legislate upon the chosen subject. His
+message urged an increase in revenue to be brought about by high import
+duties which, he suggested, should be so levied as to be advantageous
+to commerce, manufacturing, agriculture, mining, building and labor.
+The projected bill was already in hand. Republican success in the
+election had insured the return of Thomas B. Reed to the speaker's
+chair and Nelson Dingley to the Committee on Ways and Means. The latter
+was as devoted to the high-tariff cause as the Speaker and the
+President, and had laboriously constructed a bill which was distinctly
+protective. The legislative history of the Tariff Act of 1897--more
+commonly known as the Dingley act--was in several respects much like
+that of similar measures of earlier years. Its passage through the
+House was expedited by the masterful personality and vigorous tactics
+of the Speaker--a process which consumed less than a fortnight. In the
+Senate, bargain and delay ruled procedure; a few of the silver
+Republicans held the balance of power and demanded a _quid pro quo_ for
+their support; and the Secretary of the Wool Manufacturers' Association
+preserved a suggestively close connection with the Finance Committee
+which had charge of the bill. After amending the House draft in 872
+particulars, the Senate entrusted its interests to the usual conference
+committee, and there, as had happened before, the rates were in many
+cases raised above those desired by either the Senate or the House. The
+bill became law in July, 1897.
+
+The Dingley act added little to the settlement of the tariff problem.
+The ordinary consumer was as little able as before to present his
+demands effectively and at the time and place at which the rates were
+really determined. The requirements of the silver Republicans were met
+by the imposition of high duties on wool. For one reason or another,
+duties were restored or raised upon hides, silks and linens, although
+those on cotton goods were slightly lowered. The duty on sugar was
+retained at a point favorable to the trust. In brief, then, the Act of
+1897 was aggressively protectionist. An abortive section of the act
+empowered the President to conclude treaties providing for reductions,
+as great as twenty per cent., in return for commercial concessions from
+other countries. Such reciprocity arrangements, however, must be made
+within two years of the passage of the law and might not remain in
+force more than five years, and each treaty must be ratified by the
+Senate. The President was favorable to reciprocal adjustments and
+several were arranged but were uniformly rejected in the Senate.
+
+Business was prosperous after the enactment of the Dingley tariff and
+little agitation for a change was observable for a decade. Prosperity,
+being world wide, was doubtless not due in its entirety to the American
+tariff, yet the coincidence of protection and good times gave the
+Dingley act a pleasant reputation. For many years enthusiastic stump
+speakers placed the beneficence of Providence and the tariff of 1897 on
+an equality as causes of American well-being.
+
+The President's first message to Congress had extended congratulations
+upon the fact that peace and good will with all the nations of the
+earth continued unbroken. Nevertheless it was necessary for him to
+devote much attention to the relations between Spain and its most
+valuable American possession--the island of Cuba.
+
+American interest in Cuba was by no means of recent growth. The
+situation of the island--dominating the narrowest point of the waterway
+between the Atlantic seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico--insured the
+importance of Cuba as a strategic position. The traditional attitude of
+Spain toward her colony had been one of exploitation, a policy which
+was sure to be looked upon with suspicion by a nation which had itself
+revolted from oppression. Riots and rebellions in the island, having
+their origin in Spain's colonial policy, had long engaged American
+sympathy and attention. American statesmen--Jefferson, John Quincy
+Adams, Clay and Webster--had pondered upon the wisest and most
+advantageous disposition of Cuba. In 1859 the Senate Committee on
+Foreign Relations had even concluded that "The ultimate acquisition of
+Cuba may be considered a fixed purpose of the United States." From 1868
+to 1878 the "Ten Years' War" between Cuba and Spain had raised American
+feeling to a high pitch. The struggle was characterized by a barbarity
+that rivalled mediaeval warfare; islanders who escaped to the United
+States sent ships to Cuba laden with arms and men; American trade
+rights were interfered with and American citizens seized by the
+Spaniards and shot; the _Virginius_ was captured--a ship carrying the
+American flag--and many of her crew were executed. Indignation meetings
+were held, the navy was put in order and war was in sight. Cautious
+diplomatic negotiations delayed hostilities, however, and subsequently
+exhaustion caused the restoration of peace between Spain and her
+distracted colony.
+
+With the recurrence of insurrection in 1895, interest in the United
+States was renewed, and this time circumstances combined to bring about
+a climax in American relations with Spain. On both sides the contest
+between Spain and her colony was carried on with unutterable cruelty.
+The island leader, Maximo Gomez, conducted guerrilla warfare,
+devastating the country, destroying plantation buildings and forcing
+laborers to cease work, in order to exhaust the enemy or to bring about
+American intervention. Spanish procedure was even more barbaric. A
+"reconcentration" order, promulgated by Valeriano Weyler,
+Governor-general of the island and General-in-chief of the army,
+compelled the rural population to herd together in the garrisoned
+towns. Their buildings were then burned and their cattle driven away or
+killed; hygienic precautions were disregarded and the people themselves
+were insufficiently clothed and fed. The extermination of the
+inhabitants proceeded so rapidly as to promise complete devastation in
+a short time.
+
+President Cleveland had been deeply affected by the Cuban situation.
+His last annual message to Congress had noted the $30,000,000 to
+$50,000,000 of American capital invested in the island, the volume of
+trade amounting yearly to $100,000,000, the use of American soil by
+Cubans and Cuban sympathizers for raising funds and purchasing
+equipment, and the stream of claims for damages done to American
+property in Cuba. In spite of his well-known disinclination to share in
+the internal affairs of other peoples, he had voiced a suggestive
+warning that American patience could not be maintained indefinitely.
+
+The succession of McKinley seemed likely to result in a change in the
+attitude of America toward the Cuban problem. He was more responsive to
+public opinion than his predecessor had been, public opinion was more
+and more coming to favor intervention, and his party had committed
+itself in its platform to Cuban independence through American action.
+Moreover, two events early in 1898 greatly irritated the United States.
+
+On February 9 a New York newspaper published a letter written by Senor
+Enrique Dupuy de Lome, Spanish minister to the United States, to a
+personal friend in Havana. It referred to President McKinley as a
+"would-be politician who tries to leave a door open behind himself
+while keeping on good terms with the jingoes of his party." It further
+revealed the intention of the Minister to carry on a propaganda among
+senators in the interest of a commercial treaty. On all sides it was
+seen that the usefulness of Senor de Lome was at an end and his
+government immediately recalled him. On February 15 the whole world was
+shocked by the destruction of the United States battleship _Maine_ in
+Havana harbor, with the loss of 260 officers and men. News of the
+disaster was accompanied by the appeal of Captain Sigsby, commander of
+the vessel, that popular judgment of the causes of the disaster be
+suspended until a court of inquiry could investigate and report.
+Nevertheless on March 9, Congress placed $50,000,000 at the President's
+disposal for the purposes of national defence and the navy prepared for
+a conflict that seemed inevitable. Both the Spanish and American
+authorities conducted examinations. The American court reported that
+the ship had been destroyed by the explosion of a submarine mine, which
+had caused the partial explosion of two or more of her magazines. No
+evidence could be found which would fix the responsibility on any
+individual. The Spanish court came to the conclusion that the
+catastrophe was due solely to an explosion of the ship's magazines.
+American opinion naturally supported the findings of the American
+court, and feeling ran high; newspapers demanded war; "Remember the
+_Maine_" summarized much of popular discussion.[4]
+
+Under such circumstances, diplomatic negotiations looking toward peace
+were difficult, and resulted only in disagreements and delay.
+Accordingly on April 11 the President laid before Congress a succinct
+account of Cuban affairs and earnestly called for forcible
+intervention. The grounds for this action he found in the sufferings of
+the people of Cuba, the injuries to Americans and to American property
+and trade, and the menace to American peace which was entailed by
+continuous conflict at our very threshold.[5] The transfer of the Cuban
+question from the hands of the President to those of Congress was
+equivalent to a decision in favor of war. On April 19 the Senate and
+House resolved that the people of Cuba were and ought to be
+independent, demanded that Spain withdraw from the island and directed
+the President to use the force of the nation to achieve the results
+desired. The approval of the Executive on the following day completed
+the severance of peaceful relations with Spain. At daylight on April 22
+Admiral Sampson and his fleet were crossing the narrows between Florida
+and Cuba, on the way to establish a blockade of the greater part of the
+island. Within three days more, Commodore George Dewey, who was in
+command of a fleet at Hong-Kong, had been instructed to proceed at once
+to the Philippine Islands and capture or destroy the Spanish fleet
+there. On April 25 Congress formally declared war upon the kingdom of
+Spain.
+
+It was not by mere chance, of course, that Admiral Sampson and
+Commodore Dewey were prepared to act with such celerity. Authorities in
+the Navy Department had long felt that a collision with Spain was
+inevitable and had been preparing for such an eventuality. With as
+little publicity as possible the Department completed and commissioned
+ships that were already under construction; it hastened the repair of
+vessels which were in any way defective; it ordered target practice and
+fleet manoeuvres; and it prepared plans for the conduct of a naval war.
+Commanders of squadrons were instructed to keep in service men whose
+terms of enlistment were about to expire; supplies of ammunition were
+procured and shipped to points where they would be needed; the
+_Oregon_, which had been stationed on the Pacific coast, was ordered to
+return to Key West by way of the Straits of Magellan and so began a
+voyage whose closing days were watched with interest by a whole nation.
+A Northern Patrol Squadron was organized to guard New England; a Flying
+Squadron was assembled at Hampton Roads for service on the Atlantic
+coast or abroad; and a formidable array gathered at Key West under
+Rear-Admiral Sampson for duty in the West Indies. Foreign shipyards
+were scoured for vessels in process of building and several were
+purchased, completed and renamed for American service. Greater
+additions were made through the purchase of merchantmen and their
+transformation into auxiliary cruisers, gunboats and colliers. In these
+ways the attempt was made, with some success, to improvise a navy on
+the eve of war.
+
+The people of the country had scarcely become accustomed to the thought
+that war with Spain had actually come to pass when word was received in
+Washington of the exploit of Commodore Dewey in the Philippine Islands.
+Attention for the moment was focussed on the Far East, and the press
+dilated upon the first test of the new American Navy.
+
+The story of the test proved to have points of interest and importance.
+When Commodore Dewey received the orders already mentioned, on April
+25, he finished immediately the preparations for conflict which had
+been initiated and turned his flagship, the _Olympia_, in the direction
+of Manila. His available force consisted of four protected cruisers,
+two gunboats, a revenue cutter, a collier and a supply ship. The city
+of Manila is on Manila Bay, a body of water twenty miles or more wide,
+and is reached only through a narrow entrance. Dewey judged that the
+channel was too deep to be mined successfully except by trained experts
+and that both contact and electrical mines would deteriorate so rapidly
+in tropical waters as to be effective only for a short time. He
+therefore decided to steam through the channel at night, disregarding
+the mines, and to attack the Spanish fleet which lay within. The plans
+worked out even better than he had hoped. With all lights masked and
+the crews at the guns, the squadron moved silently through the passage
+with no other opposition than three shots from a single battery. Once
+within the Bay Dewey steamed slowly toward the city of Manila and then
+back to a fortified point, Cavite, where he found his quarry arranged
+in an irregular crescent and awaiting the conflict. Oblivious of the
+hasty and inaccurate fire from the batteries on shore, he deliberately
+moved to a position within two and a half miles of the Spanish ships
+and said to the Captain of the _Olympia_, "You may fire when you are
+ready, Gridley."
+
+[Illustration:
+The Philippines]
+
+Three times westward and twice eastward the American squadron ran
+slowly back and forth, using the port and starboard batteries in turn,
+and in a short time the shore batteries and the Spanish fleet were
+masses of ruins. Of the American forces, only eight were injured, and
+they only slightly, while 167 of the Spanish were killed and 214
+wounded. News of the victory was as unexpected as it was welcome in the
+United States. President McKinley appointed Dewey an acting
+Rear-Admiral and on all sides discussion began of the situation and
+possibilities of the Philippines.
+
+In the meantime, the position of the American squadron was far from
+secure. To be sure, all resistance from the batteries in and around
+Manila was quickly suppressed by a threat to destroy the city;
+nevertheless Admiral Dewey was in command of too slight a force to
+enable him to occupy both the town and its environs. He accordingly
+notified Washington that more troops were necessary if it were intended
+to seize and retain Manila, and expeditionary forces were despatched,
+the first of which arrived on June 30. Indeed it was high time that
+assistance be forthcoming, for new possibilities of conflict had
+appeared in the presence of a powerful force of German warships.
+
+As soon as the defeat of the Spanish squadron had been effected,
+Admiral Dewey established a blockade of Manila Bay and, according to
+custom, the war vessels of interested nations went thither to observe
+the effectiveness of the blockade and to care for the well-being of
+their nationals. Among the early arrivals were the British, the French
+and the Japanese, all of whom observed the formalities of the situation
+and reported to the American Admiral before venturing into the harbor.
+The Germans, however, omitted the proprieties until sharply reminded by
+a shot across the bow of the _Cormoran_. By mid-June five German
+men-of-war under command of Vice Admiral von Diedrichs were in the
+Bay--a force nearly if not quite the match of the American squadron.
+When the Germans continued their disregard of the regulations
+controlling the blockade, indicating a potential if not an actual
+hostility, it became necessary for Admiral Dewey to have done with the
+Teutonic peril at once. He sent a verbal message to von Diedrichs which
+effectually ended all controversy. Admiral Dewey has not disclosed the
+exact phraseology of the message, nor did he send a record of it to the
+Navy Department. A newspaper correspondent who was acting as one of the
+Admiral's aides asserted that the protest was against von Diedrich's
+disregard of the usual courtesies of naval intercourse and that it
+closed with the words, "if he wants a fight he can have it right now."
+The disclosure by Captain Edward Chichester, in command of the English
+force, that he had orders to comply with Admiral Dewey's restrictions
+and that his sympathies were with the Americans, together with the
+arrival of the expeditionary force, assured American supremacy and a
+peaceful blockade. On August 13 a joint movement of the naval forces
+and the infantry under General Wesley Merritt resulted in the speedy
+surrender of the city of Manila. The Americans were now in control of
+the capital of the Philippine Islands and would, perforce, face the
+question of the ultimate disposition of the archipelago in case of the
+eventual defeat of Spain. In the meanwhile, popular attention turned
+toward stirring events which were taking place in the Caribbean Sea.
+
+On April 28--a week after Admiral Sampson started for Cuba--the Spanish
+Admiral Cervera left the Cape Verde Islands. His force was a
+considerable one; his goal was unknown, although naturally believed to
+be some point in the Spanish West Indies. On the assumption that this
+hypothesis was a correct one, Sampson patrolled the northern coast of
+Cuba, extending his movement as far as Porto Rico, and scouts were
+placed out beyond Guadeloupe and Martinique. The entire nation
+anxiously awaited the outcome of the impending encounter.
+
+[Illustration:
+The Spanish-American War in the West Indies]
+
+On May 19 Cervera slipped into Santiago, a town on the eastern end of
+Cuba which had rail connection with Havana, the capital of the island.
+Commodore W.S. Schley who was in command of a squadron on the southern
+coast soon received information of the enemy's whereabouts and
+established a blockade of the city, while Sampson hastened to the scene
+and assumed command of operations. The American force now included four
+first-class battleships, one second-class battleship and two cruisers.
+They were arranged in semi-circular formation facing the harbor, and at
+night powerful search-lights were kept directed upon the channel which
+Admiral Cervera must take in case of an attempt to escape. The main
+part of Santiago Bay is between four and five miles long and is reached
+through a narrow entrance channel. Elevated positions at the mouth of
+the channel rendered the vigorous defence of the harbor a matter of
+some ease. Early in the progress of the blockade the Americans
+attempted to sink a collier across the entrance, but fortunately, as it
+turned out, this daring project failed, and Admiral Sampson settled
+down to await developments.
+
+It was apparent that the capture of Santiago, and the destruction of
+the fleet could be brought about only through a joint movement of the
+army and navy. Hitherto the war had been entirely on the sea.
+Nevertheless over 200,000 volunteers had been called for, in addition
+to somewhat over 50,000 regular troops and the "Rough Riders"--the last
+a regiment of volunteer cavalry which had been raised by Colonel
+Leonard Wood and Theodore Roosevelt and which was largely composed of
+cowboys, ranchmen, Indians and athletes from eastern colleges. The
+regulars, together with a few volunteers and the Rough Riders, were
+sent to Tampa, Florida, while most of the volunteers were trained at
+Chicamauga Park, in Georgia. It had been expected that the important
+military operations would take place around Havana and for that reason
+the officer commanding the army, General Nelson A. Miles, with most of
+the regular troops, were retained for the larger service. The command
+of the expedition to Santiago fell to General William E. Shafter.
+Sixteen thousand eight hundred and eighty-seven officers and men set
+sail from Tampa on June 14 and began to disembark eight days later at
+Daiquiri, sixteen miles to the east of Santiago.
+
+Advancing from this point General Lawton, commanding a division of
+infantry, moved parallel to the shore and seized Siboney. General
+Wheeler, a former Confederate who was now in command of the cavalry,
+met and defeated a Spanish force at Las Guasimas. Further advance met
+difficulties that were more serious. On the left of the American line
+was San Juan Hill, an eminence which commanded the country toward the
+east; on the right was El Caney, a fortified village held by a small
+force of Spaniards. The country between the two points was a jungle,
+the roads hardly better than trails, where troops frequently had to
+go in single file. The fight at El Caney was severe, the enemy being
+well-entrenched, well-armed and protected by wire entanglements and
+block houses, and General Lawton suffered a loss of more than 400
+killed and wounded before driving the Spaniards out of their position.
+San Juan Hill was still more stubbornly defended, and an American
+advance was impeded by the heat, the tropical growth and the uneven
+character of the country. Under these circumstances officers became
+separated from their men and victory was gained through the
+determination and resourcefulness of the individual. The Spaniards then
+fell back upon Santiago.
+
+[Illustration:
+Campaign about Santiago]
+
+The continued success of the Americans compelled the Spanish
+authorities to make an immediate decision in regard to the fleet. To
+remain in the harbor seemed to mean being encircled and starved; to go
+out through the narrow channel seemed to lead to sure destruction. Yet
+the latter venture appealed to the commander-in-chief of Cuba,
+Captain-General Blanco, as the more honorable one and on July 2 orders
+were sent to Admiral Cervera to make the attempt. Early next morning,
+while Admiral Sampson was away at a conference with General Shafter,
+lookouts on the American battleships descried the _Infanta Maria
+Teresa_ feeling her way out of the harbor, followed by the remainder
+of the Spanish fleet, three armored cruisers and two torpedo-boat
+destroyers. The Americans instantly closed in, directing their fire
+first against the _Teresa_ and later against the rest of the fleet as
+they tried to follow their leader out to safety. Once out of the harbor
+the entire Spanish fleet dashed headlong toward the west, parallel to
+the coast, while the Americans kept pace, pouring a gruelling fire from
+every available gun. The Spaniards returned the fire and thus "the
+action resolved itself into a series of magnificent duels between
+powerful ironclads." One by one the enemy's vessels were sunk or forced
+to run ashore--the _Cristobal Colon_ last, at two o'clock in the
+afternoon. The Spanish losses, besides the fleet, were 323 killed and
+151 wounded; the Americans lost one killed and one wounded. The city of
+Santiago, deprived of its fleet, found itself in a desperate plight and
+surrendered on July 16. Shortly afterwards General Miles led an
+expedition into Porto Rico, but operations were soon brought to a close
+because of the suspension of hostilities, and from a military point of
+view the importance of the campaign was negligible.
+
+The succession of overwhelming defeats drove home to Spain the futility
+of further conflict. The despatch of American troops to the Philippines
+and to Porto Rico, moreover, indicated that Spain would soon suffer
+other losses. Hence the Spanish government, acting through Jules
+Cambon, the French ambassador to the United States, sought terms for
+the settlement of the war. The President's reply of July 30 made the
+following stipulations: Spain to relinquish and evacuate Cuba and to
+cede Porto Rico and one of the Ladrone Islands; the United States to
+occupy the city and bay of Manila, pending the conclusion of peace and
+the determination of the final disposition of the Philippines. Spain
+wished to restrict negotiations to the Cuban question, but was forced
+to accept the conditions laid down by the victor. A preliminary
+agreement or protocol was therefore signed, which provided for a
+conference at Paris concerning peace terms.
+
+The uniform success of the American arms could not obscure the popular
+belief that the Department of War had been guilty of many shortcomings.
+It will doubtless be always a subject for dispute as to whether the
+major portion of the blame is to be laid at the door of the traditional
+American disinclination to be prepared for warfare, or upon Secretary
+Alger and his immediate advisors. That the conduct of the military
+affairs was inexpert, however, is admitted on all sides. The facilities
+for taking care of the troops at Tampa were inadequate. When transports
+reached Tampa to take the troops to Santiago, officers wildly scrambled
+to get their men on board. The Rough Riders, for example, made their
+way into a transport intended for two other regiments, one of regulars
+and the other of volunteers, with the result that the volunteers and
+half of the regulars were left on shore. The clothing supplied for the
+Cuban campaign was better suited to a cold climate than to summer in
+the tropics. The health of the troops during the Santiago campaign was
+such that the general officers expressed the opinion that the army must
+immediately be removed from Cuba or suffer severe and unnecessary
+losses from malarial fever. When the men were removed, however, they
+were taken to Montauk Point on Long Island, where the climate was too
+cool and bracing. Unsanitary conditions in the training camps within
+the borders of the United States were the cause of fatalities estimated
+at several times the number killed in battle. A controversy over the
+quality of the beef supplied to the troops led to an executive
+commission of investigation. Both unnecessary and unfortunate was the
+Sampson-Schley controversy, which originated in a difference of opinion
+about the proportion of credit which each of these officers should have
+for the success of Santiago and which was continued in charges that the
+latter had made serious mistakes in the conduct of his share of the
+operations. Subsequently a Court of Inquiry investigated the
+accusations and made a decision which did not completely satisfy either
+side.
+
+Despite these minor mistakes, however, the war increased the strength
+of the administration. The most lasting effects of the conflict on
+constitutional and political history demand detailed discussion at a
+later point, but the immediate results can be briefly stated.[6] The
+successful prosecution of a popular war, combined with widespread
+prosperity and the demoralization of the opposition party greatly
+heightened the prestige of the Republicans. McKinley appeared to have
+been in truth, the "advance agent of prosperity"; and his party
+obtained a dominating control of public policy.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+H. Croly, _Marcus A. Hanna_ (1912), and C.S. Olcott, _William McKinley_
+(2 vols., 1916), discuss the politics of the period, subject to the
+limitations already mentioned. W.D. Foulke, _Fighting the Spoilsman_
+(1919), describes the relation of the administration to the civil
+service; for the Dingley tariff, Stanwood, Tarbell and Taussig.
+
+The literature on the Spanish war is extensive. Most detailed and
+reliable is F.E. Chadwick, _Relations of the United States and Spain_;
+I, _Diplomacy_, II, III, _The Spanish War_ (1909, 1911). J.H. Latane,
+_America as a World Power_ (1907), has several good chapters; H.E.
+Flack, _Spanish-American Diplomatic Relations Preceding the War of
+1898_ (1906), and E.J. Benton, _International Law and Diplomacy of the
+Spanish-American War_ (1908), take up the diplomatic side. On naval
+preparations, J.D. Long, _New American Navy_ (2 vols., 1903), is by
+McKinley's Secretary of the Navy; see also E.S. Maclay, _History of
+the United States Navy_ (rev. ed., 3 vols., 1901-1902). Good
+autobiographical accounts are: C.E. Clark, _My Fifty Years in the Navy_
+(1917); George Dewey, _Autobiography_ (1913); Theodore Roosevelt,
+_Autobiography_; and W.S. Schley, _Forty-five Years under the Flag_
+(1914). See also A.T. Mahan, _Lessons of the War with Spain_ (1899).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Cf. Peck, 518.
+
+[2] Other members of the cabinet were: Lyman J. Gage, Ill., Secretary
+of the Treasury; Joseph McKenna, Calif., Attorney-General; J.A. Gary,
+Md., Postmaster-General; J.D. Long, Mass., Secretary of the Navy, C.N.
+Bliss, Secretary of the Interior; James Wilson, Ia., Secretary of
+Agriculture.
+
+[3] The National Civil Service Reform League estimated the changes at
+10,000.
+
+[4] In 1911 the wreck of the _Maine_ was raised and examined. The
+evidence found was such as to substantiate the findings of the American
+court of inquiry. _Scientific American_, January 27, 1912.
+
+[5] It has commonly been felt among certain classes in the United
+States since 1898 that the business interests whose property and trade
+were mentioned by President McKinley had an undue share in bringing
+about the declaration of war. While it can not be doubted that the
+President was swayed more by business interests than most of our
+executives since the Civil War have been, yet it is also true that the
+sufferings of the Cubans aroused genuine sympathy in the United States.
+The President himself was anxious to delay war as long as possible.
+
+[6] Below, Chap. XVIII.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+IMPERIALISM
+
+"The guns of Admiral Dewey did something more than destroy a Spanish
+fleet in the harbor of Manila. Their echo came back to us in a
+question new in the history of our government." The new problem was
+Imperialism--was it wise policy and was it constitutional to annex and
+govern territories outside the limits of continental North America? In
+colonial problems the United States had had no experience; and if the
+Philippines, Cuba or Porto Rico were annexed, it would be necessary
+to administer the affairs of peoples whose languages, racial
+characteristics and forms of government were utterly strange. Such
+objections arose in the minds of many Americans as the conference
+assembled at Paris on October 1 to settle the terms of peace.[1]
+
+The chief controversies between the Spanish and the American negotiators
+related to Cuba and the Philippines. The Spanish commissioners early
+proposed to transfer Cuba to the United States, the latter to turn it
+over to the Cuban people in due time. With the sovereignty of Cuba was
+to go the debt of the island. On the refusal of the Americans to accede
+to this, the Spanish commissioners urged the transfer of Cuba to the
+United States without any promise as to its future. Instructions from
+Washington both on possession and on debt, however, were explicit and
+in the end Spain had to relinquish all claim to Cuba and assume
+responsibility for its indebtedness. The proper disposition of the
+Philippines presented far greater difficulty. Not only was there a
+difference of opinion between the two groups of commissioners, but the
+American government was in doubt about the wisest course to pursue, and
+grave diversity of opinion existed among the people and in the peace
+commission itself. Moreover the capture of the city of Manila had taken
+place after the protocol had been signed and after hostilities had been
+ordered suspended, but before news of these facts had reached Admiral
+Dewey. The original instructions of President McKinley to the peace
+commissioners were to the effect that the outcome of the war had placed
+new duties and responsibilities on the United States, that the
+commercial opportunity which possession of the Philippines would present
+could not be overlooked and that the island of Luzon at least must be
+ceded. So little was known about the people and the possibilities of the
+islands that the American commission was compelled to go far afield to
+obtain information from writers and investigators in regard to questions
+of defence, the political capacity of the inhabitants, the danger that
+another nation might step in if the United States should evacuate,
+commercial prospects, and so on. President McKinley soon came to the
+opinion that the proper course was to take the entire archipelago. To
+give them back to Spain seemed "dishonorable"; to turn them over to our
+commercial rivals, France or Germany, seemed "bad business"; to leave
+them to themselves would be to leave them to "anarchy and misrule";
+hence there was nothing to do but to take all of them and attempt to
+spread American civilization among the Filipino people. The American
+commissioners therefore demanded the Philippines, but realizing the
+defect in their case, since the conquest of Manila had taken place after
+the conclusion of the protocol, agreed to pay Spain $20,000,000. The
+Spanish commissioners thereupon yielded to necessity and reluctantly
+agreed.
+
+As finally signed, the treaty of December 10, 1898, contained the
+following points: Spain agreed to relinquish Cuba, and the United
+States was to protect life and property during its occupancy of the
+island; Spain also ceded Porto Rico and the other Spanish West Indies,
+Guam in the Ladrones, and the Philippines on payment of $20,000,000;
+the United States agreed to return to Spain, at its own cost, all
+Spanish prisoners taken at the time of the capture of Manila; the
+civil and political rights of the inhabitants of the ceded territories
+were to be determined by Congress; and freedom of religion was
+guaranteed.
+
+The reference of the treaty to the Senate for ratification elicited
+many divergences of opinion, the ablest opposition being presented by
+members of the President's own party. In particular, the position
+taken by Senator Hoar, a rigid Republican and a close friend of
+President McKinley, made a strong impression. That there can be no
+just government without the consent of the governed, he asserted, was
+the central doctrine of the Declaration of Independence. Moreover, the
+acquisition of foreign lands, he believed, would lead us into
+competition with European powers for territory, and thus tempt us away
+from the international policy which had been laid down by the
+"fathers" and followed by the nation ever since. Most of the Democrats
+held similar views, but some of them heeded the advice of Bryan, who
+urged that the treaty be ratified in order to end the war, and that
+the ultimate disposition of the new possessions be decided in the next
+presidential campaign. The point of view which seems to have prevailed
+with most Republicans was that the United States, being a sovereign
+nation, possessed power to acquire territory and to determine its
+future status, and that as a matter of expediency it was better to
+take the Philippines than to risk the dangers which lay in leaving
+them alone. Shortly before the final vote was taken, an insurrection
+broke out in the Philippines against American control, which may have
+influenced some senators to accept the President's settlement. Even
+with this aid, however, ratification was brought about by the narrow
+margin of one vote more than the required two-thirds majority.[2]
+
+Within the field of politics, the Republicans increased the advantage
+which they had gained in 1896. The congressional and state elections
+of 1893 continued their control of the House and strengthened it in
+the Senate; the world-wide prosperity which has already been mentioned
+and in which the United States shared, was in striking contrast with
+the business depression of the recent Democratic administration;
+discoveries of gold deposits in the Klondike and the improvement of
+methods of extracting the metal from the ore greatly increased the
+currency supply and assisted in raising the level of prices, thereby
+giving greater prosperity to the western farmer and lessening his
+complaints. The gold standard act of March 14, 1900, pleased the
+financial interests, for it fixed the standard of value, set the
+amount of the gold reserve at $150,000,000, and specified adequate
+means by which the Secretary of the Treasury could maintain other
+forms of money on a parity with the precious metal. Within the
+Republican organization, the President's soothing personality and
+Hanna's meticulous attention to the details of the party machinery
+continued undiminished the momentum which had been gathered.
+Defections on the imperialism issue, while affecting important party
+leaders, were numerically unimportant. Among the financial and
+industrial classes, therefore, confidence in President McKinley and
+his advisors was thoroughgoing. There was a strong bond of interest,
+moreover, between territorial expansion and industrial expansion,
+between Imperialism and the expansion of foreign markets. The primacy
+of business was assured.
+
+The renomination of McKinley at the Republican Convention in
+Philadelphia, on June 19, 1900, was unanimous. The vice-presidency,
+contrary to tradition, occupied the center of interest. Several men of
+prominence were mentioned in this connection but the name which evoked
+most enthusiasm was that of Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt's career
+during the war with Spain had been a prominent factor in making him
+Governor of New York. As Governor he had shown energy and independence,
+especially in connection with measures for taxing street railway and
+other franchises, and had come into conflict with Senator Thomas C.
+Platt, the boss of the state. Senator Platt, therefore, desired to
+divert the vigorous Governor into the vice-presidency, an office which
+usually casts a "species of political oblivion" over its occupant.
+McKinley was opposed to the plan and so were Hanna and Roosevelt
+himself. The latter desired to put into effect further plans which he
+had made as Governor, and the attempt to shelve him aroused his
+fighting spirit. In the convention, however, sentiment in behalf of
+Roosevelt, especially from the West, was so strong as to over-rule
+both the administration and the wishes of the Governor. McKinley sent
+emphatic word that he was neither for nor against any man, but would
+accept the decision of the delegates. Hanna then withdrew his
+objections and Roosevelt was nominated without opposition.
+
+The Republican platform emphasized the prosperity which had resulted
+from the accession of the party to power; it pointed out the danger
+which would ensue if the opposition were allowed to conduct public
+affairs; and it dwelt upon the growth of the export trade, and the
+beneficence of the Dingley tariff. An antitrust plank deprecated
+combinations designed to create monopolies, and promised legislation
+to prevent such abuses. Imperialism was briefly dismissed: "No other
+course was possible than to destroy Spain's sovereignty throughout the
+West Indies and in the Philippine Islands. That course created our
+responsibility before the world ... to provide for the maintenance of
+law and order, and for the establishment of good government and for
+the performance of international obligations."
+
+The dissension which had existed within the Democratic party since the
+second administration of Cleveland was still the important fact about
+the organization. Having been out of power, the party could take only
+the negative position of hostile criticism; there had been no
+reorganization and clarification of purposes, and no new leader had
+appeared who combined the personal prestige of Bryan with those
+qualities of conservatism and solidity which the East demanded, so
+that from the beginning there was no doubt that Bryan would again be
+the candidate and that he would take the lead in framing the platform.
+The convention met in Kansas City, on July 4. The platform placed most
+emphasis upon three issues. The first, which was declared the
+"paramount" one, was imperialism. The reasons given for opposing
+territorial expansion were mainly those brought forward by Senator
+Hoar at the time when the peace treaty was under discussion.
+
+    We declare again that all governments instituted among men derive
+    their just powers from the consent of the governed; that any
+    government not based upon the consent of the governed is a tyranny;
+    and that to impose upon any people a government of force is to
+    substitute the methods of imperialism for those of a republic.
+
+The second issue, the evils of big business, received renewed
+attention, although an old complaint, because of the many industrial
+consolidations of the years immediately preceding. The "trusts" were
+condemned for appropriating the fruits of industry for the benefit of
+the few, and the Republican party was charged with fostering them in
+return for campaign subscriptions and political support. The Dingley
+act was denounced as a "trust-breeding" measure. The remedies proposed
+were severely definite in comparison with the vague plank which had
+been offered by the Republicans: they included publicity as to the
+affairs of corporations doing an interstate business; the prohibition
+of stock-watering and attempts at monopoly; and the use of all the
+constitutional powers of Congress over interstate commerce and the
+mails for the enactment of comprehensive and effective legislation.
+That the silver issue was mentioned was due to the insistence of Bryan,
+who believed that the stand which had been taken by the party in 1896
+was a right one. Notwithstanding the objections of many influential
+leaders, therefore, a free silver plank was inserted, although in brief
+terms and in an inconspicuous place.
+
+As a political contest, the campaign of 1900 lacked life in comparison
+with that of 1896. Interest in anti-imperialism was difficult to
+arouse, and waned visibly as the weeks wore on. Prosperity and the
+increased money supply sapped the strength of earlier discontent with
+the currency situation, so that the choice presented to the voters
+simmered down to imperialism and Bryan. A bit of vigor was infused into
+the campaign through the energetic speaking tours of Roosevelt and the
+Democratic leader. Hanna, as Chairman of the Republican National
+Committee, organized everything with his usual skill, and raised, his
+biographer tells us, $2,500,000 from the important business men of the
+country--one-fifth of it from two companies. The result of the election
+was the choice of McKinley, whose plurality over Bryan exceeded 860,000
+in a total vote of less than 14,000,000; Bryan received less support
+than had been accorded him in 1896.
+
+While imperialism as a political issue was being discussed and decided,
+the history of American control in Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines
+was rapidly being written. Economic conditions in the first of these
+islands at the time of the American occupation were little short of
+appalling. The streets, houses and public institutions were filthy and
+in disrepair; anarchy ruled, for lack of any stable and recognized
+government; and the people were half-clothed, homeless and starving. At
+noon on January 1, 1899, the Spanish flag was hauled down in Havana,
+the American flag was hoisted in its place, and representatives of the
+former government relinquished all rights to the sovereignty and public
+property of the island. General John R. Brooke, and later General
+Leonard Wood controlled affairs as military governors.
+
+The first task was to feed the hungry, and care for the sick and dying.
+The customs service was revived under command of Colonel Tasker H.
+Bliss and began to supply needed revenue. The penal institutions were
+investigated--noisome holes in which were crowded wretched prisoners,
+many of whom had been incarcerated for no ascertainable reason.
+Education was reorganized, equipment provided, teachers found, and
+schools repaired or rebuilt. Most remarkable, was the work of
+sanitation. Heaps of rubbish were cleared away; houses washed and
+disinfected; sewers were opened and streets cleaned. Scientific
+investigation disclosed the fact that the mosquito disseminated the
+yellow fever and steps were taken to prevent the breeding of these
+pests. So successful were the efforts that in a few years the fever had
+become a thing of the past.
+
+It was seen that the economic rehabilitation of Cuba must come about
+mainly through the production of sugar, and since the United States was
+the chief purchaser of the product, the tariff schedule was of vital
+importance. In 1901 Congress was urged to reduce the tariff on imports
+from Cuba, but the opposition was formidable. The American Beet Sugar
+Association complained that their industry, which had been recently
+established, would be ruined by allowing reductions to Cuban growers;
+the cane-sugar planters of Louisiana were allied with them; and the
+friends of protection feared the effect of any break in the tariff
+wall. On the other hand, the American Sugar Refining Company, popularly
+called the "Sugar Trust," merely refined raw sugar and desired an
+increase in the supply. Lobbyists of all descriptions poured into
+Washington to influence committees and individuals, and General Leonard
+Wood, then the Governor of Cuba, even expended Cuban funds in the
+spread of literature favorable to a reciprocal reduction of duties. In
+the meantime, a reciprocity treaty was made and submitted to the
+Senate, where it hung fire for somewhat more than a year, and was
+finally ratified on December 16, 1903. It provided for the admission of
+Cuban products into the United States at a reduction of twenty per
+cent., and a reciprocal reduction on American goods entering Cuba of
+twenty-five to forty per cent.
+
+The establishment of a policy in regard to permanent relations between
+the United States and Cuba was brought about in 1901-1902. When
+Congress had demanded the withdrawal of Spain from the island in 1898,
+its action had been accompanied by the Teller Resolution, disclaiming
+any intention of keeping Cuba and asserting a determination to leave
+the control of the island with its people. After the close of the war
+President McKinley and his closest advisors in Congress had determined
+that the pledge should be kept, and public sentiment had been in
+agreement with them. As soon, therefore, as American control was an
+established fact, plans were formulated for relinquishing Cuba to the
+people of the island. A constitutional convention was held, and a form
+of government, modelled on that of the United States, was framed and
+adopted on February 21, 1901.
+
+While the Cuban convention was deliberating, it became apparent that
+the constitution would not include any statement of a policy in regard
+to future relations with the United States. The American Senate,
+therefore, under the leadership of Senator O.H. Platt, passed the
+so-called "Platt Amendment." Its several provisions were as follows:
+the Cuban government shall never enter into agreements with other
+powers which tend to impair the independence of the island; it shall
+not contract public debts of such size that the ordinary revenues would
+be inadequate to pay interest charges and provide for a sinking fund;
+it shall permit the intervention of the United States when needed to
+preserve Cuban independence and the maintenance of an adequate
+government; and it shall sell or lease necessary coaling stations to
+the United States. When satisfied that the purpose of the Amendment was
+not to enable the United States to meddle in affairs in Cuba, but
+merely to secure Cuban independence and set forth a definite
+understanding between the two nations, the convention incorporated it
+in the final constitution. On May 20, 1902, the control of Cuba was
+formally relinquished to the people of the island, with the good wishes
+of the people of the United States. Only once since that time has the
+United States intervened. During the summer of 1906, an insurrection
+against the Cuban government took place during which the president of
+the Republic requested American assistance. A small army was
+despatched, which remained until March, 1909, when quiet was restored
+and an orderly election was held.
+
+The task of the United States in Porto Rico was far simpler than in
+Cuba. The island was small; the people homogeneous, predominantly
+white, and well-disposed toward American occupation; and only slight
+damage had been done by the troops during the war because of the
+cessation of hostilities at the outset of the Porto Rican expedition.
+The development of a system of education, therefore, the improvement of
+roads and the betterment of health conditions through vaccination and
+the control of yellow fever presented a problem which was relatively
+simple.
+
+On October 18, 1898, United States officials assumed control of the
+island, and until May 1, 1900, the government was in the hands of the
+War Department. On the latter date a civil government was established
+under the "Foraker Act," an organic law or constitution passed by
+Congress on April 12, 1900. Under the provisions of the Act a governor
+was to be appointed by the President of the United States, to be the
+chief executive officer of the island. The people of Porto Rico were
+allowed a voice in the government through the power to elect the lower
+house of the legislature; but control by the United States was assured
+by giving the President authority to choose the members of the upper
+house, and by giving both the governor and Congress a veto on
+legislation passed by the island legislature. In the course of time the
+Porto Ricans desired larger self-government. This was granted by the
+act of March 2, 1917, which made the islanders citizens of the United
+States and gave them power to elect both houses of the legislature.[3]
+
+The first difficulty met by the United States in the Philippines was an
+inheritance from Spanish rule. In 1896 the Filipinos, led by Aguinaldo,
+had risen against the government in order to secure more liberal
+treatment and to eliminate the influence of the Catholic friars from
+politics. The "embers of dissatisfaction" were still aglow when the
+American war intervened. Relations between the revolutionists and the
+United States forces became strained when the former were not allowed
+to cooperate with the Americans against the Spanish, and in February,
+1899, open warfare followed. Not until July, 1902, was quiet restored,
+and during the process enough cruelties were practiced by American
+soldiers to make the anti-imperialists doubly fearful of military
+control.[4]
+
+McKinley and his Secretary of War--at this time Elihu Root--desired to
+supplant military government with civil rule as quickly as possible and
+to this end the President appointed the first Philippine Commission on
+January 20, 1899, with Jacob G. Schurman, of Cornell University, as
+Chairman. It was instructed to investigate the situation in the islands
+and to recommend any action that seemed wise. The unsettled condition
+of affairs seriously hampered the work of the Commission but it
+gathered a fund of information which it later published. A second
+Commission was sent out in 1900, with Judge William H. Taft at the
+head. The instructions given to the Commission by President McKinley
+embodied an enlightened colonial policy, the core of which was that the
+government being established was "designed not for our satisfaction, or
+for the expression of our theoretical views, but for the happiness,
+peace, and prosperity of the people of the Philippine Islands." The
+Commission wielded such large powers that gradually the area controlled
+by the civil government increased at the expense of the military
+authorities, and by 1902 only the wild Moros were under military
+control.
+
+By this time a definite form of government could be planned for, built
+upon the labors of the second Commission. The Philippine Act of July 1,
+1902, provided for a governor appointed by the President, with the
+advice of the Senate, executive departments, and a legislature, the
+lower house of which was elected by the people. From the beginning the
+Filipinos, like the Porto Ricans, have desired a greater range of
+self-government, and in 1916 long steps were taken in the direction
+desired by them. The Jones act of that year materially increased the
+powers of the Philippine government and gave the Filipinos power to
+elect the upper as well as the lower house of the legislature. The
+passage of the law met with enthusiastic approval in the islands.
+
+The purpose of American rule in the Philippines has been to fit the
+people for self-government, although opinions have differed as to how
+soon the final outcome could be brought about. An early and bothersome
+problem was found in the friars' lands, which consisted of about
+425,000 acres, for the most part in the vicinity of Manila. The
+possession of so great an area, together with the religious power and
+the considerable political authority which the friars exercised under
+Spanish rule, gave the Church a domination which might threaten trouble
+after the American occupation. The solution of the problem was found in
+the purchase of the lands for about $7,000,000 by the United States.
+Efforts have been made to introduce a complete system of
+education--physical and industrial, as well as academic--with such
+success that when the Jones bill was being discussed in Congress in
+1916 it was asserted that every member of the Philippine legislature at
+that time was a college graduate. In 1917 the Filipino student body
+numbered 647,256, with 11,822 teachers. Political education has also
+been a part of the American idea. Elementary self-government was
+gradually introduced, starting in the more civilized local
+municipalities and provinces and confining the suffrage to the educated
+people, the official classes and property owners. The preservation of
+order has been more and more entrusted to a Philippine constabulary;
+civil service officers and school teachers have been increasingly
+chosen from the Filipinos; and the courts have been partly manned with
+native judges. Work in sanitation has followed the lines marked out in
+Cuba and Porto Rico. First and last over 10,000,000 vaccinations were
+performed before 1914; small-pox has been controlled; attention has
+been paid to the building of highways and railroads, water supply, the
+disposal of sewage and allied problems. The precise time, if ever, when
+independence should be granted to the Philippines is the one great
+question remaining.
+
+The first attempt to revise the customs laws in the Philippines was
+made by the Commission during the governorship of William H. Taft.
+These schedules were revised in Washington in such a way as to
+discriminate against Philippine interests, but they had remained in
+force only a short time when Congress passed the act of March 8, 1902,
+allowing goods grown or produced in the Philippines to enter the United
+States under a twenty-five per cent. reduction. In 1909, the tariff
+makers were induced to relent to the extent of allowing the free
+importation of goods grown, produced or manufactured in the
+Philippines, except that only a specified annual amount of Philippine
+sugar and tobacco might be brought in. In 1913 the wall was entirely
+removed on all trade between the United States and the Philippines in
+articles made or grown in either of the two countries.
+
+While Congress and the President were concerning themselves with the
+practical problems of military control, sanitation and the like, the
+Supreme Court was laboriously considering the less tangible but equally
+perplexing question of the constitutionality of the several acts which
+the legislative and executive departments had committed. The power of
+Congress to acquire territory and the right of the executive to control
+new territory under the war power had long been conceded. Admittedly,
+however, government under the war power was temporary and transitional.
+In earlier times such acquisitions as those effected by the Louisiana
+purchase and the annexation of Texas had been consummated with the
+distinct understanding that these regions should immediately or
+eventually become territories or states in the Union. The status of
+Porto Rico and the Philippines was novel. "The civil rights and
+political status of the native inhabitants of the territories hereby
+ceded to the United States," ran the words of the treaty of peace
+closing the war with Spain, "shall be determined by the Congress." Did
+this mean that Congress might govern the new acquisitions independently
+of the Constitution? Could it abridge freedom of speech, and permit
+cruel and unusual punishments, or establish slavery? Could Congress
+permanently govern these lands without giving their citizens the rights
+of citizens of the United States, and with no intention of ever making
+them territories or states? On the other hand, if Congress must act
+within the limits prescribed by the Constitution, would the wild Moros
+of the Philippines be the beneficiaries of the amendment preserving the
+right of trial by jury? In the popular language of the day, did the
+Constitution follow the flag?
+
+It was not long before the Supreme Court was called upon in the
+"Insular Cases" to express itself upon these constitutional questions.
+The first case was De Lima _v._ Bidwell. It was a suit to recover
+duties paid on goods sent from Porto Rico to the United States during
+the interval between the cession of the island and the passage of the
+Foraker Act. The duties had been paid under the Dingley law, which
+levied customs of specified amounts upon all goods imported "from
+foreign countries." Was Porto Rico a "foreign" country? The majority of
+the nine members of the Court thought that it was not foreign, that
+there was scarcely a "shred of authority" for the view that a "district
+ceded to and in the possession of the United States remains for any
+purpose a foreign country." Since Porto Rico was not a foreign country,
+the duties were wrongfully collected and must be returned. The
+remaining four justices dissented. One of them delivered a dissenting
+opinion in which he held that Porto Rico occupied middle ground between
+that of a foreign country and domestic territory. As such its status
+could be determined by Congress only and therefore its products were
+subject to duties levied by the Dingley act.
+
+In Downes _v._ Bidwell the Court was compelled to determine the
+constitutionality of the part of the Foraker Act which provided for a
+tariff between Porto Rico and the United States equal to fifteen per
+cent. of that levied by the Dingley act. Again the Court divided five
+to four. Mr. Justice Brown delivered the majority opinion. It was to
+the effect that the Constitution applied only to States; that Congress
+possessed unlimited power over the political relations of the
+territories; that Porto Rico was a "territory appurtenant to and
+belonging to the United States"; and that the part of the Constitution
+which says that duties shall be uniform throughout the United States
+did not apply to Porto Rico unless Congress so willed. Hence the
+customs clause of the Foraker Act was valid. Four of the majority,
+however, who agreed with Mr. Justice Brown in his conclusion that the
+tariff clause of the Foraker Act was constitutional did so for reasons
+which they asserted to be "different from, if not in conflict with,
+those expressed" by him.
+
+From the point of view of constitutional law, the decisions were
+unsatisfactory, because of the balanced division of opinion. Yet to
+have declared all the provisions of the Constitution in force in all
+the acquisitions would have been embarrassing. Logic and the
+Constitution went to the winds, while the executive and legislative
+departments administered the territories on the convenient and flexible
+theory that certain constitutional provisions must be heeded and that
+others need not.
+
+While the colonial policy of the United States was being developed, the
+possession of the Philippines added interest in the United States to an
+unusual international situation in China which immediately involved
+several European nations and eventually affected America. The
+Chinese-Japanese War, which came to a close in 1895, had uncovered to
+the world the weakness of China as a military power and had weakened
+the hold of the reigning monarch upon the people of the Empire.
+Thereupon the leading commercial nations of Europe began to seize
+portions of China in order to extend their trade relations in the Far
+East. Russia first attempted to obtain a seaport, but retired when an
+uproar of protest arose from the remainder of Europe. Not long
+afterwards, two German missionaries in the province of Shantung were
+murdered. The outrage formed a sufficient pretext for aggressive
+action, as a result of which China leased Kiaochau to Germany for
+ninety-nine years, including in the grant railway and mining privileges
+and an indemnity; Russia then renewed her attempt and succeeded in
+leasing Port Arthur and Talienwan for twenty-five years. Great Britain
+followed with the acquisition of rights in Weihaiwei similar to those
+of Russia in Port Arthur; Japan found its share in the province of
+Fukien, and France in Kwangchaouwan. In each case, moreover, the
+leasing power designated a large area around its holdings as a "sphere
+of influence," in which its economic and political mastery was
+complete. In this way, thirteen of the eighteen provinces of China,
+including the most desirable harbors, waterways and mines, were
+partially controlled by the powers.
+
+American foreign affairs had been, since October 1, 1898, in the
+skilful hands of John Hay, who was possessed of an intimate knowledge
+of conditions in Europe. Hay perceived the danger to American
+commercial interests in China, and accordingly in September, 1899, he
+addressed a circular note to the powers requesting each of them to give
+formal assurances that in its sphere of influence: (1) it would not
+interfere with any treaty port or vested interest; (2) it would agree
+that the Chinese tariff should apply equally to all goods shipped to
+ports in the spheres, and be collected by the Chinese officials; and
+(3) it would charge no higher harbor and railroad rates for citizens of
+other nations than for its own. The powers having agreed more or less
+directly, Hay informed them by a note of March 20, 1900, that all had
+acceded to his propositions and that the United States considered their
+assent as "final and definitive." There could be, of course, no
+effectual guaranty that the powers would fully observe this "Open-Door"
+policy, but the economic penetration of China, which would soon result
+in complete political possession, was at least retarded for the moment.
+
+Domestic affairs in China, meanwhile, had been seething under the
+surface. An ill-starred reform movement, initiated by the Emperor, had
+failed, the government was discredited, and the Empress Dowager seized
+the throne for herself. All China interpreted the event to presage a
+return to the old order of things--a general anti-foreign movement.
+Economic distresses, bad crops, a disastrous flood and hatred of
+foreign missionaries, combined with a deep resentment at the European
+partition of their country, caused the Chinese to break out in a score
+of scattered attacks on the hated aliens. The culmination was the Boxer
+Rebellion. The Boxers was a society which had long existed in China for
+various religious, patriotic and other purposes. It took up the cry
+"Drive out the foreigners and uphold the dynasty." Government officials
+by their disinclination to quell the Boxer uprising, showed that their
+sympathies were with the rioters.
+
+The climax of the outbreak came in and around Pekin, the capital of
+China. The railroad from the city to the coast was seized, telegraphic
+connection cut off, and the representatives of the foreign powers were
+compelled to fortify themselves within the city. On June 19, 1900, all
+foreigners were ordered to leave within twenty-four hours, and the
+German minister was shot when he attempted to visit the proper officer
+in order to protest. The Chinese army poured out to surround the
+quarter of the city where the legations were situated and cut them off
+from the rest of the world. All foreigners fled to the British
+legation, where they constructed bomb proof cellars, raised barricades
+and planted artillery.[5] The powers, including the United States,
+combined to send a punitive expedition to Pekin, while the legationers
+settled down to a state of siege, determined to hold out as long as
+possible. At last on August 14, when the surviving foreigners were
+reduced to eating horse flesh and when scores had been killed or
+wounded, the relief column reached the capital. It was high time. The
+foreign quarters and much of the business portion, the banks, and the
+theatres had been burned, and the entire city threatened with
+destruction.
+
+By the time that the uprisings in Pekin and elsewhere had been
+suppressed, it was evident that the powers would have a stern
+accounting with China. Hay had already openly announced the policy of
+the United States in his note of July 3, 1900; it was that the United
+States would seek a solution which should bring about permanent safety
+and peace to China, preserve the territorial entity of the country,
+protect the rights of friendly powers and insure an equal opportunity
+for all nations in the commerce of China. Hay continued through the
+negotiations to urge joint action on the part of the powers, and
+procured from them a statement disclaiming any purpose to acquire any
+part of China. At length in December, 1900, the demands upon China were
+formulated, to which that unhappy nation was compelled to accede. The
+most important were, punishment for the guilty rioters, safeguards for
+the future, indemnities for losses and the improvement of commercial
+relations. The financial indemnity finally placed upon China was
+$333,000,000, of which $24,000,000 was for the United States. The
+latter sum proved to be more than sufficient to satisfy all claims and
+China was relieved from the payment of about $11,000,000. As a mark of
+appreciation for this act, the Chinese government determined to use the
+fund in sending students to the United States for education.
+
+While the problems concerning China and the colonial possessions of the
+United States were reaching a settlement, on September 6, 1901,
+President McKinley attended the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo,
+where he was shot by a young fanatic. He died eight days later and
+Vice-President Roosevelt succeeded him.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The framing, contents and ratification of the treaty of 1898 are well
+described in Chadwick, Latane and Olcott. The treaty itself is
+conveniently found in William MacDonald, _Documentary Source Book of
+American History_ (new ed., 1916).
+
+On imperialism: L.A. Coolidge, _An Old-Fashioned Senator, O.H. Plat_
+(1910); G.F. Hoar, _Autobiography of Seventy Years_, contains a strong
+argument against imperialism; A.C. Coolidge, _United States as a World
+Power_ (1916).
+
+The best accounts of the election of 1900 are in Stanwood, Croly and
+Latane.
+
+The island possessions have given rise to a considerable body of
+special volumes of a high order. Especially useful are: (Cuba), Elihu
+Hoot, _Military and Colonial Policy of the United States_ (1916), by
+McKinley's Secretary of War; L.A. Coolidge, _O.H. Platt_ (1910); A.G.
+Robinson, _Cuba and the Intervention_ (1905); C.E. Magoon, _Republic
+ of Cuba_ (1908), by the provisional governor during the second
+intervention. (Porto Rico), W.F. Willoughby, _Territories and
+Dependencies of the United States_ (1905), by a former treasurer of
+Porto Rico; L.S. Rowe, _United States and Porto Rico_ (1904). The most
+complete work on the Philippines is D.C. Worcester, _Philippines: Past
+and Present_ (2 vols., 1914), by a member of the Commission; the
+valuable report of Commissioner Taft is in _Report of the Philippine
+Commission_, 1907, part 3, printed also as _Senate Document 200_, 60th
+Congress, 1st session, vol. 7, (Serial Number 5240).
+
+The legal and constitutional aspects of imperialism are best followed
+in the _Harvard Law Review_, vols. XII, XIII; W.W. Willoughby,
+_Constitutional Law of the United States_ (2 vols., 1910); C.F.
+Randolph, _The Law and Policy of Annexation_ (1901); the "insular
+cases" are in _United States Reports_, vol. 182, pp. 1, 244.
+
+The most complete account of affairs in China is P.H. Clements, _The
+Boxer Rebellion_ (1915); J.B. Moore, _Digest_, vol. V (1906), is
+useful, as always; J.W. Foster, _American Diplomacy in the Orient_
+(1903), is clear and concise; W.R. Thayer, _John Hay_ (2 vols., 1915),
+is disappointing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The American commissioners were W.R. Day, Secretary of State;
+Whitelaw Reid, editor of the New York _Tribune_; and Senators C.K.
+Davis, W.P. Frye and George Gray. Senator Hoar remonstrated with
+McKinley for placing senators on such commissions as this, on the
+ground that the independence of the Senate was thereby lessened when
+the question of ratifying the treaty came before that body. He declared
+that McKinley admitted that the practice was wrong. Cf. _Autobiography_,
+II, 46-51.
+
+[2] Of the President's party, T.B. Reed, the powerful Speaker of the
+House, retired from public life for personal reasons and because of his
+dissent from the imperialist policy of his party. McCall, _Reed_,
+237-8.
+
+[3] Under the provisions of the Foraker Act only fifteen per cent. of
+the usual duties were to be paid on goods passing between the island
+and the United States, and since July 25, 1901, complete free trade has
+existed.
+
+[4] The Philippine group is about 7,000 miles southwest of San
+Francisco; the chief island, Luzon, is almost exactly the size of Ohio,
+40,000 sq. miles; the largest city, Manila, contained over 250,000
+people at the time of the American occupation.
+
+[5] It was on the occasion of despatching troops to avenge the death of
+Von Ketteler, the German minister, that the Emperor gave instructions
+to "give no quarter and to (act) so like Huns that for a thousand years
+to come no Chinese would dare to look a German in the face."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+THE BEGINNING OF A NEW CENTURY
+
+Most of the tendencies which characterized the growth of population,
+the expansion of the West, the concentration of the people in cities,
+the development of manufacturing and agriculture, and the extension of
+the railway system, from 1870 to 1890, were equally significant during
+the two decades following the latter year. Nevertheless there were
+important differences of detail in the tendencies of the later period;
+and about the year 1900 in particular there occurred changes that were
+far-reaching.
+
+[Illustration:
+The chief foreign elements in the population of the United States, 1910]
+
+The rate of growth of population slowed up slightly after 1890, being
+twenty-one per cent. per decade, as contrasted with twenty-five per
+cent. from 1870 to 1890. The increases were distributed over a larger
+area during the later two decades, and aside from the industrial
+states, those which showed the greatest growth were Oklahoma, Texas and
+California. Immigration continued to be large, and concentrated in the
+north, especially in the cities. In New York city, for instance, forty
+per cent. of the inhabitants in 1910 were foreign born, and
+thirty-eight per cent. more were of foreign, or mixed foreign and
+native parentage. The chief European contributors to the population of
+America in 1910 in the order of their importance were Germany,
+Austria-Hungary, Russia, Ireland, Italy and England. Moreover the
+foreign elements had frequently become concentrated in especial states:
+the Germans in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois; the Russians in New
+York, North Dakota and Connecticut; the Austrians in Pennsylvania and
+New Jersey; and the Irish in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York.
+The immigration of Canadians, which had been of importance before 1900,
+appreciably slowed down after that year; and instead there was a
+distinct movement in the opposite direction, especially from Minnesota,
+North Dakota and Washington. The emigration was caused mainly by the
+desire to take up fertile lands which had been widely advertised by the
+Canadian government. The migration from the eastern states toward the
+West continued as in earlier years. It was noticeable, however, that
+whereas previous migration had been almost wholly on east and west
+lines, there was in later years a greater tendency to seek favorable
+openings wherever they were found. Oklahoma, for example, in 1910
+contained 71,000 natives of Illinois, 101,000 Kansans and 162,000
+Missourians. The trend of population toward the cities was so rapid
+between 1890 and 1910 as to suggest the likelihood that by 1920 half
+the people of the country would be living in communities of 2,500
+persons or more. Of the twenty-three towns that more than doubled in
+numbers during the two decades after 1890, seventeen were in the South
+and on the Pacific Coast, indicating that the tendency toward urban
+life was no longer confined to the North and East.
+
+Manufacturing increased its importance as the greatest economic
+activity in the Northeast, and was moving westward so rapidly that
+Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois found their interests becoming
+increasingly like those of the eastern states. Parts of the South,
+also, developed considerable industrial interests. The manufacture of
+cotton goods, for example, increased with such rapidity that three of
+the first five states in the value of their product in 1909 were
+southern states--North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Since 1889
+the production of lumber has taken a prominent place. Louisiana doubled
+its activity from 1889 to 1899 and had tripled this record by 1909.
+Almost the entire South from Virginia to Louisiana produced large
+amounts during the twenty years under consideration. The iron and steel
+industry in Alabama, and the production of turpentine, resin and
+fertilizers were other important southern interests. Throughout the
+country at large the number of wage earners engaged in manufacturing
+grew somewhat more rapidly than the population, being about twenty-five
+per cent. per decade from 1890 to 1910.
+
+The center of agriculture continued to be in the Middle West, in which
+was to be found nearly fifty-three per cent. of the improved farm lands
+and fifty-eight per cent. of the value of all farm property. It was in
+this part of the country that the greatest increases in the amount of
+improved land took place, and particularly in the prairie country west
+of the Mississippi. By 1890 the Plains had lost their earlier unique
+and picturesque characteristics as a cattle country, and had given way
+to the homesteader. Hence the greatest expansion in agriculture took
+place in the tier of states from North Dakota to Texas. It appeared,
+therefore, that manufacturing was driving agriculture farther and
+farther to the west: New England cultivated less farm land in 1910 than
+in 1850; the improved area in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania
+declined after 1880; Ohio tilled fewer acres in 1910 than in 1900, and
+the gradual replacement of agriculture by manufacturing was observable
+in Indiana and Illinois. Oklahoma and Texas, on the other hand,
+together opened to cultivation between 1890 and 1910 nearly 24,000,000
+acres, an expanse almost equivalent to the combined areas of New
+Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Maryland.
+
+By 1890 it was clear that the future of the Far West lay in
+agriculture, rather than in the mining of the precious metals. Between
+that date and 1910, the amount of improved farm land in the section
+increased sixty-five per cent. In the states of Washington, New Mexico,
+Colorado, Idaho and Montana, large areas were placed under cultivation.
+In Washington the amount of improved farm land increased about 350 per
+cent. The growing of fruits and nuts was brought to a high state of
+excellence in the coast states. The timber industry developed after
+1880 and particularly after 1900. About the close of the nineteenth
+century the great lumber companies began to seek sources of supply to
+take the place of those around the Great Lakes. They turned to the
+South and the Far West. The methods which were used for getting control
+of the land, and the recklessness with which the supplies of timber
+were cut off became of importance as causes of the conservation
+movement. The main handicap in the way of the development of trade
+between the Far West and the East was the great distances involved.
+Hence arose the interest of the Coast in transcontinental railway rates
+and the project for a canal across the isthmus of Panama.
+
+An economic fact of no little importance was a change in the downward
+tendency of the price level after 1896. It will be remembered that the
+constant fall in prices from 1873 to 1896 had brought distress to the
+farmers of the West and had been one of the causes of the Populist
+revolt. After 1896 the process was reversed. Between that year and 1913
+the quantity of gold in circulation considerably increased, as has been
+seen; bank deposits subject to check trebled in volume, and the use of
+checks became more common; altogether it was estimated by Professor
+Irving Fisher that the quantity of money in circulation increased
+two-fold. Prices were fifty per cent. higher in 1913 than in the
+earlier year, and accordingly the complaints of the farmer were less
+frequently heard. The wage earner in the factories, however, was
+differently affected. The price which he had to pay for the necessities
+of life increased faster than his wages, so that his standard of living
+was going down. Inasmuch as the number of wage earners in the factories
+was rapidly increasing, it seemed inevitable that the problem of rising
+prices after 1896 would constitute as great a problem as the problem of
+falling prices had done before that year.
+
+[Illustration:
+The Cost of Food, 1900-1912]
+
+In industrial enterprise the close of the nineteenth century and the
+opening of the twentieth were characterized by a mad rush toward
+consolidation. To a milder degree the process had, of course, been
+under way for many years, during which the Standard Oil Company and
+other trusts were the subject of much study and legislation. In the
+course of time some of these concerns made such great profits that
+their leaders sought attractive openings for the investment of their
+surplus. They began to appear on the boards of directors of railways,
+banks, electric lighting companies and other industrial organizations.
+Before 1900 two powerful groups had definitely formed. The Standard or
+Rockefeller group was obtaining large interests in such railroads as
+the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western,
+and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul. It was reaching out to the gas
+and electric companies in New York, had an alliance with the National
+City Bank and others, and was in touch with great life insurance
+companies such as the Equitable and the Mutual of New York. Such
+connections enabled them to determine the policies and direct the
+investments of these important concerns. The Morgans extended their
+influence over the Philadelphia and Reading, the New York, Lake Erie
+and Western, the Lehigh Valley and others. Morgan himself also entered
+the industrial field as organizer of the Federal Steel Company and the
+National Tube Company.
+
+The mania for organizing large corporations came to a climax about
+1900. The census taken in that year noted ninety-two that had been
+formed between January 1, 1899, and June 30, 1900. Early in 1904 the
+editor of Moody's _Manual of Corporation Securities_ noted the
+existence of 440 large industrial and transportation combinations whose
+capitalization as measured by the par value of their stocks and bonds
+was nearly $20,500,000,000. The securities--stocks and bonds--of the
+new companies were eagerly taken up by the investing public. Prosperity
+was wide-spread and the financial strength behind the organizations
+seemed unlimited. Speculation became common. A few individuals amassed
+wealth through the shrewd purchase and sale of stocks, and countless
+others sought unsuccessfully to imitate them. Where sales of 400,000
+shares on the stock exchange had formerly been looked upon as a good
+day's business, the record jumped to a million, then two, and even
+three.[1]
+
+A threatened competitive struggle among certain steel manufacturers in
+1901 led to the formation of the United States Steel Corporation, the
+most famous consolidation of the period. It was, strictly speaking, a
+"holding corporation" which did not manufacture at all, but merely held
+the securities and directed the policies of the group of companies of
+which it was composed. It integrated all the elements of the
+industry--ore deposits, coal mines, limestone, a thousand miles of
+railroads, ore vessels on the Great Lakes, furnaces, steel works,
+rolling mills and other related interests. The value of the tangible
+property which was thus brought under the control of a single group of
+men was estimated by the United States Commissioner of Corporations at
+about $700,000,000. The company issued securities, however, to somewhat
+over twice this amount. In other words, about $700,000,000 of the
+capitalization was "water," that is, securities issued in excess of the
+value of the tangible properties owned. The prices paid to those who
+controlled the constituent companies were such as to make them
+multi-millionaires over night, and the commission given to the
+financiers who organized the Corporation was unparalleled in size,
+amounting to $62,500,000.
+
+The appreciation of the value of the ore deposits controlled by the
+Steel Corporation later replaced some of the water in its securities,
+but in many cases no such process came about. Investors therefore
+discovered that the paper which they had purchased did not represent
+real property, but merely the hope of a company that its profits would
+be large enough to provide returns upon all its securities. One hundred
+of the leading industrial stocks shrank in value $1,750,000,000 within
+eighteen months. In the case of the Steel Corporation it was noticeable
+that its supremacy depended to a large extent on the possession of
+resources of ore on land much of which had originally belonged to the
+public, a fact which, the Commissioner of Corporations remarked, made
+the affairs of the company a matter of public interest.
+
+The growth and consolidation which characterized the history of
+industry were also taking place in the railway system, although
+somewhat more slowly. It has already been noted that the length of the
+railroads had reached 160,000 miles by 1890. For the next two decades
+the rate of construction diminished slightly, yet the total in 1914 was
+252,231 miles, and the par value of all railroad securities was
+estimated at $20,500,000,000. Nearly four and a half million persons, a
+railroad president estimated in 1915, were at that time interested in
+the industry as employees, as workmen in shops making railroad
+supplies, or through the ownership of stocks and bonds.
+
+The management of the roads is, of course, continually changing;
+alliances are made and broken; groups form and dissolve. About the time
+that the United States Steel Corporation was being organized, however,
+about ninety-five per cent. of the important lines were in the control
+of six groups of influential persons, which were dominated by fourteen
+individuals. Each group had obtained the upper hand in the roads of one
+or more sections. The Morgan-Hill group, for example, held the Chicago,
+Burlington and Quincy, the Northern Pacific, the Great Northern, the
+Southern, the Atlantic Coast Line, the Erie and others, amounting to
+47,206 miles. E.H. Harriman, chairman of the board of directors of the
+Union Pacific, succeeded in obtaining control of so many lines that by
+1901 the Interstate Commerce Commission asserted that the consummation
+of plans which he then had in mind would subject nearly one-half the
+territory of the United States to the power of a single will. Before
+his death in 1909 he had obtained practical control of a system of
+roads running from coast to coast and passing through the most
+important cities of the country and had planned to continue
+indefinitely the process of acquiring new lines.
+
+[Illustration:
+Morgan-Hill railroads as listed shortly after 1900]
+
+The concentration of the banking interests of the country went hand in
+hand with consolidation in industry and railway control. The
+unprecedented operations which have just been mentioned demanded
+unprecedented amounts of capital and credit, and the concentration of
+these necessities occurred in New York City. The Standard Oil group and
+the Morgan group dominated the banking interests to such an extent that
+it was doubtful whether any great business enterprise demanding large
+capital could be started without the aid of one or the other of them.
+Some years later a congressional investigation was started, to discover
+whether the control of a few men over the financial affairs of the
+nation amounted to a "money trust," and at that time it was found that
+the members of four allied financial institutions in New York City held
+341 directorships in banks, insurance companies, railroads, steamship
+companies and trading and public utility corporations, having aggregate
+resources of $22,245,000,000.
+
+The financial power thus placed in the hands of a small number of men
+was the cause of much legislation passed by the states and by Congress
+in connection with the railroads and trusts. Opinions varied widely in
+regard to the effects of concentration. On the one hand it was argued
+that the men of greatest ability and vision naturally came to the top;
+that industry received the necessary stabilizing influence; that
+production and demand were compelled to harmonize; that scientific
+research directed toward the discovery of new processes and products,
+and the better utilization of old ones could be successfully carried on
+only by concerns with large resources; and that efficiency and economy
+resulted from large-scale operation. On the other hand it was pointed
+out that a small number of persons who were responsible to nobody could
+dominate the fortunes of hundreds of thousands of wage earners,
+manipulate production, make or break a region or a rival, bring about
+financial crises and, in a controversy or for private gain, use a great
+industry or a railroad as a weapon and wreck it regardless of the
+welfare of the public at large.
+
+Among the intellectual forces underlying American history after 1890, a
+prominent place should be given to the expansion of the public library,
+the growth of public education and the development of the press. Many
+libraries, of course, had been established long before the Civil
+War--the Library of Congress, for example, having been founded in
+1800--but the great growth of the public library supported by taxation
+and open to all citizens alike occurred after 1865. Between that year
+and 1900 no fewer than thirty-seven states passed laws enabling the
+towns within their borders to levy taxes for the support of public
+libraries; private bequests amounted to fabulous sums, the outstanding
+example of which were the gifts of Andrew Carnegie, amounting to
+$62,500,000 between 1881 and 1915. By 1914 there were over 2,000
+libraries containing at least 5,000 volumes, and forty that contained
+more than 200,000 each.
+
+The significant features in the growth of education between 1865 and
+1890 had been the improvement of the public grammar school, the
+establishment of high schools and the foundation of the great state
+universities. After 1890 the public high schools were greatly improved,
+business and vocational courses were added, and the enrollment at the
+colleges and universities received large additions. Such universities
+as that in Wisconsin exerted an unusual influence on intellectual and
+political currents in individual states.
+
+A large proportion of the political, social and economic changes and
+reforms that have taken place in the United States since 1890 have done
+so because public opinion was educated, quietly influenced or noisily
+bestirred by the press. Governors and presidents appealed to their
+constituents through the newspaper and the periodical. Political
+campaigns have become increasingly matters of publicity; candidates for
+office have their press bureaus; corporations, abandoning their
+traditional policy of silence, explain their practices; and railroads
+defend their policies by means of advertisements in the newspapers.
+Newspaper correspondents go out through the country months before
+candidates for the presidency are nominated, and discover and publish
+sentiment favorable to the individual whom the particular organ desires
+to see placed in office. In 1918 the circulation of the daily
+newspapers amounted to approximately 28,000,000 copies for each issue.
+In the North, the Middle West, and on the Pacific Coast the number
+published was sufficient to provide every family with one copy. The
+South and the Rocky Mountain region were less well supplied. The great
+metropolitan newspapers circulate widely, not only in the immediate
+vicinity of the publisher's office, but over a wide area outside. At
+least one of them in 1918 approached half a million copies daily,
+another exceeded 800,000, and a third issued nearly three-fourths of a
+million on Sunday. William R. Hearst established a chain of newspapers
+which gave him an audience of over a million readers every day. Several
+of the weekly and monthly magazines circulated in hundreds of thousands
+of copies; and one weekly periodical which presented newspaper opinion
+of all shades of political partisanship had a circulation of 750,000
+copies for every issue.
+
+[Illustration:
+Daily Newspaper Circulation, 1918]
+
+The rise of the "muck-rake"[2] magazines was typical of the ten years
+at the opening of the twentieth century. These periodicals printed
+articles which portrayed a side of American life not commonly discussed
+in the newspapers. One of the earliest serials of this type was Miss
+Ida M. Tarbell's History of the Standard Oil Company, published in
+_McClure's Magazine_ in 1902-1903. Instead of the ordinary eulogy of
+the size and success of the Company, Miss Tarbell presented many of its
+unfair practices. At the same time and in the same publication Lincoln
+Steffens was exposing the seamy side of municipal affairs in "The Shame
+of the Cities." Between 1901 and 1906 one of the muck-rake periodicals
+increased its sales threefold, another four and another seven.
+
+Cooperation among newspapers in the gathering of information is no
+novelty in the United States, but the greatest strides have been taken
+since 1890. By 1915 the Associated Press had leased 50,000 miles of
+telegraph wires forming a net all over the country; it had agents in
+every important news center; it exchanged services with three European
+press associations; and it had its own representatives not only in
+London, Paris, and Berlin, but in Fez, Madeira, Colombo, Tsingtau and
+Sydney. News from Europe reached New York in less than an hour and was
+promptly sent to 900 newspapers, whence it was copied in thousands of
+daily and weekly publications. As in the case of other enterprises the
+publication of newspapers showed a tendency towards consolidation. The
+establishment of a new periodical became a million-dollar venture, and
+it remains to be seen whether the tendency toward centralization will
+result in the publication only of such news or such phases of the news
+as meet the approval of the relatively small number of persons that can
+launch a million-dollar organization.
+
+It will be remembered that _laissez faire_ was the prevailing theory in
+regard to the proper relation between government and industry during
+the twenty-five years after the close of the Civil War, except in so
+far as industrial organizations desired protective tariffs. In brief
+the upholders of this creed contended that legislation should concern
+itself as little as possible with the regulation of trade, that it
+should restrict itself to protecting commerce from interference and
+that business men should be permitted to work out their own problems
+with the least possible reference to such artificial forces as were
+supplied by legal enactments.[3] It would be inaccurate to say that the
+theory of _laissez faire_ had completely given way by the end of the
+half century after the Civil War. Nor would it be wholly correct to say
+that any other theory has yet demonstrated its permanent reliability,
+Nevertheless the distinctive philosophy upon which later legislation
+has been built is the theory of public interest. The theory needs
+definition in some detail, because it forms the philosophy which
+underlies most of the political developments and much of the
+legislation of the early twentieth century.
+
+As the men of the eighties and nineties contemplated the vast amounts
+of wealth created during those decades they saw it concentrated to a
+great extent in the hands of the few. The few believed that the public
+good was best cared for in this way, but an increasing majority of the
+people looked upon the tendency with greater and greater alarm. They
+complained that the railroads discriminated in favor of the powerful
+few; that corporations were achieving monopoly; and that the government
+itself often assisted the process by framing tariff schedules primarily
+for the interest of the manufacturers. When the reaction against this
+situation started, it was of course found that the seats of power were
+already occupied by the adherents of _laissez faire_,--the party
+committees, the legislatures, the executive offices and the courts.
+There ensued, therefore, a long struggle for power and for a new theory
+of government. The land-marks of the controversy were to be found in
+interstate commerce acts, anti-trust laws, income taxes, bureaus of
+labor and factory legislation.
+
+The proponent of _laissez faire_ would allow the few to accumulate
+large fortunes which they might share with the many through
+benefactions, gifts to education, libraries, and other public
+enterprises; the adherent of public interest would inquire why the many
+are poor, and attempt so to change economic conditions as to reduce the
+number of the poor to a minimum. Instead of framing laws so that wealth
+and power would get into the hands of a small number of individuals, in
+the expectation that prosperity would filter down to the many, the
+advocate of public interest would aim his legislation directly at what
+he considers the needs of the less powerful classes. He would interfere
+with the railroads, for example, to compel them to charge uniform
+rates, prevent corporations from electing public officers by means of
+large contributions to campaign funds, force industry even at some cost
+to protect employees through safety devices, and would hold the great
+forests on the public lands for the direct good of the whole people.
+The transfer of emphasis from _laissez faire_ to public interest was
+based upon a steady growth in the value placed upon the worth of the
+individual man, and upon a shift from legislating for the few to
+legislating directly for the multitude. The change was greater than can
+be indicated by citing any one law or group of laws. It was "a new
+intellectual perspective through which we view all moral issues
+affecting society."[4]
+
+Underlying many of the difficulties in the way of replacing _laissez
+faire_ with a new theory, was the attitude of the courts toward certain
+parts of the Fourteenth Amendment. It will be remembered that a portion
+of section one of the Amendment forbids the states to "deprive any
+person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." It
+will also be remembered that the majority of the Supreme Court in early
+decisions interpreting the Amendment had expressed the belief that its
+purpose was the protection of the negro. By 1890, however, the Court
+had come to hold that the word "person" as used in the first section
+included corporations, and thus had given the language of the Amendment
+a greatly widened application. Of 528 decisions given by the Court on
+the Amendment between 1890 and 1910, only nineteen concerned the negro
+race, while 289 affected corporations. In the decision of the case
+Lochner _v._ New York, a state law regulating hours of labor in
+bakeries was declared to conflict with the Amendment, because the right
+of the laborer to work as many hours as he pleased was part of the
+"liberty" which was protected by the Amendment. Laws regulating
+railroad rates through commissions were held to deprive corporations of
+property without due process. Until recently changed, the statutes did
+not allow appeal to the Supreme Court in cases where state courts
+declared state laws in conflict with the United States Constitution,
+and the Fourteenth Amendment therefore acted as a protective bulwark in
+state as well as nation. In brief, then, the legal position of the big
+industrial organizations was almost impregnable because of the
+fortuitous circumstance that the words of a part of the Constitution
+might be held to mean something which probably did not enter the minds
+of the Congress or the state legislatures which placed the words in the
+document.
+
+The people of the United States have usually avoided hostile criticism
+of the Constitution and the decisions of the Supreme Court, and they
+have reflected this feeling in their acquiescence in the unexpected
+turn given to the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. The members of
+the Court, however, have frequently expressed disquietude. Dissenting
+opinions opposing the view which the Court has taken, have been common.
+Mr. Justice Harlan declared that the scope of the Amendment was being
+enlarged far beyond its original purpose; Mr. Justice Holmes asserted
+that the word "liberty" was being "perverted" and that the Constitution
+was not intended to embody _laissez faire_ or any other economic
+theory.[5]
+
+The most prominent pioneers in replacing the old by the new theory were
+William J. Bryan, Robert M. La Follette and Theodore Roosevelt. Bryan's
+leadership in 1896 has already been mentioned. With courage and
+sincerity he attempted to solve the social and economic problems of his
+day, but his youth, his inexperience, his radicalism, and the fact that
+he did not choose issues that were immediately practicable made it
+impossible for him to command the confidence of the majority. Unable
+himself to scale the heights of reform, he nevertheless pointed them
+out to others. With a voice that has been likened to an organ with a
+hundred stops, with persistence, energy and good nature he spread far
+and wide a new conception of social obligation. He insisted that the
+social and economic discontent of the South and West were real, and
+that they could not be laughed out of court or frightened into silence.
+
+La Follette's constructive pioneer work was done for the most part in
+Wisconsin. During the ascendency of the _laissez faire_ theory, the
+state was largely controlled by the lumber, railroad and other
+interests, using the Republican party as their political agency; and a
+small but powerful group controlled the election of state and federal
+officials, the press and state legislation. Between 1885 and 1891 La
+Follette, who was himself a Republican, was a representative in the
+federal House. In the latter year he came into collision with Senator
+Sawyer, a wealthy lumber merchant who was the leader of the dominant
+party in the state. For years the state treasurers had been lending the
+state's money to favored banks without interest. Senator Sawyer had
+acted as bondsman for the treasurers and was sued by the
+attorney-general of the state for back interest. La Follette threw
+himself into this controversy on the side of the state; and being
+unable to obtain a hearing through the usual medium of the press, he
+and his supporters went directly to the people, speaking from town to
+town before interested audiences; and subsequently the state won.
+
+In the Sawyer controversy were visible all the elements of the later
+creed and methods of La Follette. He always remained with the
+Republican party, preferring to attempt change from within; and he
+always opposed the interests and found his strength in direct appeals
+to the people of his state. Out of those years came the "Wisconsin
+idea,"--a program which included the taxation of railroads and
+corporations, primaries in which the people could nominate their own
+candidates for office, the prohibiting of the acceptance of railroad
+passes by public officials, and the conservation of the forests and
+water power of the state. The conflict between _laissez faire_ and
+public interest in Wisconsin was long and bitter, but it led to a
+series of triumphs for La Follette, who was elected governor in 1900,
+1902 and 1904, and chosen to the federal Senate in 1905. In the
+meanwhile there was a widespread demand throughout the West for
+legislation along the lines marked out by Wisconsin.
+
+Party lines are so drawn in the United States that it is difficult for
+like-minded men of different parties to cooperate in furthering a
+program. The three pioneers were men whose capacities and personal
+qualities differed greatly, but in their economic and political
+philosophy they were nearer to one another than to the rank and file of
+their own parties. Bryan in 1902 refused to take part in the Democratic
+campaign in Wisconsin because he favored La Follette's program, and in
+1905 he even aided the latter in his fight for railroad regulation; in
+1912 Bryan found Roosevelt leading a revolt in the Republican party on
+a program to much of which he could give unqualified assent; and of La
+Follette, Roosevelt said in the same year: "Thanks to the movement for
+genuinely democratic popular government which Senator La Follette led
+to overwhelming victory in Wisconsin, that state has become literally a
+laboratory for wise experimental legislation aiming to secure the
+social and political betterment of the people as a whole."
+
+Roosevelt's own share in the history of the early twentieth century was
+of such magnitude as to require a more extended account.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The literature is voluminous and not easy to evaluate. On population
+changes and immigration, the best source is the _Abstract of the
+Thirteenth (1910) Census_ (1913), with the _Atlas_ accompanying it
+(1914); _Reports of the Immigration Commission, appointed under the
+Congressional Act of Feb. 20, 1907_ (42 vols., 1911), is exhaustive; F.
+A. Ogg, _National Progress_ (1918), has a good chapter; consult Joseph
+Schafer, _A History of the Pacific Northwest_ (rev. ed., 1918), for
+Washington and Oregon.
+
+The consolidation in industry, railroads and finance may be followed
+in: A.D. Noyes, _Forty Years of American Finance_ (1909); John Moody,
+_The Truth about the Trusts_ (1904); _Report of the Commissioner of
+Corporations on the Steel Industry_ (3 parts, 1911), on the United
+States Steel Corporation; Anna P. Youngman, _Economic Causes of Great
+Fortunes_ (1909); C.R. Van Hise, _Concentration and Control a Solution
+of the Trust Problem in the United States_ (rev. ed., 1914); E.R.
+Johnson and T.W. Van Metre, _Principles of Railroad Transportation_
+(1916); John Moody, _The Railroad Builders_ (1919); John Moody, _The
+Masters of Capital_ (1919); and _Report of the Committee Appointed
+Pursuant to House Resolutions 429 and 504 to Investigate the
+Concentration of Control of Money and Credit_, (Pujo Committee) 1913.
+
+There is no satisfactory study of the social and political effects of
+the great increase in the circulation of newspapers and periodicals.
+Suggestive articles are: _World's Work_ (Oct., 1916), "Stalking for
+Nine Million Votes"; _Arena_ (July, 1909), "The Making of Public
+Opinion"; _Atlantic Monthly_ (Mar., 1910), "Suppression of Important
+News." Less superficial articles are those of Walter Lippmann in the
+_Atlantic Monthly_ (Nov., Dec., 1919). The statistics are available in
+N.W. Ayer, _American Newspaper Annual and Directory_.
+
+The emergence of the theory of public interest is best seen in the
+_Autobiography_ of R.M. La Follette (4th ed., 1920); consult also
+Theodore Roosevelt, _Autobiography_, and C.G. Washburn, _Theodore
+Roosevelt; the Logic of his Career_ (1916). A profound article is W.J.
+Tucker, "The Progress of the Social Conscience," in _Atlantic Monthly_
+(Sept., 1915).
+
+On the Fourteenth Amendment, consult the volumes already mentioned
+under Chap. IV.
+
+There are no thorough estimates of Bryan and La Follette. On the
+former: _Atlantic Monthly_ (Sept., 1912), and _Nineteenth Century_
+(July, 1915); H. Croly, _Promise of American Life_ (1914), is critical.
+W.J. Bryan, _First Battle_ (1897), is essential. On La Follette, his
+own narrative as given in the _Autobiography_ is best, but should be
+read with care as it was written in the heat of partisan controversy.
+See also F.C. Howe, _Wisconsin an Experiment in Democracy_ (1912),
+friendly to La Follette.
+
+Frank Norris, _The Octopus, and The Pit_; Winston Churchill, _Coniston_
+and _Mr. Crewe's Career_; and Upton Sinclair, _The Jungle_, are
+illustrative fiction.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The shrinkage of the value of these securities caused the "rich
+men's panic" of 1903. Consult Noyes, _Forty Years_, 308-311.
+
+[2] The word originated in 1906 with President Roosevelt, who likened
+certain sensational journalists to the man with the Muck-Rake in
+Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress. Annual Register_, 1906, 442.
+
+[3] Cf. pp. 94-96 above.
+
+[4] I have drawn largely at this point upon Dr. W.J. Tucker's article
+"The Progress of the Social Conscience" in the _Atlantic Monthly_,
+Sept., 1915, 289-303. The clearest idea of the transition from _laissez
+faire_ to public interest is gained by reading the biography of M.A.
+Hanna by Croly, and La Follette's and Roosevelt's autobiographies.
+
+[5] Usually cases involving the Fourteenth Amendment have also involved
+other parts of the Constitution. The main reliance, however, in such
+cases has been the Amendment mentioned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+THEODORE ROOSEVELT
+
+Seldom, in times of peace, is the personality of a single individual
+so important as that of Theodore Roosevelt during the early years of
+the twentieth century. At the time of his accession to the presidency,
+he lacked a month of being forty-three years old, but the range of his
+experience in politics had been far beyond his age. In his early
+twenties, soon after leaving Harvard, he had entered the Assembly of
+the state of New York. President Harrison had made him Civil Service
+Commissioner in 1889, and he had been successively President of the
+Board of Police Commissioners of New York City, Assistant Secretary of
+the Navy, an important figure in the war with Spain, and Governor of
+New York. He had been known as a young man of promise--energetic,
+independent and progressive--and in addition to his political
+activities he had found time to write books on historical subjects,
+see something of life on a western ranch and develop a somewhat
+defective physique into an engine of physical power.
+
+Brimming with energy, nimble of mind, impetuous, sure of himself, quick
+to strike, a fearless foe, frank, resourceful, audacious, honest,
+versatile--Roosevelt possessed the qualities which would challenge the
+admiration of the typical American. One who frequently saw him at work
+described thus the way in which he prepared a message to be sent to the
+Senate:
+
+    He storms up and down the room, dictating in a loud and oratorical
+    tone, often stopping, recasting a sentence, striking out and
+    filling in, hospitable to every suggestion, not in the least
+    disturbed by interruption, holding on stoutly to his purpose,
+    and producing finally, out of these most unpromising conditions,
+    a clear and logical statement, which he could not improve with
+    solitude and leisure at his command.
+
+The breadth of his interests, the democratic character of his
+friendships--for he was equally at home with blue-stocking, politician,
+cowboy and artisan--his complete loyalty to his friends and his
+disregard of conventionalities gave him a grip upon popular favor that
+had not been duplicated since the days of Andrew Jackson, unless by
+Lincoln. The effectiveness of so compelling a personality was in no way
+diminished by Roosevelt's possession of what a journalist would call
+"news sense." He was made for publicity; he had an instinct for the
+dramatic. His speeches were removed from mediocrity by his evident
+sincerity, his abounding interest in every occasion at which he was
+called upon to talk and the phrases that were half victories which he
+coined almost at will. "Mollycoddle," "muckraking," "the square deal,"
+"the big stick" became familiar idioms in the vernacular of politics
+and the street. The political leadership of Roosevelt rested mainly
+upon his personal prestige and upon his attributes as a reformer. With
+unerring prescience he chose those political issues which would make
+a wide appeal and which could be pressed quickly to a successful
+conclusion. His complete integrity saved him from mere opportunism; his
+ruggedly practical commonsense saved him from that combination of high
+purpose and slight accomplishment which has characterized many other
+reformers.
+
+No estimate of the deficiencies in Roosevelt's personality and
+leadership would be agreed upon at the present time. In some cases--as
+in the realm of international relations--only the future can decide
+whether he was a prophet or a chauvinist; in all cases, opinions have
+differed widely, for Roosevelt could scarcely explore a river, describe
+a natural phenomenon or urge a political innovation without thereby
+arousing a controversy in which his friends and his opponents would
+participate with equal intensity. His identification of himself with
+his purposes was as complete as that of Andrew Jackson; opposition to
+his proposals was reckoned as opposition to him as an individual. Like
+many leaders of the fighting type, he was frequently weak when judging
+the motives of those who disagreed with him. One of his admirers
+declared that his greatest political defect was an impatience of any
+interval between an expressed desire for an act and the accomplishment
+of the deed itself--an inability to stand through years of defeat for
+the future success of an ideal. A keener and equally sympathetic critic
+dubbed him the "sportsman" in politics--honest, hard-hitting, but
+playing the issue which had an immediate political effect.
+
+At the outset of his administration Roosevelt was apparently an
+adherent of the prevailing Republican creed--protective tariff, gold
+standard, imperialism, _laissez faire_ and the rest. His first official
+utterance after becoming President was an indication that he would
+continue unbroken the policies of his predecessor, and to this end he
+insisted that the cabinet should remain intact.[1] His foreign policy
+was aggressive; his interest in the military and naval establishments
+real and constant. Roosevelt was more venturesome than McKinley, and
+more ready to experiment with new ideas. He took up the duties of his
+position with an unaffected zest and enthusiasm; he looked upon the
+presidential office as an exhilarating adventure in national and even
+international affairs. As time went on, therefore, it became more and
+more evident that he was prepared to play a big role on a great stage.
+Moreover, few doubts concerning the constitutional powers of the
+executive position seem ever to have assailed him. Whatever may have
+been his theory at the outset of his presidency, he came eventually to
+believe that the executive power was limited only by the specific
+restrictions and prohibitions appearing in the Constitution, or imposed
+by Congress in laws which it had constitutional authority to pass. The
+scope which this theory presented for the exercise of his energetic
+originality is evident when contrasted with the theory of his
+predecessors, who had, in times of peace, held to the belief that the
+executive possessed only the powers specifically designated by the
+Constitution.
+
+Not until some future time, when the events of the early twentieth
+century are better understood, will it be possible to judge accurately
+the value of President Roosevelt's regime in its relation to the
+control of railroads and corporations. There can be no doubt, however,
+that one of the most serious problems that faced the American people
+during that time was the position which the government ought to occupy
+toward the business interests of the nation. Not only were the
+railroads and the great corporations the center of the economic life
+of the people, but their social and political effects were momentous.
+
+Neither the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 nor the Sherman Anti-trust
+law of 1890, it will be remembered, had accomplished what had been
+expected of them. The Interstate Commerce law had met with grave
+obstacles in the courts; the Sherman act had been seldom invoked by the
+federal executive, and in the most prominent case, United States _v._
+E.C. Knight Co., the government had failed to obtain the decision it
+desired. Government regulation seemed like a broken reed.[2] A few
+cases, however, had indicated the possibility that strength might be
+discovered in the law. In United States _v._ the Trans-Missouri Freight
+Association, the Supreme Court had declared that the Anti-trust act
+applied to railroads and that it forbade agreements among them to
+maintain rates; two years later, in 1899, the Court pronounced illegal
+a combination of pipe manufacturers in the Middle West, on the ground
+that its result was to restrain interstate commerce.
+
+Roosevelt, like Bryan and La Follette, had been groping his way to an
+understanding of the importance of the new problem. During his term as
+Governor of New York he had clashed with the older political leaders
+when he supported an act looking to the heavier taxation of railway
+franchises. The first recommendations in his message to Congress on
+December 3, 1901, concerned the subject of the relation of government
+and industry. The accumulation of wealth in recent years in the United
+States, he asserted, had been due to natural causes, and much of the
+antagonism aroused thereby was without warrant. Nevertheless grave
+evils had attended the process: overcapitalization was one; untruthful
+representations concerning the value of the properties in which
+business asked the public to invest was another. Such evils should be
+attacked; with extreme care, to be sure, but also with resolution.
+Combination and concentration, he thought, should be supervised and,
+within reasonable limits, controlled. The remedies which the President
+suggested were simple: in the interest of the public the government
+should have the right to inspect the workings of organizations engaged
+in interstate commerce; because of the lack of uniformity in corporation
+legislation within the states, the federal government should so extend
+its power as to include supervision of corporations; a Department of
+Commerce and Industries should be established, whose head should be a
+cabinet officer; the Interstate Commerce law should be amended; railway
+rates should be just, and should be the same to all shippers alike, and
+the government should be the agent to provide a remedy to this end.
+
+The enthusiastic reception accorded the message by the press indicated
+that one or another of its numerous recommendations met with approval.
+The effect on Congress, however, of the portion dealing with interstate
+commerce was represented by a cartoon in the New York _World_. Uncle Sam
+was there portrayed stowing away for later attention a bundle of
+manuscript labelled "President's Message 1901. 30,000 words," while he
+smilingly remarked "When I git time!" But Roosevelt was not content to
+let the matter drop, and in the following summer he took the unusual
+step of carrying his message directly to the people. In the New England
+states first, and later in the West, he declared his creed on the
+federal regulation of industry. The effectiveness of the campaign was
+increased by the moderation of the President, by his increasing
+popularity and by the many telling phrases, with which he enforced his
+main thesis. The Sherman act looked less like a broken reed when the
+chief executive of the nation declared: "As far as the anti-trust laws
+go they will be enforced ... and when (a) suit is undertaken it will not
+be compromised except upon the basis that the Government wins." Here and
+there objection was raised that the program was not sufficiently
+definite; now and then a critic hazarded a conjecture that Roosevelt had
+not consulted the leaders of his party; but in the main he succeeded in
+obtaining a sympathetic hearing. At this juncture the coal strike of
+1902 gave him one of those fortunate opportunities which were commonly
+referred to as a part of "Roosevelt's luck." With no uncertain hand he
+seized the opportunity which chance presented.
+
+Before 1899, there had been no organization of the anthracite miners
+with sufficient strength to force any changes in the conditions under
+which the men performed their work. During that year the United Mine
+Workers of America began to send organizers into the Pennsylvania
+region. In 1900 the men struck, but an agreement was reached with the
+operators and work was resumed. The settlement, however, was not
+satisfactory to either side, and in 1902 the workers asked for a
+conference. The presidents of the coal companies and the coal-carrying
+railroads replied that they were always ready to meet their own
+employees but would have no dealings with a general labor organization.
+Smaller causes of unrest were the demand for more pay, shorter hours,
+and payment for coal by weight instead of by the car, but the
+fundamental issue was the recognition of the union--the workmen
+insisting on collective bargaining, the operators refusing it. The men
+were helpless except as a union; the roads were sure of keeping the
+upper hand if they dealt with the men individually or in small groups.
+When attempts at conference failed, the miners struck and from May 12
+until October 23 nearly 147,000 of them remained idle. The total loss
+to miners and operators was nearly $100,000,000.
+
+Since the Pennsylvania fields were almost the sole source of supply
+for anthracite coal, discomfort was soon felt in the North and West,
+and as the cooler weather came on, suffering became acute and public
+feeling bordered on panic. A winter without hard coal could hardly be
+contemplated without grave misgivings. Popular opinion, meanwhile,
+went increasingly to the side of the miners. The refusal of the
+operators to confer, and the propriety of the conduct of the workmen
+made a wide impression that was favorable to the union. Moreover,
+George F. Baer, President of the Philadelphia and Reading Company,
+spoke of himself and his associates in a letter to a correspondent as
+those "Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the
+control of the property interests of the country." The remark was
+widely quoted and generally looked upon as evidence of a selfish and
+uncompromising individualism.[3] The strike having now become a matter
+of national importance, President Roosevelt requested the operators
+and representatives of the miners to meet him in Washington, October
+3. At this conference the spokesman of the railroads refused mediation,
+while the leader of the United Mine Workers, John Mitchell, proposed
+arbitration and pledged the workers to accept it.
+
+After the refusal of the operators to accept the President's
+conciliatory offer, he decided to apply pressure. He obtained the
+consent of Grover Cleveland to act as chairman of a commission of
+investigation and determined to seize the mines by military force, if
+necessary, operate them as a receiver and await the report of his
+commission. In some way, which can not now be indicated with certainty,
+the operators were influenced to accept mediation, and the President
+appointed a commission with Judge George Gray as chairman.[4] The
+miners immediately returned to work, coal began again to flow to the
+North, and public rejoicing was extreme. The President's Commission at
+once repaired to Pennsylvania, heard 558 witnesses, visited the mines,
+and inspected machinery and the homes of the miners. It concluded that
+neither side was completely in the right, and therefore made an award
+that satisfied some of the complaints of both parties. In the history
+of the relation between the federal government and the business
+interests of the nation, the anthracite strike of 1902 is of marked
+significance. The operators had given evidence of a failure to
+understand that their business so concerned the nation that the
+interest of the public in it must be heeded. The successful outcome
+enhanced the prestige of the government and of the President, and an
+example of the need of greater control over corporations received wide
+publicity at the precise moment when the general subject was uppermost
+in the popular mind.
+
+The first legislative evidence of the result of the agitation for the
+more effective regulation of industry was an act approved on February
+11, 1903, by which any suit brought in a Circuit Court by the United
+States government under the Sherman Anti-trust act or the Interstate
+Commerce law, could be given precedence over other cases at the desire
+of the Attorney-General. Three days later a law was passed which
+established a Department of Commerce and Labor, whose chief was to be a
+cabinet officer. Included in the Department was a Bureau of Corporations
+headed by a Commissioner, who was authorized to investigate the
+organization and conduct of the business of corporations. Within another
+five days the Elkins Act had been passed--a law designed to eliminate
+rebating. Despite the Interstate Commerce act, the practice of rebating
+had continued. Agreement was general that railroad men who, in other
+respects, were perfectly scrupulous, commonly violated the law in order
+to get business in competition with their rivals. Among the railroad men
+who had violated the law but who deprecated the necessity of so doing,
+was Paul Morton, president of the Santa Fe system. Morton volunteered to
+assist Roosevelt in stamping out the evil, and the Elkins law was
+designed to aid in this process. It forbade any variation from published
+rates, made both a corporation and its agents punishable for offenses
+against the law, prohibited the receiving of rebates as well as giving
+them, and made the penalty for failure to observe the provisions of the
+Act a fine of one thousand to twenty thousand dollars. Furthermore,
+during February, 1903, Congress appropriated $500,000 to be expended
+under the direction of the Attorney-General for the better enforcement
+of the anti-trust and interstate commerce laws.
+
+In 1903, likewise, was initiated an important judicial proceeding in the
+direction of the enforcement of the Sherman law. The Great Northern
+Railway Company and the Northern Pacific Railway Company operated
+parallel competing lines of road extending from the region of Lake
+Superior to the Pacific Coast. An attempted consolidation of the two had
+been declared illegal under the statutes of the state of Minnesota. On
+November 13, 1901, under the leadership of two of the foremost railway
+magnates of the nation, J.J. Hill and J.P. Morgan, there had been
+organized the Northern Securities Company, to purchase and control at
+least a majority of the shares of the capital stock of the two lines of
+railway. In this way the two roads would be operated as one, their
+earnings pooled, competition between the two eliminated and a virtual
+consolidation effected. On the advice of the Attorney-General, Philander
+C. Knox, President Roosevelt directed that proceedings be instituted
+against the holding company--an act that seemed almost useless in view
+of the decision of the Supreme Court in the Knight Case. But the
+decision in the Northern Securities Case, handed down in 1904, was a
+surprise. By a vote of five to four the Court declared the company a
+combination in restraint of trade, and therefore illegal under the
+Sherman act, and enjoined any attempt on its part to control the affairs
+of either of the two railways.
+
+Nineteen hundred and four, the year of the presidential election, found
+Roosevelt in a strong position. His success in handling the coal strike
+and his energetic preparations for the crusade against trust evils had
+struck a responsive chord in the popular mind. Late in 1903 he had
+announced to Congress that frauds had been discovered in the post
+office and land office, and urged the appropriation of funds for the
+prosecution of the offenders. The result was a house-cleaning which
+involved the conviction of many officials, including two United States
+senators. Roosevelt's popularity became greater than ever.
+
+It was to be expected, however, that some opposition would appear to the
+nomination of Roosevelt for a continuation of his term of office, and it
+was around the forceful Mark Hanna that the opposition began gradually
+to center. Hanna had attained remarkable influence as a senator, was
+highly trusted by the business interests and was popular among southern
+Republicans. But his death in February, 1904, effectively ended any
+opposition to Roosevelt, since it was then too late to focus attention
+upon any other competitor. The Republican nominating convention,
+therefore, which met in Chicago on June 21, lacked any semblance of a
+contest, and the President was renominated without opposition. The
+platform was of the traditional sort. The history of the party was
+approved; its achievements in giving prosperity to the country and
+peaceful government to the island possessions were recounted; the
+protective tariff, the gold standard, an isthmian canal, the improvement
+of the army and navy, the continuation of civil service reform and a
+vigorous foreign policy,--on all these the party utterance was that of
+other days. Surprisingly little was said upon the subject of the
+regulation of corporations. The few steps already taken were approved,
+but as to the future, the platform was almost colorless:
+
+    Combinations of capital and of labor are the results of the
+    economic movement of the age, but neither must be permitted to
+    infringe upon the rights and interests of the people. Such
+    combinations, when lawfully formed for lawful purposes, are
+    alike entitled to the protection of the laws, but both are
+    subject to the laws, and neither can be permitted to break them.
+
+The Democratic convention met in St. Louis on July 6, and the
+excitement which marked its proceedings compensated for the lack of
+interest at the Republican meeting. As drawn up by a sub-committee of
+the Committee on Resolutions, the platform was, in many of its planks,
+a distinct return to the programs of the days before 1896. It urged a
+reduction of the tariff, generous pensions and civil service reform,
+together with the enforcement of the anti-trust laws and the popular
+election of senators. In the main, it was devoted to a condemnation
+of the existing Republican administration, which it denounced as
+"spasmodic, erratic, sensational, spectacular and arbitrary." It also
+contained a paragraph declaring that the question of the money standard
+had ceased to be an issue, on the ground that recent discoveries of
+gold had enormously increased the supply of currency in the country.
+Bryan did not approve. With characteristic energy he threw himself into
+an all-night fight in the Committee in behalf of a silver plank. His
+defeat indicated that the convention was in the hands of his opponents
+and the platform as adopted contained no reference to the currency.
+
+The delegates had, in fact, come to the meeting with the distinct
+purpose of returning to the "safe and sane" democracy of Grover
+Cleveland. To that end, the platform was to drop the silver issue and
+Bryan was to be replaced by a more conservative leader. The radical
+forces centered their strength upon William R. Hearst, but they were in
+a distinct minority, and in the end, the Cleveland wing succeeded in
+nominating Judge Alton B. Parker of New York. As soon as he was
+notified of his nomination, Judge Parker telegraphed to the convention
+that he regarded the gold standard as irrevocably established and that
+he must decline to be the party candidate if his attitude on the
+currency was unsatisfactory to the delegates. Thereupon the convention
+replied that the platform was silent on the question of a monetary
+standard because it was not regarded as a campaign issue. Parker was
+satisfied with the reply, and the last word was written upon a question
+that had disturbed politics for many years.
+
+The succeeding campaign was unusually listless. Parker did not inspire
+enthusiasm, although a man of undoubted integrity and ability, and the
+personality of Roosevelt was the controlling force. Only at the close
+of the canvass did a passing interest appear in some charges made by
+Parker. He called attention to the fact that Secretary Cortelyou of the
+Department of Commerce and Labor had been charged with the duty of
+examining the acts of corporations and had then resigned to become
+chairman of the National Republican Committee. Parker insinuated that
+Cortelyou was using information about corporate misdoing, which he had
+discovered, in order to force large contributions from the business
+interests. He also declared that the Republican campaign was being
+financed by the corporations. Roosevelt did not answer the charges
+until three days before the election, and then he asserted that the
+statements made by Parker were "unqualifiedly and atrociously false."
+Later investigations have shown that in general Parker was correct in
+his complaint as to the activities of the corporations, although he
+would have found difficulty in proving his charges in detail. The same
+investigations, however, indicated that some of the Democratic campaign
+fund had come from similar sources.
+
+[Illustration:
+Election of 1904 by Counties]
+
+The election resulted in the choice of President Roosevelt, whose
+popular vote was 7,600,000 to Parker's 5,000,000. In the more populous
+sections of the country, which were normally Republican, the party vote
+scarcely exceeded that of 1900, but in the Far West, the increases were
+notable. Beyond the Mississippi River, except in the southern states,
+hardly a county gave a majority for Parker, showing that the region
+which had gone to Bryan in 1896 was substantially solid for Roosevelt.
+Indeed, the policies to which Roosevelt was committed bore a greater
+resemblance to the principles of Bryan than to the _laissez faire_
+philosophy to which many important Republican leaders adhered. Despite
+their dissent, however, his victory in the election was so overwhelming
+that he could carry out his program with the irresistible pressure of
+public opinion behind him.
+
+During the campaign year, the Commissioner of Corporations was busy
+investigating the activities of the so-called "beef-trust," and a suit
+against the combination was pressed to a successful conclusion in
+January, 1905. In its decision in the case (Swift & Company _v._ United
+States), the Supreme Court dwelt at some length on the charges made
+against the Company. A dominant proportion--six-tenths--of the dealers
+in fresh meat in the United States were alleged to have agreed not to
+bid against one another in the live-stock markets; to restrict the
+output of meat in order to raise prices; to keep a black-list; and to
+get illegal rates from the railroads to the exclusion of competitors.
+To the objection of the members of the trust that the charges against
+them were general and did not set forth any specific facts, the Court
+retorted that the scheme alleged was so vast as to present a new
+problem in pleading. The decision was against the combination, which
+was ordered to dissolve. The publicity given to the case and to the
+methods of the meat packers assisted in the passage of legislation
+requiring government inspection of meats.
+
+An unexpected phase of the Sherman act appeared in 1908, in the case
+Loewe _v._ Lawlor. The American Federation of Labor, acting through its
+official organ, had declared a boycott against D.E. Loewe, a hat
+manufacturer of Danbury, Connecticut. The Court decided that a
+combination of labor organizations designed to boycott a dealer's goods
+was a combination in restraint of trade and that the manufacturer might
+maintain an action against the Hatters' Union for damages.[5]
+
+In the meantime, another prominent trust had played into the hands of
+the administration. The American Sugar Refining Company imported large
+amounts of raw sugar, on which it paid tariff duties. In November,
+1907, it was discovered that the Company had tampered with the scales
+on which the incoming sugar was weighed, in such a manner as to defraud
+the government. In the resulting legal actions, over $4,000,000 were
+recovered from the Company, criminal prosecutions were carried on
+against the officials and employees, and several of them were
+convicted. The close relation between the railroads and the great
+corporations was indicated when the Standard Oil Company of Indiana was
+brought into court on the charge of receiving rebates on petroleum
+shipped over the Chicago and Alton Railroad. The decision by Judge K.M.
+Landis was that the Company was guilty on 1,462 separate counts and
+must pay a fine of $29,240,000. On appeal to a higher court the case
+was dismissed, partly on a question concerning the meaning of the law.
+
+The efforts of Roosevelt in the direction of control of the railroads
+resembled his activities in relation to industrial combinations. A
+variety of circumstances had combined to arouse a popular demand for
+the reinforcement of existing legislation: the discovery of grave
+abuses in connection with the transportation of petroleum; the
+continuance of favoritism and rebating, together with increasing public
+knowledge of their existence; the rise in freight rates; and the
+consolidation of the railroads into a few large systems, with the
+accompanying concentration of power in the hands of a small number of
+persons. In his public speeches and in his messages to Congress in 1904
+and 1905, President Roosevelt made himself the spokesman of the popular
+will. In particular--and it was here that the conflict was destined to
+rage--the President called for the transfer to the Interstate Commerce
+Commission of the power to determine the rates which the roads should
+be allowed to charge. The project was not a new one, having already
+taken shape in previous years, but at no time was Congress prepared to
+pass definite legislation. The reaction of the railroads to the rising
+demand was energetic. A costly propaganda was entered upon designed to
+prove to the public that the roads should be let alone. A powerful
+lobby worked insistently upon Congress, first to prevent action and
+later, when action was seen to be inevitable, to weaken the legislation
+wherever possible. The railroad's campaign of popular education,
+however, helped to convince the popular mind that new laws were needed,
+and came coincidently with the disclosures of corporate mismanagement
+and wrong-doing. The outcome was the Hepburn Act of June 29, 1906.
+
+Its major provisions were five in number. It enlarged the scope of the
+Interstate Commerce Act so as to include control of express and
+sleeping car companies, pipe lines, switches, spur tracks and
+terminals. Free passes, which had hitherto been productive of much
+favoritism and the source of political corruption, were strictly
+forbidden, except to a few specified classes. The "commodity clause"
+forbade railroads to carry goods, other than timber, in which they had
+an interest, except such as they were going to use themselves. This
+provision was designed mainly to check the activities of those
+companies which owned both coal mines and railroads, and which used
+their advantageous position to crush independent operators. Its force,
+however, was largely nullified by subsequent decisions of the courts.
+The Hepburn law also enabled the Commission to prescribe the methods of
+book-keeping which the roads must follow, to call for monthly or
+special reports and to employ examiners who should have access to the
+books of the carriers. The roads were even denied the right to keep any
+records except those approved by the Commission. These drastic features
+of the law were due in part to the practices of certain roads which hid
+away corrupt expenditures in their accounts in such a manner that
+detection was almost impossible. Most important, however, among the
+provisions of the Act was that in relation to rate-making, which not
+only empowered the Commission to hear complaints that rates were unjust
+or unreasonable, but even enabled it to determine what would be a just
+and reasonable charge in the case, and to order the carrier complained
+of to adhere to the new rate. The rate-making section of the Hepburn
+Act immediately resulted in a large increase in the number of
+complaints entered by shippers against the carriers. Previously, few
+cases had been taken to the Commission--only 878 in eighteen
+years--because relief was seldom obtained and then only at great cost
+in time and money. Under the new law more than 1500 cases were entered
+within two and a half years, and several thousand others were
+informally settled out of court.
+
+The example of the federal government in adopting restrictive railway
+legislation was followed by the states, on a nation-wide scale. Hours
+of labor were regulated, liability for accidents defined, railroad
+commissions given larger powers, and freight and passenger rates
+determined. The result was a tangle of local regulations, many of which
+were designed to embarrass the roads and others of which were passed
+with slight knowledge of the practical questions involved.
+
+Aside from his connection with the anti-trust campaign and the movement
+for railroad regulation, Roosevelt's most significant activities during
+his second administration related to conservation. As early as 1880 the
+Superintendent of the Census had called attention to the exhaustion of
+the best public lands. The truth of his assertion had been exemplified
+in the rush of settlers to Oklahoma when the former Indian Territory
+was opened to settlement on April 22, 1889. At noon on that day the
+blast of a cavalry bugle was the signal that any settler might enter
+and stake out his claim. On foot, on fleet horses, in primitive wagons,
+an excited, jostling mob rushed toward those lands that seemed most
+desirable. Trains were crowded to the roofs; tools, furniture, and
+portable houses were carried in from Texas, Nebraska and Kansas. By
+nightfall a stretch of waving prairie became Gruthrie, with a
+population of 10,000 persons; by the evening of the first day Oklahoma
+possessed a population of 50,000; twenty years later it had over a
+million and a half, contained flourishing cities, many public
+enterprises, and a beautiful state university.
+
+The fact that desirable land was becoming so rare called attention to
+the waste and dishonesty in connection with our public land system. In
+his annual report for 1884 the Secretary of the Interior had complained
+that large amounts of land had been acquired under fictitious names or
+by persons employed for the purpose. Their holdings were then passed
+over to speculators who retained huge areas for a rising market.
+Railroads had kept lands granted to them, without fulfilling the
+conditions of the grants. Titled Englishmen and English land companies
+had gained control of tracts of unbelievable size, one of them being
+estimated at 3,000,000 acres. The history of the disposal of the public
+land had almost been duplicated in the history of the forest-bearing
+public domain, except that measures had earlier been taken to conserve
+the remnant of the once magnificent supply of standing timber. An act
+of 1891 had enabled the president to set apart as public reservations
+any lands bearing forests. All the presidents, from Harrison down, had
+availed themselves of their power, and had established great numbers of
+reservations, most of them in states west of the Mississippi.[6]
+
+A few far-sighted individuals had long urged caution in the disposal of
+the public resources. Some beginnings in fact had already been made in
+the Division of Forestry in the Department of Agriculture, where
+Clifford Pinchot was actively interested in forest preservation. In
+1901 and later his functions had been expanded, and the forestry
+service had taken up protection against fire, the sale of timber, and
+reforestation. In 1907 President Roosevelt appointed a commission to
+study the inland waterways, which after careful investigation
+recommended a convention for the discussion of conservation problems.
+Thereupon the President invited the governors of the states to
+Washington for a conference, at which conservation questions were
+thoroughly discussed. The resulting recommendations composed a
+complete, although general plan of reform: the natural resources of the
+country to be used for the prosperity of the American people;
+reclamation of arid lands; conservation of forests, minerals and
+water-power; the protection of the sources of the rivers; and
+cooperation between Congress and the states in developing a
+conservation program. A National Conservation Commission was later
+appointed which coordinated the work of organizing the movement, and
+made an exhaustive inventory of the nation's natural resources.
+
+The conservation movement also called attention to the possibilities of
+the arid region between the western parts of Kansas, Nebraska and the
+Dakotas, and the eastern border of California. Within this vast area
+were large tracts of land that would be fertile if sufficiently
+supplied with water. The most important legislation in a series of acts
+designed to meet this need was the Reclamation Act of 1902. Under its
+provisions the federal government set aside the proceeds of the sale of
+public land in sixteen states and territories as a fund for irrigation
+work. With the resources thus obtained, water powers were developed,
+reservoirs built and large tracts supplied with water. Private
+companies and western states also carried out numerous projects. The
+Department of Agriculture after its establishment in 1889 also
+conducted many undertakings which, in effect, were conservation
+enterprises. It helped educate the American farmer in scientific
+methods, sought new crops in every corner of the globe, discovered and
+circulated means of combating diseases and insects, studied soils,
+distributed seeds and gathered statistics. In the arid and semi-arid
+regions the discovery of dry farming was of great value. This consists
+of planting the seed deep and keeping a mulch of dust on the surface by
+frequent cultivation, in order to retard the evaporation of the
+moisture in the ground underneath.[7]
+
+Nothing can be more apparent than the complete change of position which
+was brought about during the eight years after the death of President
+McKinley. At the end of that period, both the industrial corporations
+and the railways were on the defensive, and the public had secured the
+whip hand. Industry, especially the railroads, was tamed and
+hobbled--some thought, crippled. Many factors contributed to the
+revolution. President Roosevelt was its most active agent, to be
+sure,--its "gigantic advertiser" and popularizer. But it could hardly
+have taken place--at least at the time and in the way it did--without
+the great upheaval of 1896, without the publicity which the "muck-rake"
+magazines and daily newspapers were able to offer, without the
+industrial consolidations of 1898 and later, and without the refusal of
+industry and the railways to obey earlier and less drastic laws, and
+their skilled and insistent attempts to find loop-holes in legislation.
+
+From the standpoint of politics, the effect of the Roosevelt
+administrations was notable. As has been seen, the Republican party had
+become largely the party of the business and commercial classes,
+conservative and unyielding to the new demands of the late nineteenth
+century. Its leadership had been sharply challenged by the forces of
+unrest in 1896. On an issue other than a monetary one, the success of
+Bryan would have been possible. The failure of the attempt to get
+control of the federal government in the interest of the Populist
+program was only a temporary defeat, for the revival of unrest,
+although checked by the war with Spain, was sure soon to reappear. In
+President Roosevelt, the forces of discontent, especially in the Middle
+and Far West, saw their hoped-for champion, and their support of him
+was instant and complete. The dominant leadership and much of the rank
+and file of the Republican party had become liberal. The situation was
+anomalous, however, for no great political party can experience a
+thorough-going change of philosophy in a few years. Only the future,
+therefore, could tell whether the newer and more liberal element would
+continue to control the party, or whether a reaction against its
+leadership would take place.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+It is too early to expect a biography of Roosevelt which is informed
+and critical, as well as sympathetic. The keenest judgment is to be
+found in _Atlantic Monthly_ (CIX, 577), "Mr. Roosevelt." The following
+are also available: L.F. Abbott, _Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt_
+(1919); F.E. Leupp, _The Man Roosevelt_ (1904); W.R. Thayer, _Theodore
+Roosevelt_ (1919); C.G. Washburn, _Theodore Roosevelt; the Logic of His
+Career_ (1916). Roosevelt can be partly understood through a critical
+reading of his writings, especially his _Addresses and Presidential
+Messages_ (1904), and his _Autobiography_ (1913).
+
+On the coal strike consult the _Autobiography_, and _Senate Reports_,
+58th Congress, special session, Document No. 6 (Serial Number 4556),
+the report of the President's Commission. The election of 1904 is
+discussed in Latane, Croly and Stanwood: see also C.M. Pepper, _The
+Life and Times of Henry Gassaway Davis_ (1920). The new railroad acts
+are well discussed in W.Z. Ripley, _Railroads: Rates and Regulations_
+(1912), and by F.H. Dixon in _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, XXI, 22.
+
+The literature of conservation is very large. An excellent single
+chapter is in Katherine Coman, _Industrial History of the United
+States_ (rev. ed., 1910); C.R. Van Hise, _The Conservation of Natural
+Resources in the United States_ (1913), is a standard work; R.P. Teele,
+_Irrigation in the United States_ (1915), is detailed; for documents
+concerning the conference of governors, _House of Representatives
+Document_ No. 1425, 60th Congress, 2nd session (Serial Number 5538).
+
+The anti-trust campaign is best followed in Theodore Roosevelt,
+_Addresses and Presidential Messages_, and in the _Autobiography_. The
+Northern Securities decision is in _United States Reports_, vol. 193,
+p. 197.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] In view of the later activities of President Roosevelt, there is
+point in the remark of a satirist that Roosevelt did carry out the
+policies of McKinley--and bury them. _Atlantic Monthly_, CIX, 164.
+
+[2] Above, p. 257.
+
+[3] It was later denied that Baer made the statement, but a
+photographic copy of the letter was printed in Lloyd, _Henry D. Lloyd_,
+II, 190. See also Mitchell, _Organized Labor_, 384; Peck, _Twenty
+Years_, 693-6.
+
+[4] Rumor says that Roosevelt sent Elihu Root to the eminent financial
+magnate, J.P. Morgan, with information of his intent to appoint the
+Cleveland Commission, and that Morgan applied the pressure to the coal
+operators.
+
+[5] In 1917, fourteen years after Loewe's first suit, he recovered
+damages from the Union.
+
+[6] In 1918, 151 national forests aggregated 176,000,000 acres.
+Secretary of the Interior, _Annual Report_, 1918, 61.
+
+[7] The territory of Alaska contains immense stores of natural resources
+which are being conserved with more wisdom than characterized the
+disposal of our continental supplies. The area of the territory,
+586,400 square miles, constitutes a, kingdom. It has uncounted wealth in
+fish, furs, timber, coal and precious metals. At present the federal
+government is building a railroad which will tap some of the resources
+of the region. _Enc. Brit._, "Alaska."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+POLITICS, 1908-1912
+
+By 1908, the year of the presidential election, an influential portion
+of the Republican members of Congress, particularly in the Senate, were
+bitterly opposed to President Roosevelt. His attitude on the trusts and
+the railroads was offensive to many, and on several occasions he had
+gained the upper hand over Congress by means which were coming to be
+known as "big-stick" methods. The so-called "constructive recess" of
+1903 was an example.
+
+Under the provisions of the Constitution, the president appoints many
+officials with the advice and consent of the Senate, when it is in
+session, and fills vacancies that happen during a recess by granting
+commissions which expire at the end of the next session. On December 2,
+1903, at noon, one session of Congress came to an end and another began.
+Precisely at 12 o'clock, according to the official statement, the
+President issued new commissions to W.D. Crum, a negro, to be collector
+of the port of Charleston, and also to 168 army officers, of whom the
+President's close friend Brigadier-General Leonard Wood was one. General
+Wood was to be promoted to a major-generalship and the remaining
+promotions were dependent upon his advance. The President's theory was
+that a "constructive recess" intervened between the two sessions, during
+which he could make recess appointments. Although the Senate was hostile
+to both Crum and Wood, it reluctantly succumbed to Roosevelt's wishes
+rather than withhold promotion from the 167 officers to whom it had no
+objection.
+
+In 1908, Senator Tillman, an outspoken Democratic critic of the
+President, declared that senators vigorously denounced Roosevelt's
+radical ideas in private but that in public they opposed merely by
+inaction. Party loyalty was sufficient to keep these Republicans, in
+most cases, from open and continued rebellion. Hardly less hostile to
+the President were many of the business men of the country, who objected
+to his economic policies, but the only alternative to Roosevelt was
+Bryan, who, as one of the earliest proponents of radical legislation,
+was even more offensive. On the other hand, a large majority of the rank
+and file of the party, especially in the North and West, upheld the
+President with unfeigned enthusiasm and made his position in the party
+so strong that he could practically name his successor. Several
+candidates had more or less local support for the nomination--Senator
+Knox, of Pennsylvania, Governor Hughes, of New York, Speaker Cannon, of
+Illinois, Vice-President Fairbanks, of Indiana, Senator La Follette, of
+Wisconsin and Senator Foraker, of Ohio. The President's prestige and
+energy, however, were frankly behind the candidacy of his Secretary of
+War, William H. Taft.
+
+The Republican convention of 1908 met in Chicago on June 16. Early in
+the proceedings the mention of Roosevelt's name brought an outburst of
+enthusiasm which indicated the possibility that he might be nominated
+for a third term, despite his expressed refusal to allow such a move to
+be made. In the platform the achievements of the retiring administration
+were recounted in glowing terms; tariff reform was promised; and a
+postal savings bank, the strengthening of the Interstate Commerce law
+and the Sherman Anti-trust act, the more accurate definition of the
+rules of procedure in the issuance of injunctions, good roads,
+conservation, pensions and the encouragement of shipping, received the
+stamp of party approval. Planks pledging the party to legislation
+requiring the publicity of campaign expenditures, the valuation of the
+physical property of railroads and the popular election of senators were
+uniformly rejected. The closing paragraph declared that the "trend of
+Democracy is toward Socialism, while the Republican party stands for
+wise and regulated individualism." The contest over the nomination was
+extremely brief, as Taft received 702 out of 979 votes on the first
+ballot. James S. Sherman of New York was nominated for the
+vice-presidency.
+
+The Democrats, meanwhile, were in a quandary. A considerable fraction of
+the party desired the nomination of somebody other than Bryan, whose
+defeats in 1896 and 1900 had cast doubts upon the wisdom of a third
+trial. Nevertheless the failure of Parker in 1904 had been so
+overwhelming that the nomination of a conservative seemed undesirable
+and, moreover, no candidate appeared whose achievements or promise could
+overcome the prestige of Bryan. The national convention was held in
+Denver, July 7-10, and Bryan dominated all its activities. The platform
+welcomed the Republican promise to reform the tariff, but doubted its
+sincerity; promised changes in the Interstate Commerce law, a more
+elastic currency, improvements in the law of injunctions, generous
+pensions, good roads and the conservation of the national resources. In
+the main, however, the platform was an emphatic condemnation of the
+Republican party as the party of "privileges and private monopoly." It
+declared that the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives
+exercised such absolute domination as to stop the enactment of measures
+desired by the majority. It demanded the termination of the "partnership
+which has existed between corporations of the country and the Republican
+party," by which the business interests contributed great sums of money
+in elections in return for an unmolested opportunity to "encroach upon
+the rights of the people." It promised the enactment of laws preventing
+corporation contributions to campaign funds and providing for the
+publication before election of all contributions by individuals.
+Detailed and definite planks in relation to trusts indicated that the
+framers of the platform possessed at least the courage of their
+convictions. Three laws were promised: one preventing the duplication of
+directors among competing corporations; another establishing a license
+system which would place under federal authority those corporations
+engaged in interstate commerce which controlled as much as twenty-five
+per cent. of the product in which they dealt, and which should likewise
+protect the public from watered stock and prohibit any single
+corporation from controlling over fifty per cent. of the total amount of
+any commodity consumed in the United States; and, third, a law forcing
+corporations to sell to purchasers in all sections of the country on the
+same terms, after making due allowance for transportation costs.
+
+As soon as the platform was out of the way, the convention turned to the
+nomination of the candidate. Only George Gray, of Delaware, and John A.
+Johnson, of Minnesota, contested the leadership of Bryan, but their
+support was so slight that he was chosen on the first ballot. John W.
+Kern, of Indiana, was nominated for the vice-presidency.
+
+Of the smaller parties which shared in the election of 1908, the
+People's party and the Socialists should be mentioned. The Populists
+adopted a program of economic reforms many parts of which had been
+prominent in their platforms of 1892 and 1896. Both the Republicans and
+the Democrats, however, had adopted so many of these earlier demands
+that the Populists rapidly lost strength and disappeared after 1908. The
+Socialists likewise advocated economic reforms, together with government
+ownership of the railroads, and of such industries as were organized on
+a national scale. The candidate nominated was Eugene V. Debs, a labor
+leader who had gained prominence at the time of the Pullman strike.[1]
+
+The only novelty in the campaign was Bryan's stand in regard to campaign
+funds. By calling upon his supporters for large numbers of small
+individual contributions, he drew attention to the fact that the
+corporations were helping generously to meet Taft's election expenses.
+At their leader's direction the Democratic committee announced that it
+would receive no contributions whatever from corporations, that it would
+accept no offering over $10,000 and that it would publish a list of
+contributors before the close of the campaign.
+
+The result of the election was the triumph of Taft and his party. The
+Republican popular vote was 7,700,000; the Democratic, 6,500,000; the
+Socialist, 420,890. The election also gave the Republicans control of
+Congress, which was to be constituted as follows during 1909-1911:
+Senate, Democrats, 32, Republicans, 61; House of Representatives,
+Democrats, 172, Republicans, 219.
+
+Few men in our history have had a wider judicial and administrative
+experience before coming to the presidency than that of William H. Taft.
+He was born in 1857 in Ohio, graduated from Yale University with high
+rank in the class of 1878 and later entered upon the study of law. A
+judicial temperament early manifested itself and Taft became
+successively judge of the Superior Court in Cincinnati and of a United
+States Circuit Court. From the latter post he was called to serve upon
+the Philippine Commission, was later Governor of the Philippines and
+Secretary of War in Roosevelt's cabinet. During the period of his
+connection with the Philippines and his membership in the Cabinet he
+visited Cuba, Panama, Porto Rico, Japan and the Papal Court at Rome in
+connection with matters of federal importance.
+
+Personally Taft is kindly, unaffected, democratic, full of good humor,
+courageous. As a public officer he was slow and judicial, rather than
+quick and executive like his predecessor. Although in sympathy with the
+reforms instituted by Roosevelt, Taft was less the reformer and more
+conscious of considerations of constitutionality. Roosevelt thought of
+the domain of the executive as including all acts not _specifically
+forbidden_ by the Constitution or by the laws of the nation; Taft
+thought of it as including only those which were _specifically granted_
+by the Constitution and laws. The one was voluble, a dynamo of energy,
+quick to seize and act upon any innovation that gave promise of being
+both useful and successful; the other thought and acted more slowly and
+was less sensitive to the feasibility of change. One possessed well-nigh
+all the attributes necessary for intense popularity; the other inspired
+admiration among a smaller group. Roosevelt had a peculiarly keen
+perception of the currents of public opinion, enjoyed publicity and knew
+how to achieve it; Taft was less quick at discovering the popular thing
+and less adept at those tricks of the trade that heightened the
+popularity of his predecessor.
+
+Despite the patent differences of temperament and philosophy between
+Taft and Roosevelt, both expected that the new administration would be
+an extension of the old one. Roosevelt indicated this in his frank
+preference for Taft as his successor; Taft indicated it in his thorough
+acceptance of the policies of the preceding seven years and in his
+intention, expressed at the time of his inauguration, to maintain and
+further the reforms already initiated. His first act, however, the
+appointment of his official advisors, caused some surprise among the
+friends of his predecessor who expected that he would retain most if not
+all of the Roosevelt cabinet. When he did not do so, it seemed as if the
+attempt to further the Roosevelt policies would lack continuity.[2]
+
+The immediate problem that faced the new executive was the revision of
+the tariff. The task was one which has frequently resulted in political
+disaster, but the platform left no choice to the President:
+
+    The Republican party declares unequivocally for a revision of the
+    tariff by a special session of Congress immediately following the
+    inauguration of the next President.... In all tariff legislation the
+    true principle of protection is best maintained by the imposition
+    of such duties as will equal the difference between the cost of
+    production at home and abroad, together with a reasonable profit to
+    American industries.
+
+The precise meaning of this declaration will perhaps always remain a
+matter of dispute, although it is certain that the public in general
+understood it to mean a distinct lowering of the tariff wall, and Taft
+committed himself to downward revision in his inaugural address.
+Moreover, whether it was intended by the framers to commit the party
+to downward revision or not, the method of defining the amount of
+protection to be granted was both novel and unsatisfactory, as
+Professor Taussig has pointed out. How could the costs of production
+at home or abroad be determined? To what extent would the principle
+announced in the platform be carried? Almost any commodity can be
+produced almost anywhere if the producer is guaranteed the cost of
+production, together with a reasonable profit. The wise revision of
+the tariff is difficult enough under any circumstances; under so vague
+a theory as was proposed in 1908, the chances of success became
+remote.
+
+The drafting of the tariff bill proceeded in the usual manner. The
+Ways and Means Committee of the House, the chairman of which was
+Sereno Payne, held preliminary public "hearings," which were open to
+any who desired to offer testimony or make requests. Naturally,
+however, the great body of the consuming public was little
+represented; most of those who appeared were manufacturers, importers
+and other interested parties. The bill drawn up by the Committee and
+passed by the House revised existing duties, on the whole, in the
+downward direction. The Senate Finance Committee, however, under the
+leadership of Nelson W. Aldrich, an experienced and able proponent of
+a high protective tariff, made 847 amendments, many of them important
+and generally in the direction of higher rates. The Senate, like the
+House, contained several Republicans, usually called "insurgents," who
+were inclined to break away from certain of the party doctrines.
+Senators Bristow, Cummins, Dolliver and La Follette were among them.
+This contingent had hoped for a genuine downward revision, and when
+they saw that the bill was not in accord with their expectations, they
+prepared to demand a thorough debate. Each of the insurgents made an
+especial study of some particular portion of the proposed measure so
+as to be well prepared to urge reductions. Their efforts were
+unavailing, however, and the bill passed--the insurgents voting with
+the great majority of the Democrats in the negative. The bill then
+went to a conference committee. Up to this point, the President had
+taken little share in the formation of the bill. Yet as leader of the
+party he had pledged himself to a downward revision and the result
+seemed likely not to be in the promised direction. He therefore
+exerted pressure on the conference committee and succeeded apparently
+in getting some reductions, chiefly the abolition of the duty on
+hides. The bill was then passed by both houses and signed by the
+President on August 5, 1909.
+
+The question whether the Payne-Aldrich act redeemed the pledge
+embodied in the platform of 1908 will doubtless remain a debatable
+question. On the one hand, a prominent Republican member of the
+Committee on Ways and Means and of the Conference Committee, declared
+that the act represented the greatest reduction that had been made in
+the tariff at any single time since the first revenue law was signed
+by George Washington. Roosevelt also defended the act. Experts outside
+of Congress sharply differed. Professor Taussig analyzed the act in
+all its aspects and concluded that no essential change had been made
+in our tariff system. "It still left an extremely high scheme of
+rates, and still showed an extremely intolerant attitude on foreign
+trade." General public opinion was most affected by the fact that
+duties on cotton goods were raised, and those on woolen goods left at
+the high rates levied under the Dingley act. It also appeared that
+many silent influences had been at work--the duty on cheap cotton
+gloves, for example, being doubled through the efforts of an
+interested individual who procured the assistance of a New England
+senator.[3]
+
+Not long after the passage of the act President Taft defended it in a
+speech at Winona, Minnesota, as the best tariff bill that the
+Republican party had ever passed. In regard to the woolen schedule he
+frankly said:
+
+    Mr. Payne in the House, and Mr. Aldrich, in the Senate, although
+    both favored reduction in the schedule, found that in the Republican
+    party the interests of the wool growers of the Far West and the
+    interests of the woolen manufacturers in the East and in other
+    States, reflected through their representatives in Congress, were
+    sufficiently strong to defeat any attempt to change the woolen
+    tariff and that, had it been attempted, it would have beaten the
+    bill reported from either committee.... It is the one important
+    defect in the present Payne tariff.
+
+The response of the press and the insurgent Republicans to the passage
+of the bill and to the Winona speech were ominous for the future of the
+party. Although not unanimous, condemnation was common in the West,
+even in Republican papers. Particular objection was made to the high
+estimate which the President placed upon the act and to his defence of
+Senator Aldrich, who had come to be looked upon as the forefront of the
+"special interests"; and western state Republican platforms in 1910
+declared that the act had not been in accord with the plank of 1908.[4]
+
+Coincidently with the disagreement over the Payne-Aldrich act, there
+raged the unhappy Pinchot-Ballinger controversy. One of the last acts
+of President Roosevelt had been to withdraw from sale large tracts of
+public land which contained valuable water-power. The purpose and the
+effect of the order was to prevent these natural resources from falling
+into private hands and particularly into the hands of syndicates or
+corporations who would develop them mainly for individual interests.
+President Taft's Secretary of the Interior, Richard A. Ballinger, took
+the attitude that the withdrawals were without statutory justification
+and he therefore revoked the order for withdrawals immediately after
+coming into office. Upon further investigation, however, he re-withdrew
+a part of the land, although somewhat doubtful of his power to do so.
+
+During the summer of 1909, Gifford Pinchot, the Chief Forester,
+addressed an irrigation Congress in Spokane and asserted that the
+water-power sites were being absorbed by a trust. Much interest was
+aroused by the charge, which was looked upon as an attack on the
+Secretary of the Interior and his policy. Within a short time the idea
+became widespread, through the press, that Ballinger was associated
+with interests which were desirous of seizing the public resources and
+that this fact lay back of his partial reversal of the policy of his
+predecessor. This impression was deepened by the charges of L.R.
+Glavis, an employee of the Department of the Interior, concerning the
+claims of a certain Clarence Cunningham, representing a group of
+investors, to some exceedingly valuable coal lands in Alaska. Glavis
+asserted that the Cunningham claims were fraudulent, that many of the
+Cunningham group were personal friends of Ballinger and that the latter
+had acted as attorney for them before becoming Secretary of the
+Interior. President Taft, with the backing of an opinion from
+Attorney-General Wickersham, upheld Ballinger and dismissed Glavis. The
+press again took the matter up and the controversy was carried into
+Congress, where an investigation was ordered. About the same time
+Pinchot was removed for insubordination, and additional heat entered
+into the disagreement. The majority of the congressional committee of
+investigation later made a report exonerating Ballinger, but his
+position had become intolerable and he resigned in March, 1911. The
+result of the quarrel was to weaken the President, for the idea became
+common that his administration had been friendly with interests that
+wished to seize the public lands.
+
+Republican complaint in regard to the tariff and the Pinchot-Ballinger
+controversy were surface indications of a division in the party into
+conservative or "old-guard," and progressive or insurgent groups. The
+same line of demarcation appeared in a quarrel over the power of the
+Speaker of the House of Representatives, Joseph G. Cannon. Cannon had
+served in the lower branch of Congress almost continuously for
+twenty-seven years, and in 1910 was filling the position of speaker for
+the fourth consecutive time. Much of his official influence rested on
+two powers: he appointed the committees of the House and their
+chairmen, a power which enabled him to punish opponents, reward friends
+and determine the character of legislation; and he was the chairman and
+dominant power of the Committee on Rules which determined the procedure
+under existing practice and made special orders whenever particular
+circumstances seemed to require them. It was widely believed that
+Cannon, like Aldrich in the Senate, effectually controlled the passage
+of legislation, with slender regard to the wishes or needs of the
+people. "Cannonism" and "Aldrichism" were considered synonymous. For
+several years an influential part of the Republican and Independent, as
+well as the Democratic press had attacked Speaker Cannon as the enemy
+of progressive legislation. Many of them laid much of the blame for the
+character of the Payne-Aldrich act at his door. _The Outlook_ decried
+"government by oligarchy"; _The Nation_ declared that he belonged to
+another political age; Bryan queried what Cannon was selling and how
+much he got; Gompers, the head of the American Federation of Labor,
+pointed him out as the enemy of all reforms.
+
+The outcry against the Speaker in the House itself, reinforced by the
+gathering opposition outside, found effective voice in a coalition of
+the Democrats and the insurgent Republicans. In mid-March, 1910, an
+insurgent presented a resolution designed to replace the old Committee
+on Rules by a larger body which should be elected by the House, and on
+which the speaker would have no place. The friends of Cannon rallied to
+his defence; other business fell into the background; and debate became
+sharp and personal. One continuous session lasted twenty-six hours,
+parliamentary fencing mingling with horse-play while each side
+attempted to get a tactical advantage over the other.[5] Eventually
+about forty insurgent Republicans joined with the Democrats to pass the
+resolution. The result of the change was to compel the speaker to be a
+presiding officer rather than the determining factor in the passage of
+legislation. About the time that Cannon's domination in the House was
+being broken, the announcement that Senator Nelson W. Aldrich and his
+staunchly conservative associate, Eugene Hale, of Maine, were about to
+retire indicated a similar change in the Senate. These men had served
+for long periods in Congress and were looked upon as the ablest and
+most influential of the "reactionary" element in the upper house.
+
+Coincidently with the partial disintegration of the conservative wing
+of the Republican party in Congress, there was passed a large volume of
+legislation of the type desired by the insurgents. The public land laws
+were improved; acts requiring the use of safety appliances on railroads
+were strengthened; a Bureau of Mines was established to study the
+welfare of the miners; a postal savings bank system was erected; and an
+Economy and Efficiency Commission appointed to examine the several
+administrative departments so as to discover wasteful methods of doing
+business. Of especial importance was the Mann-Elkins Act of June 18,
+1910, which further extended the powers of the Interstate Commerce
+Commission. Experience had brought out serious defects in the
+rate-fixing procedure set up by the Hepburn Act. By that law, to be
+sure, a shipper could complain that the roads were charging him an
+unreasonable rate and the Commission might, in course of time, uphold
+him and order relief; but in the meantime the shipper, especially if he
+were a small one, might be crushed out of existence through the large
+rates, and the consuming public would have paid increased prices for
+commodities with no possibility of a remuneration to them, even if the
+Commission decided that the rates levied were unreasonably high. The
+Mann-Elkins law, therefore, provided that the Commission might suspend
+any proposed change in rates for a period not greater than ten months,
+and decide during that time whether it was reasonable and should go
+into effect or not. In this way the burden of proving the justice of a
+suggested change was placed upon the railroads.[6]
+
+An act of June 25, 1910, which was amended a year later, required the
+publication of the names of persons contributing to the federal
+campaign funds of the political parties, and the amounts contributed,
+as well as a detailed account of the expenditures of the committees and
+the purposes for which the expenses were incurred. President Taft also
+urged the passage of an income tax amendment to the federal
+Constitution and indicated that he was in favor of an amendment
+providing for the popular election of senators. Amendments for both
+these purposes passed Congress; but they were not ratified and put into
+effect until 1913.
+
+In June, 1910, Roosevelt returned from Africa whither he had gone for a
+hunting trip, after the inauguration of President Taft. Both elements
+in the Republican party were anxious for his sympathy and support.
+Roosevelt himself seems to have desired to remain outside the arena, at
+least for a time, but for many reasons permanent separation from
+politics was impossible. He became a candidate for the position of
+temporary chairman of the New York Republican State Convention against
+Vice-President James S. Sherman. The contest in the convention brought
+out opposition to him on the part of the old-guard, and his triumph
+left that wing of the party dissatisfied and disunited. During the
+summer and autumn of 1910 he made extensive political tours. At
+Ossawatomie, Kansas, he developed the platform of the "New
+Nationalism," which included more thorough control of corporations, and
+progressive legislation in regard to income taxes, conservation, the
+laboring classes, primary elections at which the people could nominate
+candidates for office, and the recall of elective officials before the
+close of their terms. He urged such vigorous use of the powers of the
+federal government that there should be no "neutral ground" between
+state and nation, to serve as a refuge for law-breakers. Critics
+pointed out that these proposals had been urged by the insurgents and
+the followers of Bryan, and there could be no doubt where the
+sympathies of Roosevelt lay in the factional dispute within the
+Republican party.
+
+While conditions within the organization were such as were indicated by
+the hostile criticism of the Payne-Aldrich act, by the Pinchot-Ballinger
+controversy, the overturn of Speaker Cannon and the disintegration of
+the Aldrich-Hale group, the congressional election of 1910 took place.
+Signs of impending change had already become evident. Insurgent
+Republicans were carrying the party primaries; and the Democrats, who
+were plainly confident, emphasized strongly the tariff act, Cannonism
+and the high cost of living as reasons for the removal of the
+Republicans. The result was a greater upheaval than even the Democrats
+had prophesied. In nine states the Republicans were ousted from
+legislatures that would elect United States senators; the new Senate
+would contain forty-one Democrats and fifty-one Republicans--too narrow
+a Republican majority in view of the strength of the insurgents. In the
+choice of members of the lower branch of Congress there was a still
+greater revolution; the new House would contain 228 Democrats, 161
+Republicans and one Socialist, while Cannon would be retired from the
+speakership. In eastern as well as western states, Democratic governors
+were elected in surprising numbers. Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
+New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Oregon were among them. Of particular
+importance, as later events showed, was the success in New Jersey of
+Woodrow Wilson, former president of Princeton University.
+
+Not long after the election of 1910 the President sent to Congress a
+special message urging the adoption of a reciprocal trade agreement
+with Canada. The arrangement provided for freedom of trade in many raw
+materials and food products, and for substantial reductions on some
+manufactured articles. He believed that the project would benefit both
+countries economically and improve the already friendly relations
+existing between them, and he set his heart upon its adoption.
+Opposition appeared at once: the farmers' organizations protested
+vigorously at the reduction of the tariff on agricultural products; the
+high protectionists were fearful of an entering wedge which might lead
+to further tariff reductions; and the paper and wood pulp interests
+also objected. Although the agreement eventually passed both houses of
+Congress by large majorities, the opposition was composed chiefly of
+Republicans. Objection to the arrangement in Canada turned out to be
+stronger than had been anticipated. The fear that commercial
+reciprocity might make the Dominion somewhat dependent on the United
+States seems to have caused a manifestation of national pride, and Sir
+Wilfred Laurier, who had led the forces in favor of the agreement, was
+driven out of power and reciprocity defeated. The result for the
+administration was failure and further division in the party.
+
+Democratic control of the House during the second half of Taft's term
+effectually prevented the passage of any considerable amount of
+legislation. A parcel-post law, however, was passed, a Children's
+Bureau was established for the study of the welfare of children, and a
+Department of Labor provided for, whose secretary was to be a member of
+the cabinet. Aided by the insurgents, the Democrats attempted a small
+amount of tariff legislation. Although a general revision of the entire
+tariff structure would be a long and laborious task, specific schedules
+could be revised which would indicate what might be expected in case of
+Democratic success in 1912. The sugar, steel, woolen, chemical and
+cotton schedules were taken up in accord with this plan and bills were
+passed which were uniformly vetoed by the President.
+
+In his attitude toward the regulation of big business, President Taft
+was in harmony with his predecessor and was in thorough sympathy,
+therefore, with suits brought under the Sherman law against the
+Standard Oil Company, and the American Tobacco Company. In May, 1911,
+the Supreme Court decided that both of these companies had been guilty
+of combining to restrain and to monopolize trade, and ordered a
+dissolution of the conspiring elements into separate, competing units.
+The Court also undertook to answer some of the knotty questions that
+had arisen in relation to section 1 of the act, which declares illegal
+"every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or
+conspiracy, in restraint of trade." Did the prohibition against every
+contract or combination mean precisely _every_ contract, whether
+important or not? Or did it refer merely to large and unreasonable
+restraints? The phraseology of the statute seems to prohibit restraints
+of all kinds, and the previous decisions of the Court had been in line
+with this view. When, then, the decisions in these two cases erected
+the "rule of reason" and declared that only those restraints were
+forbidden that were unreasonable, the attention of some opponents of
+the trusts was focussed on the _obiter dictum_, rather than upon the
+decisions themselves. In taking this position, they had the support of
+Mr. Justice Harlan who agreed to the decision but condemned the _obiter
+dictum_, asserted that the exact words of the law forbade _every_
+contract, and deprecated what he believed to be the amendment of
+statutes by the courts. The dissolution of the companies into competing
+units, however, had no apparent effect that was of benefit to the
+public. In fact, immediate increases in the value of Standard Oil
+stocks indicated that the decision was of slight consequence.
+
+In the meantime the widening of the breach in the Republican party was
+indicated by the formation of the National Progressive Republican
+League on January 21, 1911. Its most prominent leaders were Senators
+Bourne, Bristow and La Follette; and leading progressives in different
+states were invited to join--among them ex-President Roosevelt. It was
+the hope that if the latter joined the League, the step might help to
+place him in more open opposition to the Taft administration. The
+purpose of the organization was the passage of progressive economic and
+political legislation, especially acts providing for the election of
+senators by vote of the people, direct primaries for the nomination of
+elective officers, direct election of delegates to national
+conventions, the initiative, referendum and recall in the states, and a
+thorough-going corrupt practices act.
+
+Early in 1912 the factions in the Republican party began to consider
+the question of a leader for the coming presidential campaign, some of
+the progressive element looking to La Follette as the natural
+candidate, and others to Roosevelt when it was seen that he would not
+support Taft for a renomination. On February 21, Roosevelt addressed a
+constitutional convention in Columbus, Ohio, and expressed a political
+creed that closely resembled the program of the National Progressive
+Republican League. In the meantime the demand for Roosevelt as a
+candidate had been incessant on the part of numerous Republicans of
+insurgent sympathies, who realized how many more progressive principles
+he had accepted than Taft. Finally on February 24 he replied to an
+appeal from a group of his supporters, including seven state governors,
+that he would accept a nomination. Thereupon most of the progressives
+transferred their allegiance from La Follette to the ex-President.
+President Taft's fighting spirit had become aroused, in the meanwhile,
+and he had declared that only death would keep him out of the fight.
+
+The call had already been issued for the Republican Nominating
+Convention to be held in Chicago, in June, and the contest began for
+the control of the 1,078 delegates who would compose its membership.
+The supporters of Taft, being in possession of the party machinery,
+were able to dictate the choice of many of these delegates, especially
+from the South, by means that had been usual in politics for many
+years. The friends of Roosevelt, in order to overcome this handicap,
+began to demand presidential preference primaries, in which the people
+might make known their wishes, and in which his personal popularity
+would make him a strong contender. During the pre-convention campaign,
+twelve states held primaries and the others held the usual party
+conventions. At first Taft did not actively enter the contest, but the
+efforts of Roosevelt were so successful and his charges against the
+President so numerous that he felt compelled to take the stump. The
+country was then treated to the spectacle of a President and an
+ex-President touring the country and acrimoniously attacking each
+other. The progressives, Taft asserted, were "political emotionalists"
+and "neurotics"; Roosevelt, he complained, had promised not to accept
+another nomination, had broken his agreement, and had not given a fair
+account of the policies which the administration had been following.
+Roosevelt charged Taft with being a reactionary, a friend of the
+"bosses" and with using the patronage in order to secure a
+renomination. And he grated on the sensibilities of the nation by
+referring to his influence in getting Taft elected in 1908 and
+remarking, "it is a bad trait to bite the hand that feeds you." The
+result of the presidential preference primaries in the few states that
+held them was overwhelmingly in favor of Roosevelt; in the states where
+conventions chose the delegates, Taft obtained a majority; in the case
+of over 200 delegates, there were disputes as to whether Taft or
+Roosevelt men were fairly chosen. These contests, as usual, were
+decided by the National Republican Committee, with the right of appeal
+to the Convention itself. The Committee decided nearly all the contests
+in favor of Taft's friends, and since all the delegates thus chosen
+would sit in the Convention and vote on one another's cases, the
+decision seemed likely to be final.
+
+The scene of action then shifted to Chicago where the Convention
+assembled on June 18. Aroused by the action of the Committee in the
+contests, Roosevelt went thither to care for his interests.[7] The
+election of a temporary chairman resulted in the choice of Elihu Root,
+who was favorable to Taft. The Roosevelt delegates, declaring that the
+contests had been unfairly decided, enlivened the roll-call by shouts
+of "robbers," "thieves"; and when Root thanked the Convention for the
+confidence which it reposed in him, his words were greeted with groans.
+Upon the failure of an attempt to revise the decision of the National
+Committee in the cases of the contested delegates, Roosevelt announced
+that he was "through." One of his supporters read to the Convention a
+statement from him charging that the Committee, under the direction of
+Taft, had stolen eighty or ninety delegates, making the gathering no
+longer in any proper sense a Republican convention. Thereafter most of
+the Roosevelt delegates refused to share either in the nomination of
+the candidate or in the adoption of a platform. The choice of Taft as
+the candidate was then made without difficulty.
+
+The platform contained the usual planks concerning the party's past,
+the protective tariff and the civil service; and it reflected something
+of the rising interest in economic and political reforms in its
+advocacy of laws limiting the hours of labor for women and children,
+workmen's compensation acts, reforms in legal procedure, a simpler
+process than impeachment for the removal of judges, additions to the
+anti-trust law, the revision of the currency system, publicity of
+campaign contributions and a parcel-post.
+
+As the Republican convention was drawing its labors to a close, the
+dissatisfied adherents of Roosevelt met and invited him to become the
+candidate of a new organization. Upon his acceptance, a call was issued
+for a convention of the Progressive Party, to be held in Chicago on
+August 5. The discord among the Republicans was viewed with undisguised
+content by the Democratic leaders, for it seemed likely to open to them
+the doorway to power. Yet the same difference between liberals and
+conservatives that had been the outstanding feature of the Republican
+convention was evident among the Democrats, and nobody could be sure
+that a schism would not take place.
+
+There was no lack of aspirants for the presidential nomination. J.B.
+("Champ") Clark, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Governor
+Judson Harmon, of Ohio, O.W. Underwood, Chairman of the House Committee
+on Ways and Means, and Governor Woodrow Wilson, of New Jersey, all had
+earnest supporters. In contests in the state conventions and primaries,
+Speaker Clark was most successful, although not enough delegates were
+pledged to him to secure the nomination.
+
+The convention met in Baltimore on June 25, and for the most part
+centered about the activities of Bryan. On the third day he presented a
+resolution declaring the convention opposed to the nomination of any
+candidate who was under obligations to J.P. Morgan, T.F. Ryan, August
+Belmont, or any of the "privilege-hunting and favor-seeking class." An
+uproar ensued, but the resolution was overwhelmingly adopted. Balloting
+for the candidate then began. Speaker Clark had a majority, but was far
+from having the two-thirds majority which Democratic conventions
+require; Governor Wilson was more than a hundred votes behind him.
+While the fourteenth ballot was being taken, Bryan created a new
+sensation by announcing that he should transfer his vote from Clark to
+Wilson, on the ground that the New York delegates were in the hands of
+Charles F. Murphy, the leader of Tammany Hall, and that Murphy was for
+the Speaker. The relative positions of the two leading candidates
+remained unchanged, however, for five ballots more. Then the tide began
+to turn. At the thirtieth, Governor Wilson led for the first time, and
+on the forty-sixth Clark's support broke and Wilson was nominated.
+
+The platform resembled that of 1908. It called for immediate downward
+revision of the tariff, the strengthening of the anti-trust laws,
+presidential preference primaries, prohibition of corporation
+contributions to campaign funds, a single term for the president and
+the revision of the banking and currency laws.
+
+The organization of the Progressive party, in the meantime, was rapidly
+proceeding, and on August 5 the national convention was held. It was an
+unusual political gathering both in its personnel--for women delegates
+shared in its deliberations--and in the emotional fervor which
+dominated its sessions. At the Democratic convention the delegates had
+awakened the echoes with the familiar song "Hail! Hail! The gang's all
+here"; the Progressives expressed their convictions in "Onward,
+Christian Soldiers." Roosevelt's speech was called his "confession of
+faith"; his charge that both of the old parties were boss-ridden and
+privilege-controlled epitomized the prevailing sentiment among his
+hearers. Without a contest Roosevelt was nominated for the presidency
+and Hiram Johnson of California for the vice-presidency.
+
+The platform adopted was distinctly a reform document. It advocated
+such political innovations as direct primaries, the direct election of
+senators, the initiative, referendum and recall, a more expeditious
+method of amending the Constitution, women's suffrage, and the
+limitation of campaign expenditures. A detailed program of social and
+economic legislation included laws for the prevention of accidents, the
+prohibition of child labor, a "living wage," the eight-hour day, a
+Department of Labor, the conservation of the nation's resources, and
+the development of the agricultural interests. The third portion of the
+platform dealt with "the unholy alliance between corrupt business and
+corrupt politics." It declared the test of corporate efficiency to be
+the ability "to serve the public"; it demanded the "strong national
+regulation of interstate corporations," a federal industrial commission
+comparable to the Interstate Commerce Commission and the protection of
+the people from concerns offering worthless investments under highly
+colored and specious appearances.
+
+The results of the election indicated how complete the division
+in the Republican party had been. In the electoral college Wilson
+received 435 votes to Roosevelt's 88 and Taft's 8. Yet Wilson's
+popular vote--6,300,000--fell far short of the combined Roosevelt-Taft
+vote--7,500,000--and was less than that of Bryan in 1896, 1900, and
+1908.[8] The fact that the combined Roosevelt-Taft vote was less than
+that received by Taft in 1908 seems to indicate that many Republicans
+refused to vote. The control of Congress, in both houses, went to the
+Democrats, even such a popular leader as Speaker Cannon failing of
+reelection. In twenty-one of the thirty-five states where governors
+were chosen, the Democrats were triumphant. Whether, then, the schism
+in the Republican party was responsible for the success of the
+opposition, or whether the electorate was determined upon a change
+regardless of conditions in the party which had hitherto controlled
+popular favor, the fact was that the overturn was complete. And
+circumstances that could not have been foreseen and that affected the
+entire world were destined to make the political revolution profoundly
+significant.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+In the main, periodical literature written with more or less partisan
+bias must be relied upon.
+
+For the election of 1908, F.A. Ogg, _National Progress_ (1918), and the
+better newspapers and periodicals. W.H. Taft may be studied in his
+_Presidential Addresses and State Papers_ (1910), _Present Day
+Problems_ (1908), and _Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers_ (1916).
+
+On the Payne-Aldrich tariff: S.W. McCall in _Atlantic Monthly_, vol.
+CIV, p. 562; G.M. Fisk in _Political Science Quarterly_, XXV, p. 35;
+H.P. Willis in _Journal of Political Economy_, XVII, pp. 1, 589, XVIII,
+1; in addition to Tarbell and Taussig.
+
+The documents in the Pinchot-Ballinger controversy are in _Senate
+Documents_, 61st Congress, 2nd session, vol. 44 (Serial Number 5643),
+and 3rd session, vol. 34 (Serial Numbers 5892-5903).
+
+For other incidents: C.R. Atkinson, _Committee on Rules and the
+Overthrow of Speaker Cannon_ (1911); Canadian reciprocity in _Senate
+Documents_, 61st Congress, 3rd session, vol. 84 (Serial Number 5942);
+Appleton's _American Year Book_ (1911). The decisions in the Standard
+Oil and American Tobacco cases are in _United States Reports_, vol.
+221, pp. 1, 106; a good discussion will be found in W.H. Taft,
+_Anti-Trust Act and the Supreme Court_ (1914). For the rise of the
+insurgent movement and the election of 1912, F.E. Haynes, _Third Party
+Movements_ (1916); R.M. La Follette, _Autobiography_; B.P. De Witt,
+_Progressive Movement_ (1915); W.J. Bryan, _Tale of Two Conventions_
+(1912); besides Ogg, Beard and Stanwood.
+
+The _American Year Book_ (1910-), becomes serviceable in connection
+with major political events. Its articles are usually non-partisan and
+may be relied upon to bring continuing tendencies and practices up to
+date.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Above, p. 322.
+
+[2] The cabinet was composed of: P.C. Knox, Pa., Secretary of State; P.
+MacVeagh, III., Secretary of the Treasury; J.M. Dickinson, Tenn.,
+Secretary of War; G.W. Wiekersham, N.Y., Attorney-General; F.H.
+Hitchcock, Mass., Postmaster-General; G.L. Meyer, Mass., Secretary of
+the Navy; R.A. Ballinger, Wash., Secretary of the Interior; J. Wilson,
+Ia., Secretary of Agriculture; C. Nagel, Mo., Secretary of Commerce and
+Labor. Meyer and Wilson had been in Roosevelt's cabinet.
+
+[3] Other features of the act were the establishment of a Court for the
+settlement of tariff disputes, provisions for a tariff commission and a
+tax on corporation incomes.
+
+[4] Mr. Dooley, who was well known as a humorous character created by
+F.P. Dunne, made merry with the claim that the tariff had been reduced,
+by reading to his friend Mr. Hennessy the "necessities of life" which
+had been placed on the free-list and which included curling stones,
+teeth, sea-moss, newspapers, nuts, nux vomica, Pulu, canary bird seed,
+divy divy and other commodities.
+
+[5] A sample of the jocosity that partially relieved the tension is the
+following portion of the _Congressional Record_ for March 18:
+
+    The Speaker _pro tempore_: The House will be in order. Gentlemen
+    will understand the impropriety of singing on the floor, even though
+    the House is not at this moment transacting any business. The House
+    is not in recess.
+
+    Chorus. "There'll be a hot time in the old town to-night."
+
+    The Speaker _pro tempore_. That was last night, not to-night.
+    (Laughter.) The House will be in order.
+
+    Mr. Shackleford. Mr. Speaker, I make the point of order that the
+    tap-tapping of the Chair's gavel interferes with the music.
+    (Laughter.)
+
+Cf. Atkinson, _Committee on Rules_, 115.
+
+[6] A Commerce Court was also provided, so as to expedite the decision
+of appeals from orders of the Commission. Its career was brief, for
+Congress was not well-disposed toward the project, and the Court was
+abolished in 1913.
+
+[7] When Roosevelt arrived in Chicago, he remarked that he felt like a
+"bull moose," an expression which later gave his party its popular
+name.
+
+[8] Roosevelt, 4,000,000; Taft, 3,500,000.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL TENDENCIES SINCE 1896
+
+During the four decades between the opening of the Civil War and the
+close of the nineteenth century, the United States became in many
+respects an economic unit. The passage of the Interstate Commerce Act
+in 1887, for instance, was an early recognition of the fact that the
+transportation problem of the nation transcended state bounds; the
+Sherman Anti-trust law of 1890 arose from the realization that
+commercial and industrial unity were rapidly coming to pass; the
+American Federation of Labor brought workmen from all states and many
+trades into a single organization. The election of 1896 and the amazing
+consolidation of business enterprises at the close of the century were
+further proofs that the day had passed when any section of the United
+States could live an isolated economic life without relation to other
+parts of the country. Instead of remaining a federation of diverse
+economic sections, we became increasingly homogeneous. Much of the
+economic and political legislation enacted after 1896, and many of the
+practices and standards which were adopted by leaders in economic and
+political life were an outgrowth of the new conditions.
+
+It will be remembered that the eighties and early nineties had been
+years of labor unrest. Costly and bitter strikes on the part of the
+workmen, and resolute and powerful resistance on the part of the
+employers were the commonplaces of the history of labor. The
+culmination was the Pullman strike of 1894.[1] Its cost in money and
+suffering was appalling; it placed the federal military power in the
+hands of the employers; and although it was a failure as far as the
+strikers were concerned, yet an impartial investigation after the
+struggle was over established the justice of much of which the men had
+complained. If discriminating justice were to be measured out to both
+sides, instead of victory to the side of the strongest battalions, and
+if intolerable waste and discomfort were to be avoided, some remedies
+for industrial unrest must be discovered which would replace strikes
+and violence. Happily, signs were not wanting that such a change was
+slowly taking place.
+
+A combination of influences tended to place the labor problem on a new
+footing after 1896. One of the most important of these forces was the
+American Federation of Labor which greatly increased its size and
+activities, especially about the opening of the new century, growing
+from 950,000 members in 1901 to 4,302,148 in April, 1920. Its
+president, Samuel Gompers, is an able, resourceful leader, who has
+remained in control from 1882 to the present (1920), with the single
+exception of the year 1895, so that the organization has had the
+benefit of experienced leadership and continuity of purpose. Although a
+radical, socialistic element broke away in 1905 and formed the
+Industrial Workers of the World, yet the defection was not immediately
+serious and in general schisms have been avoided. Several other labor
+organizations, although unconnected with the Federation exerted a
+strong influence; in particular the brotherhoods of railway employees,
+by frequent threats to strike and thereby tie up the transportation
+system, aided in bringing the demands of labor to public notice.
+
+Moreover, after 1896 and especially after the coal strike of 1902 there
+was an increasing recognition on the part of the public that a labor
+problem existed and that it must be solved in some way other than by
+force of arms. Physicians and scientific experts called attention to
+the lack of proper care for the health of workmen in dangerous
+industries; the movement for the preservation of the forests and
+mineral supplies emphasized the need of efforts for the conservation of
+human lives; social reformers, economists, writers and educators upheld
+the needs and rights of the neglected classes; and the press and the
+muck-rake periodicals found it profitable to expose extreme abuses.
+Distress that had hitherto been unnoticed or disregarded became
+important, and remedies were demanded. Change was in the air, and not
+alone in America, for England and France were experiencing the same
+problems, and attempting to devise new expedients to solve them. After
+the beginning of the new century, also, the employing class came to a
+better realization of the existence of the labor problem and sought
+solutions in ways that must be mentioned later.[2] There was a more
+widespread acceptance of the principle of trade agreements, whereby the
+employer and the men determined the conditions of labor by means of
+direct negotiations.
+
+Although it had been the policy of the American Federation of Labor to
+keep out of politics, it was almost inevitable that the policy should
+receive some modifications. Organizations of employers were influential
+at Washington, and had long been so. Accordingly in 1908 the Democratic
+platform was endorsed on account of its labor planks, and again in 1910
+and 1912. By the latter year all parties were earnestly striving to
+capture the labor vote, and in particular the Democratic and
+Progressive platforms embodied most of what the wage earner had been
+demanding for the previous generation.
+
+The major demands in the labor program of earlier years--higher wages,
+shorter hours, settled conditions of employment, and the like--were not
+altered after 1896, but a few striking advances were made. The attempt
+to legislate concerning hours of employment, for example, had been
+continually obstructed by the clauses in the Fifth and Fourteenth
+Amendments forbidding any legislation depriving the individual of
+"life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." The courts
+had usually interpreted these phrases as prohibiting laws restricting
+hours of labor, on the ground that the liberty of the workman to
+contract freely regarding his own working hours was thereby infringed.
+A Massachusetts law of 1874, nevertheless, which limited a day's work
+for women and children to ten hours, had followed the long-continued
+assertion that regulatory legislation could be based on the "police
+power"--a somewhat indefinite authority which was gradually conceded by
+the courts to the states and the federal government, and under which it
+was possible to pass legislation concerning the conservation of the
+health and morals of the people without violating the Constitution. Not
+until 1908, however, was the constitutionality of such legislation
+finally settled by the Supreme Court, in upholding an Oregon ten-hour
+law. "As healthy mothers are essential to vigorous offspring," the
+decision asserted, "the physical well-being of women becomes an object
+of public interest and care in order to preserve the strength and vigor
+of the race." In other words, the Court was prepared to approve
+limitations on the freedom of contract in order to further the public
+interest. The Massachusetts law was imitated far and wide, so that at
+the present time an almost negligible number of states have failed to
+restrict the length of the working day for women.
+
+Recently, also, substantial progress has been made in restricting
+working hours for children. As long ago as 1866 Massachusetts had
+restricted the employment of children, but neither this law nor similar
+laws passed by other states had been fully enforced. Greater progress
+has been made since 1903, when Illinois, followed by the majority of
+the important industrial states, established the eight-hour standard
+for children under sixteen. Impressed with the need of federal
+legislation to coerce backward states, the reformers took their case to
+Congress where a federal act was passed in 1916. On account of
+constitutional limitations, the measure was framed so as to forbid
+shipment, on interstate railways, of the products of factories
+employing children under fourteen years of age. It was estimated that
+150,000 out of nearly 2,000,000 working children might be affected by
+the act. Its fate, however, was that of many another piece of economic
+legislation; by a vote of five to four, the Supreme Court declared the
+law unconstitutional on the ground that it was not an attempt to
+regulate commerce, but an attempt to regulate the conditions of
+manufacture. Early in 1919 the effort to regulate child labor was
+renewed through the imposition of a tax of ten per cent. on the net
+profits of factories employing children under fourteen years of age.
+The constitutionality of the law has not yet been tested (1920).
+
+It will be noted that all the foregoing legislative attempts to reduce
+the working day affected women and children only; in general, little
+attempt has been made to limit the working day for men. Nevertheless,
+large numbers of cities, more than half the states, and the federal
+government provide for an eight-hour day on public work; and western
+states have followed the lead of Utah in passing eight-hour laws for
+miners. Hours of labor for railway employees have also been the subject
+of study and legislation. Cases had not been unknown where employees
+were kept at their posts for thirty, fifty and even one hundred hours;
+frequently such workmen fell asleep and disastrous accidents occurred.
+In 1907 this situation was met by a congressional act limiting the
+hours of railway engineers to sixteen and providing that periods of
+work must be followed by specified rest periods. Train-despatchers,
+telegraphers, and others were similarly protected. A majority of the
+states imitated these federal statutes. In a few cases, state laws have
+been passed which were intended to limit working hours in other
+especial industries. The most famous of these was one in New York,
+which restricted the working day in bakeries to ten hours. In the
+decision Lochner _v._ New York, the Supreme Court declared the law
+unconstitutional.[3]
+
+The early twentieth century also saw progress on the subject of
+compensation for industrial accidents. As far back as 1884 Germany had
+enacted a law which put the blame for all accidents on the employers,
+except when the victim was wilfully negligent; in 1897 England had
+passed the British Workmen's Compensation Act which virtually made the
+employer the insurer of his workmen against all accidents. The theory
+underlying these laws was that accidents were like wear and tear and
+should be made a charge on the industry, like the depreciation of
+buildings and machinery. The United States, however, lagged behind all
+other industrial nations, despite the astonishing number of accidents
+which yearly occurred. In 1908, for example, it was estimated that two
+million men were injured, of whom 200,000 were permanently disabled,
+and 30,000 died--a larger number than the federal killed, wounded and
+missing in the Gettysburg campaign. Under previous practice in this
+country compensation for industrial accidents had been awarded in
+accord with common law principles, under which the employer was not
+responsible for an employee who was injured through the negligence of a
+fellow servant. Any workman who entered hazardous employment was
+assumed under the common law to know the dangers and be ready to run
+the risks, and no compensation could be recovered unless it could be
+shown that the master had been negligent and the employee had not also
+been negligent. It came widely to be thought that the common law did
+not justly apply to the complex industrial system of modern times. It
+did not seem equitable, for example, that the fellow servant doctrine
+should hold in case of a railway employee killed through the negligence
+of a train despatcher many miles away, whom he did not know and had
+never even seen.
+
+The first workmen's compensation act in the United States was passed in
+Maryland in 1902. Its scope was narrow and it came to nothing as it was
+declared unconstitutional. In course of time, however, legislation was
+framed in such language as to pass muster before the courts, and
+moreover judicial decisions changed, as time went on, in the direction
+desired by popular opinion. Beginning in 1911 there was an avalanche of
+liability and compensation laws and by 1920 forty-two states, together
+with Porto Rico, Alaska and Hawaii had passed acts that placed the
+burden more or less completely on the employer, and provided schemes of
+compensation. The federal government also took action. At the
+suggestion of President Roosevelt an act was passed in 1908 making
+interstate railroads responsible for injuries to employees and
+expressly doing away with former common law practices.[4] At the same
+time a similar liability was placed upon the United States for
+accidents occurring to certain classes of government employees and a
+plan of compensation was established. In 1916 another act brought all
+civil servants under the system.
+
+Several other types of social legislation have made considerable
+progress in Europe, but have found little or no foot-hold in this
+country, such as minimum wage laws, health insurance, old age and
+widows' pensions, and unemployment insurance. The minimum wage law,
+establishing a level below which wages must not go, has been adopted by
+Massachusetts and a few other states in a restricted form. The
+unemployment problem has hardly been touched, although the federal
+Department of Labor since its establishment in 1913 has gathered and
+made public information in regard to opportunities for work.
+
+Recent years have likewise seen a vast number of laws which together
+have made a new era in American industrial life, although separately no
+one of them was revolutionary. For example, matches containing white
+phosphorous were subjected to a prohibitive tax because of the harmful
+effect of the phosphorous on workmen in match factories; greater care
+was exercised in guarding dangerous machines, elevator wells and the
+like; fire protection, harmful or poisonous fumes and dust, ventilation
+and safety devices in mines, safety appliances on railway trains,
+together with numberless other accompaniments of modern industry were
+the subject of state legislation. Almost as important as legislative
+enactments were the changes in working conditions voluntarily made by
+the most progressive corporations. One who compares a factory built
+within twenty-five years of the close of the Civil War with a building
+erected since 1900 discovers revolutionary changes. Later buildings are
+constructed with much more care for ventilation, light and convenience;
+in some cases even the temperature of the work-rooms is a matter for
+painstaking attention; "welfare" work is now a commonplace, with rest
+rooms, lunch rooms, recreation fields and factory social activities.
+Factory or store committees that confer with higher officers in
+relation to hours and the needs and desires of the employees are by no
+means uncommon, and some of the large corporations even provide pension
+systems for their employees.
+
+On the other hand, laws and statute books did not always guarantee
+performance. Laws were continually avoided both by the employers and
+the employees; workmen transgressed rules laid down for their welfare;
+the passage and execution of many laws were hampered to the last degree
+by short-sighted employers; the courts invalidated much legislation on
+the ground of unconstitutionality; and progress was frequently confined
+to leading states or corporations and was by no means universal. It
+nevertheless is true that the tendencies in social and economic
+legislation since 1896 have been widely different from those prevalent
+before that year.
+
+In several cases the influence of the labor element in federal
+legislation has been decisive. The use of the injunction, it will be
+remembered, was one of the grievances most frequently mentioned at the
+time of the Pullman strike. In the campaign of 1908 both parties strove
+to attract the labor vote by proposals of reform, but not until 1914
+was the issuance of injunctions forbidden "unless necessary to prevent
+irreparable injury to prosperity ... for which injury there is no
+adequate remedy at law." At the same time the labor unions were
+exempted from the operation of the anti-trust laws.[5] The influence of
+the labor organizations was also a factor in the agitation for the
+restriction of immigration which continued from 1897 to 1917. In the
+former year a bill was passed which contained a literacy test--that is,
+a provision excluding persons who were unable to read or write English
+or some other language. President Cleveland exercised his veto, as did
+later presidents when similar measures were carried in 1913, 1915 and
+1917, but in the latter year Congress was able to muster sufficient
+strength to pass the act over the President's veto. One of the main
+purposes of the measure seems to have been the restriction of the labor
+supply, and hence it enlisted the support of the American Federation of
+Labor and other similar organizations.[6]
+
+The ameliorative measures already mentioned have by no means prevented
+the boycott and the strike. Indeed they have not, except in rare cases,
+directly affected the two great causes of industrial disputes--hours
+and wages for adult male laborers. Many formidable and violent strikes
+have occurred since 1896, such as those of the shirt-waist makers in
+New York in 1909, the textile operatives in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in
+1912, and the Colorado coal miners in 1913. On the whole, however, it
+seems that the labor unions have developed somewhat greater
+conservatism and that their influence has been against violence in
+strikes.
+
+Few aspects of the labor problem have been the cause of more earnest
+thought than the search for peaceful methods of settling industrial
+controversies. In 1898, by the Erdman Act, the federal government
+provided a means for arbitrating disputes on interstate railways. The
+Newlands Act of 1913 superseded this by the creation of a formal Board
+of Mediation and Conciliation, and many disputes were decided under the
+terms of these laws. The Department of Labor mediated in many
+industrial disputes, and in 1916 when the four railway brotherhoods
+threatened to strike for an eight-hour day, Congress itself intervened
+with a piece of special legislation, the Adamson law, which was framed
+to settle the questions under dispute.[7] In some cases, profit-sharing
+plans have been put into force; in others, disputes have been referred
+to impartial boards of outsiders; and in yet others, machinery has been
+established for continuous conference between representatives of the
+employees and employers. Neither federal and state boards and
+commissions, however, nor the efforts of individual employers have been
+sufficient fully to insure industrial peace.
+
+The increased activity of the state and federal governments in the
+fields of economic legislation, as indicated in the passage of labor
+laws, was also illustrated in two important measures passed in 1906.
+The adulteration of foods had been brought to a state of dangerous
+perfection, and drugs had been commonly advertised and sold all over
+the country which had none of the powers ascribed to them by their
+makers. Since the eighties, many states had forbidden the sale of
+impure or tainted food, but the laws were varied and difficult to
+enforce, and it appeared that reliance must be placed on the federal
+government. As early as 1890 a federal law had provided for the
+inspection of meats which were to be exported, but otherwise little
+progress had been made. In 1906 Upton Sinclair published _The Jungle_,
+a novel which purported to describe the ghastly conditions under which
+the meat packers of Chicago conducted their business. Sinclair's book,
+together with a campaign of education conducted by the muckrake
+periodicals against harmful patent medicines aroused public interest to
+such a degree, that two important laws were passed. One provided for
+federal inspection of meats intended for interstate commerce, so as to
+make sure that they were obtained from healthy animals and slaughtered
+under sanitary conditions. The other act concerned foods and drugs, and
+prohibited the sale of these commodities if they contained any
+injurious drugs, chemicals or preservatives, while a later amendment
+forbade false statements on labels attached to medical compounds. As a
+result of the provisions of the law in regard to patent medicines, many
+concerns which had been selling drugs that were falsely advertised as
+having curative effects were compelled to retire from business.
+
+Innovations in the field of politics and government since 1896 have
+been as marked as in the field of social and economic legislation.
+Possibly the most outstanding development has been the rapid expansion
+of the range and variety of the activities of the federal government.
+The unification of the economic life of the nation, as has been shown,
+compelled a program of federal economic legislation, and helped
+inculcate a feeling of greater political solidarity. When fires and
+floods and other disasters occurred which were too great for a single
+city or state to take care of, when state laws became confusing because
+of their variety, when railroads crossed a dozen states and
+corporations that were chartered in New Jersey did business in Maine,
+Florida and California, only at the federal capital could the requisite
+authority be found, which would give the needed relief. As the theory
+of _laissez faire_ gradually broke down, moreover, giving way to the
+belief that the government ought to be the servant of the mass of the
+people, it was inevitable that the people should themselves turn more
+to legislation as a remedy for their grievances. To Washington,
+therefore, hurried the proponents of every reform.
+
+This tendency was not only counter to the probable intention of the
+framers of the Constitution, but it trenched upon the powers
+specifically granted to the states. The tenth amendment stated in so
+many words that "The powers not delegated to the United States ... are
+reserved to the States." It was necessary for the federal government to
+act, however, or else to leave problems that had become national in
+character to the chaos that results from legislation in nearly fifty
+states. State laws concerning railroads, for example, as well as
+marriage and divorce, child labor and trusts are even now in a maze. No
+solution of the problem seemed possible other than constant stretching
+of the terms of the Constitution. In 1906, one of the most conservative
+statesmen in the country, Elihu Boot, even went so far as to utter a
+warning that if the states did not use their powers to better advantage
+a "construction of the Constitution will be found to vest the power
+where it will be exercised-in the National Government." The burden thus
+shifted from state to nation was somewhat lightened by the appointment
+of numerous commissions to which was entrusted the administration of
+specific laws or the accumulation of specific data. The earliest of
+these was the Interstate Commerce Commission; later, others were
+appointed to administer laws concerning banking, the tariff and the
+trusts.
+
+With the expansion of the power of the federal government went the
+elevation of the office of chief executive. Cleveland's use of the veto
+power had given an indication of the possibilities of the presidential
+office in obstructing undesirable legislation; his action in bringing
+about the repeal of the purchase clause of the Sherman silver law in
+1890 had shown the more positive force which a determined officer could
+exert. Roosevelt's activity in carrying his anti-trust program to the
+people, and his mediation in the coal strike carried the prestige of
+the presidency to greater heights. President Taft was by no means
+radical in his interpretation of the powers and possibilities of his
+office; nevertheless his conception of it was far removed from the
+conservative philosophy of President McKinley, and he even suggested in
+a message to Congress that the cabinet officers be given seats,
+although without votes, in the Senate and House. His successor
+augmented rather than diminished the powers of the presidential office.
+
+The Senate, on the contrary, lost both in power and in prestige. Many
+reasons for the increasing popular distrust of the Senate after the
+middle nineties can be given. There was a widespread belief that a
+controlling fraction of the body had achieved membership through
+wealth, through the assistance of corporate interests and because of
+skill in the manipulation of political wires. The charge was common
+that a small coterie of powerful strategists held the Senate in their
+hands and with it the control of important legislation. Most of all,
+and especially in the West, many thoughtful people believed that the
+state legislatures were easily influenced to choose inferior or
+untrustworthy men as senators. Whatever the reasons, however, there
+grew increasingly after 1870 and particularly after 1893 a demand for
+the popular election of senators. Between the latter year and 1911, at
+six different times resolutions were presented to Congress proposing an
+amendment to the Constitution which should secure popular election. At
+length Congress gave way, adopted an amendment, and sent it to the
+states. Within ten months thirty-six states had agreed, and after May
+31, 1913, senators were elected by the people.
+
+The demand for greater popular control over the choice of senators was
+a part, merely, of a somewhat general political trend. Distrust of the
+state legislatures had long been observable, and new state
+constitutions had been notable for detailed prohibitions placed upon
+law-making bodies. The West, which had gone to greatest extremes in
+framing new state constitutions, was also the testing-ground for the
+initiative, referendum and recall. The first of these devices--the
+initiative--is a plan by which a specified percentage of the voters may
+initiate legislation--that is, propose a law and require the officials
+of the state to submit it to the electorate. If the people accept the
+proposal, it becomes law as if enacted by the legislature. Under the
+referendum system, any measure already accepted by the legislature is
+held in abeyance on petition of a specified number of voters, until
+presented to the people for approval or rejection. Both the initiative
+and the referendum had been commonly used in Switzerland before being
+adopted in South Dakota in 1898. In less than two decades they had been
+accepted in twenty-one states, all but four of which were west of the
+Mississippi, and in one of the four eastern states, Maryland, only the
+referendum was tried. In Oregon, which made the most complete trial of
+these methods of legislation, both the initiative and the referendum
+were extended to the municipalities. The reasons for the innovation
+were to be found in the determination to discover a means of compelling
+negligent or boss-controlled state legislatures to respond to public
+opinion.[8]
+
+The recall is a process by which any public official may be withdrawn
+from his office by popular vote before the expiration of his term. Los
+Angeles adopted the plan in 1903 and was imitated by a small number of
+other western cities; Oregon in 1908 applied the device to all state
+officers, and in one form or another it has been adopted in ten states
+(1920). During the campaign of 1912 Roosevelt proposed that the voters
+be allowed to ratify or reject the decision of the courts on the
+constitutionality of legislation. The results of the suggestion were
+negligible.
+
+More significant than the recall as an indication of the prevailing
+desire to increase popular control over the processes of government was
+the adoption of direct primaries. Under this expedient the nominees of
+a party for office are chosen directly by the party voters, rather than
+by a party convention. Wisconsin first used the system in 1903 and from
+that state it spread rapidly. At the present time most states have some
+form of direct nomination. The peculiar circumstances surrounding the
+campaign for the Republican nominations in 1912 gave force to the
+demand for presidential preference primaries which were held in about a
+fourth of the states. Only the future can tell with assurance whether
+the demand is more than temporary.
+
+The agitation for women's suffrage was another example of the
+increasing desire for popular control of government. Suffrage for women
+was first granted by Wyoming in 1869 when its territorial government
+was organized, but the movement lagged thereafter until the early years
+of the twentieth century. At that time increasing numbers of states
+began to grant political privileges to women, and finally in 1919
+Congress passed a proposed constitutional amendment expressly stating
+that sex should not be a bar to the suffrage.[9]
+
+Accompanying the increased popular control of government after 1896 was
+a gradual demand for a higher level of political ethics. The
+revelations of the insurance investigations of 1905 were significant of
+this change. Early in that year certain newspapers made charges against
+the Equitable Life Assurance Company which were taken up by the New
+York legislature and referred to a committee for investigation. The
+committee's task was the examination of the affairs of life insurance
+companies doing business in the state of New York; its attorney was
+Charles E. Hughes. The results of the investigation amazed the country.
+The exorbitant salaries paid to officers, the unreasonable expenses
+incurred and the disregard of the rights of the policy holders were of
+concern chiefly to persons doing business with the companies. But it
+also appeared that several of the larger concerns had divided the
+country into districts, and had systematically influenced legislation
+affecting either insurance or financial interests to which they or
+their officers were related; enormous sums were expended and records
+not kept, or so kept as to conceal the real purposes of the
+expenditure. The report of the committee showed that Chauncey M. Depew,
+a member of the United States Senate, was paid $20,000 a year for legal
+services, without his rendering any return that seemed to warrant the
+payments made. The contributions of the companies to the Republican
+campaign funds were very heavy--$50,000 by one company in 1904. It
+appeared from testimony that Democrats also sought contributions from
+the companies but were refused. The final report of the committee
+unsparingly condemned these abuses and embodied a program of
+legislation for their reform, which was put into effect. The public
+received an education in the connection of corporations with politics,
+and Hughes himself at once became a figure of national importance, the
+favorite of the reform element, and was launched upon a career that
+made him governor of New York, a member of the United States Supreme
+Court and candidate for the presidency.[10]
+
+Laws regulating campaign expenditures had long been on the statute
+books although they had been little heeded, but as the result of the
+insurance investigation, New York in 1906 forbade contributions by
+corporations for political purposes. In 1907 Congress passed a similar
+law concerning federal campaigns, and most of the states have since
+passed laws placing restrictions on the use of campaign funds. In the
+campaign of 1908 Bryan requested that the Democratic National Committee
+receive no contributions from corporations, that no sums in excess of
+$10,000 be received from any source and that a list of contributors be
+published in advance of the election. By a law enacted in 1911 Congress
+compelled a statement of the amounts of money spent by committees, and
+limited the amounts which might be spent by candidates for Congress. In
+1919 the Chairman of the Republican National Committee announced that
+the party would raise funds for the next campaign in amounts from $1 to
+$1,000. Both parties were discovering that public sentiment opposed
+large contributions from individuals and corporations, because they
+expect a _quid pro quo_ after the election.[11]
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The best brief general accounts of recent conditions are in F.A. Ogg,
+_National Progress_, with an excellent bibliography, which may be
+supplemented by the _American Year Book_. On hours and conditions of
+labor, J.R. Commons and J.B. Andrews, _Principles of Labor Legislation
+_(1916). The decision in Lochner _v._ New York is in _United States
+Reports_, vol. 198, p. 45. For the courts and economic legislation,
+C.G. Haines, _American Doctrine of Judicial Supremacy _(1914), already
+referred to. An excellent historical account of the workmen's
+compensation idea is by A.F. Weber in _Political Science Quarterly_
+(June, 1902). Ida M. Tarbell, _New Ideals in Business_ (1917),
+describes the accomplishments of the industrial leaders rather than of
+the rank and file.
+
+Some of the political innovations are discussed in A.L. Lowell, _Public
+Opinion and Popular Government_ (1913); _Proceedings of the American
+Political Science Association_, V, 37, "The Limitations of Federal
+Government"; Elihu Boot, _Addresses on Government and Citizenship
+_(1916), "How to Preserve the Local Self-Government of the State." The
+most complete account of the historical development of the power of the
+president is in Edward Stanwood, _History of the Presidency, II
+_(1916), Chap. V. The fullest account of the movement for popular
+election of senators is G.H. Haynes, _The Election of Senators _(1906).
+The initiative, referendum and recall have given rise to a literature
+of their own. Convenient volumes are: C.A. Beard and B.E. Shultz,
+_Documents on the State-wide Initiative_, _Referendum and Recall_
+(1912); W.B. Munro, _The Initiative, Referendum and Recall_ (1912);
+J.D. Barnett, _Operation of the Initiative, Referendum, and Recall in
+Oregon_ (1915).
+
+_American Political Science Review _(Aug., 1915), "Presidential
+Preference Primaries." The articles in A.C. McLaughlin and A.B. Hart,
+_Cyclopaedia of American Government_ (3 vols., 1914), are a convenient
+source on most topics considered in this chapter.
+
+On the use of money in politics: _Report of the Legislative Insurance
+Investigating Committee _(10 vols., 1905-1906), Armstrong-Hughes
+committee; _Testimony before a Sub-committee of the Committee on
+Privileges and Elections, United States Senate, 62d Congress, 2d
+session, pursuant to Senate Resolution 79_ (Clapp Report).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Above, pp. 320-323.
+
+[2] Below, p. 508.
+
+[3] Above, p, 442.
+
+[4] An act of 1906 had been declared unconstitutional.
+
+[5] It should be said, however, that the meaning of this law is far
+from clear and is yet (1920) to be interpreted by the courts.
+
+[6] Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt also favored it. See Ogg,
+_National Progress_, 123-130.
+
+[7] Below, p. 571.
+
+[8] By 1920 twenty-three states had adopted the referendum or the
+initiative and referendum.
+
+[9] The amendment reads: Section 1. The right of citizens of the United
+States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or
+by any State, on account of sex. Section 2. Congress shall have power,
+by appropriate legislation, to enforce the provisions of this article.
+The amendment was ratified by the required number of states and
+proclaimed in force August 26, 1920.
+
+[10] The election of Senator Isaac Stephenson of Wisconsin occasioned
+another outbreak of reform sentiment. Investigation betrayed the fact
+that he had expended $107,793.05 in his primary campaign. The salary of
+a senator at that time was $7,500 per annum.
+
+[11] An investigation of federal campaign expenditures conducted in
+1912-1913 by a committee headed by Senator Moses Clapp uncovered much
+that had hitherto been only the subject of rumor. The Standard Oil
+Company, for instance, contributed $125,000 in 1904. Archbold, the
+vice-president of the company, testified that he told Bliss, the
+Republican treasurer, "We do not want to make this contribution unless
+it is thoroughly acceptable and will be thoroughly appreciated by Mr.
+Roosevelt"; and that Bliss "smilingly said we need have no possible
+apprehension on that score." Archbold complained later when the
+administration attacked the company, but Roosevelt declared that he was
+unaware of the contribution at the time. The Republican fund in 1908
+was $1,655,000. The testimony of Norman E. Mack, Chairman of the
+Democratic National Committee, indicated his perfect willingness to
+accept money wherever he could get it, and that he refused to receive
+contributions from corporations only because of Bryan's scruples.
+Roosevelt declared, on the authority of an insurance officer, that the
+Democrats in the campaign of 1904 were after all the corporation funds
+they could get.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+LATER INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS[1]
+
+At the close of the war with Spain it was commonly remarked that the
+United States had become a world power; books and periodicals written
+on the history of the period were based upon the assumption that
+America had swung out into the current of international affairs and
+that the traditional isolation of this country had become a thing of
+the past. Time must be appealed to, however, for answers to fundamental
+questions concerning the character of this change. Did the United
+States become a world power in the sense that the majority of its
+people threw off that policy of steering clear of permanent alliances
+which had been expressed by Washington in his farewell address, in
+favor of the policy of participation in world affairs on a footing with
+the larger European states? Did the people of the United States after
+1898 take a constant and informed interest in world politics and
+international relations? Or did the people, after a slight excursion
+into the West Indies and the Philippines, return to the traditional
+attitude of "splendid isolation"? Was the extent to which the United
+States became a world power sufficient to make probable its entry into
+a European war?
+
+A cardinal principle of the foreign policy of the United States has
+always been its attachment to international peace, particularly through
+the practice of arbitration. The great hopes raised by the two Hague
+Conferences were striking proofs of this fact. In 1899, at the
+suggestion of Czar Nicholas II of Russia, twenty-six leading powers
+conferred at The Hague, in order to discover means of limiting
+armaments and ensuring lasting peace. A second conference was held in
+1907 at the suggestion, in part, of President Roosevelt. At this
+gathering forty-four states were represented, including most of the
+Latin-American republics. During the two conferences many questions
+relating to international law were discussed, and the conclusions
+reached were expressed in the form of "Conventions," which the several
+powers signed. In the main these agreements related to the rights and
+duties of nations and individuals in time of war. Most important among
+the agreements was one for the pacific settlement of international
+disputes, according to which, in certain less important controversies,
+the states concerned would appoint a "commission of inquiry" which
+would study the case and give its opinion of the facts involved. It was
+also agreed to organize a Permanent Court of Arbitration to be
+available at all times for the peaceful settlement of differences.
+Strictly speaking this body was not a Court, but a list of judges to
+which each nation was to contribute four, and when any countries became
+involved in a controversy they could draw arbitrators from the list.
+Moreover the powers agreed "if a serious dispute threatens to break out
+between two or more of them, to remind these latter that the Permanent
+Court is open to them."
+
+The United States was a party to four of the fifteen cases presented to
+the Court between 1902 and 1913. The first controversy was between the
+United States and Mexico and involved "The Pious Fund," a large sum of
+money which was in dispute between Mexico and the Roman Catholic Church
+of California, and the second concerned claims of the United States,
+Mexico and eight European countries against Venezuela. As the Court was
+successfully appealed to in case after case, high hopes began to be
+entertained that the "Parliament of Man" had at last been established.
+Elihu Root, the Secretary of State, asserted in a communication to the
+Senate in 1907 that the Second Conference had presented the greatest
+advance ever made at a single time toward the reasonable and peaceful
+regulation of international conduct, unless the advance made at The
+Hague Conference of 1899 was excepted.
+
+In the meantime, in 1904, under President Roosevelt's leadership,
+treaties were arranged with France, Germany, Great Britain and other
+nations, under which the contracting parties agreed in advance to
+submit their disputes to The Hague Court, although excepting questions
+involving vital interests, independence or national honor. While the
+Senate was discussing the treaties, it fell into a dispute with the
+President in regard to its constitutional rights as part of the
+treaty-making power, and although there was general agreement on the
+value of the principle of arbitration, yet the Senate insisted upon
+amending the treaties, whereupon the President refused to refer them
+back to the other nations. Secretary Root revived the project, however,
+in 1908 and 1909 and secured amended treaties with a long list of
+nations, including Austria-Hungary, France and Great Britain. President
+Taft signed treaties with France and England in 1911 which expanded the
+earlier agreements so as to include "justiciable" controversies even if
+they involved questions of vital interest and honor, but again the
+Senate added such amendments that the project was abandoned. Bryan,
+Secretary of State from 1913 to 1915, undertook still further to expand
+the principles of arbitration, and during his term of office many
+treaties were submitted to the Senate, under which the United States
+and the other contracting parties agreed to postpone warfare arising
+from any cause, for a year, in order that the facts of the controversy
+might be looked into. Many of these treaties were ratified by the
+Senate.
+
+The attitude of the American people toward the pacific settlement of
+international disputes found expression in many ways in addition to the
+arrangement of treaties. At Lake Mohonk, yearly conferences were held
+at which leading citizens discussed phases of international peace.
+Andrew Carnegie and Edwin Ginn, the publisher, devoted large sums of
+money to countrywide education and propaganda on the subject. The
+leaders of the movement and the membership of the organizations
+included so many of the most prominent persons of their time--public
+officials, university presidents and men of influence as to prove that
+the traditional American reliance upon international arbitration was
+more firmly rooted in 1914 than ever before in our history.
+
+The attitude of the United States toward purely European controversies
+was illustrated in our action on the Moroccan question. In 1905-1906 a
+controversy broke out between Germany and France in relation to
+Morocco, and in January of the latter year a conference was held at
+Algeciras in southern Spain in which ten European nations and the
+United States took part. The result of the meeting was an "Act" which
+defined the policy of the signatory powers toward Morocco. The Senate,
+in ratifying the Act, asserted that its action was not to be considered
+a departure from our traditional policy of aloofness from European
+questions.
+
+[Illustration:
+Caribbean interests of the United States]
+
+The outstanding incident in our relations with that part of America
+south of the republic of Mexico was the controversy with Colombia over
+the Panama Canal strip. The project for a canal across the Isthmus of
+Panama was as old as colonization in America. For present purposes,
+however, it is not necessary to go farther into the past than the
+Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850, by the terms of which the United States
+and Great Britain agreed that neither would obtain any control over an
+isthmian canal without the other. As time went on, however, American
+sentiment in favor of a canal built, owned and operated by the United
+States alone grew so powerful that the Hay-Pauncefote treaty of 1901
+was arranged with Great Britain. This agreement permitted a canal
+constructed under the auspices of the United States. Sentiment in
+Congress was divided between a route through Nicaragua and one through
+that part of the Republic of Colombia known as Panama, but in 1902 an
+act was passed authorizing the President to acquire the rights of the
+New Panama Canal Company, of France, on the isthmus for not more than
+$40,000,000, and also to acquire a strip of land from Colombia not less
+than six miles wide.[2] In case the President was unable to obtain
+these rights "within a reasonable time and upon reasonable terms," he
+was to turn to the Nicaragua route. President Roosevelt was himself in
+favor of the Panama project.
+
+The Hay-Herran convention with Colombia was accordingly drawn up and
+signed in January, 1903, giving the United States the desired rights on
+the isthmus, but the Senate of Colombia rejected the treaty. Thereupon
+the New Panama Canal Company became alarmed because it would lose
+$40,000,000 in case the United States turned from Panama to Nicaragua,
+and its agents busied themselves on the isthmus in the attempt to
+foment a break between Colombia and its province of Panama; the people
+of Panama became aroused because their chief source of future profit
+lay in their strategic position between the two oceans; and the
+President was concerned because Congress would soon meet and might
+insist on the Nicaragua route or at least greatly delay progress. He
+hoped for a successful revolt in Panama which would enable him to treat
+with the province rather than with Colombia, and he even determined to
+advise Congress to take possession forcibly if the revolt did not take
+place.
+
+The administration meanwhile kept closely in touch with affairs in
+Panama, and having reason to suspect the possibility of a revolution
+sent war vessels to the isthmus on November 2, 1903, to prevent troops,
+either Colombian or revolutionary, from landing at any point within
+fifty miles of Panama. Since the only way by which revolution in Panama
+could be repressed was through the presence of Colombian troops, the
+action of the American government made success highly probable in case
+a revolt was attempted. On the next day the plans of the Canal Company
+agents or of some of the residents of Panama came to a head; early in
+the evening a small and bloodless uprising occurred; and while the
+United States kept both sides from disturbing the peace, the insurgents
+set up a government which was recognized within two days, and Philippe
+Bunau-Varilla, a former chief engineer of the Company, was accredited
+to the United States as minister. A treaty was immediately arranged by
+which the United States received the control of a zone ten miles wide
+for the construction of a canal, and in return was to pay $10,000,000
+and an annuity of $250,000 beginning nine years later, and to guarantee
+the independence of Panama. The Secretary of State, John Hay, described
+the process of drawing up the treaty in a private letter of November
+19, 1903:
+
+    Yesterday morning the negotiations with Panama were far from
+    complete. But by putting on all steam, getting Root and Knox and
+    Shaw together at lunch, I went over my project line by line, and
+    fought out every section of it; adopted a few good suggestions:
+    hurried back to the Department, set everybody at work drawing up
+    final drafts--sent for Varilla, went over the whole treaty with him,
+    explained all the changes, got his consent, and at seven o'clock
+    signed the momentous document.
+
+Although the Senate ratified the treaty, the action of the President
+was the cause of a storm both in that body and throughout the nation.
+In self-defence Roosevelt condemned Colombia's refusal to ratify the
+Hay-Herran treaty and asserted that no hope remained of getting a
+satisfactory agreement with that country; that a treaty of 1846 with
+Colombia justified his intervention; and that our national interests
+and the interests of the world at large demanded that Colombia no
+longer prevent the construction of a canal. On the other hand the
+President's critics called attention to the unusual haste that
+surrounded every step in the "seizure" of Panama; condemned the
+disposition of war vessels which prevented Colombia from even
+attempting to put down the uprising; and insinuated that the
+administration was in collusion with the insurgents. Roosevelt's
+successors in the presidency felt there was some degree of justice in
+the claim of Colombia that she had been unfairly treated by her big
+neighbor and several different attempts were made to negotiate treaties
+which would carry with them a money payment to Colombia. On July 29,
+1919, the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate unanimously
+reported to that body the favorable consideration of a treaty providing
+for a money payment of $25,000,000, but other matters intervened and no
+further progress resulted.[3]
+
+The work of constructing the waterway was delayed by changes of plan
+until 1906, when a lock canal was decided upon, and shortly afterward a
+start was made. So huge an undertaking--the isthmus is forty-nine miles
+wide at this point--was an engineering task of unprecedented size, and
+involved stamping out the yellow fever, obtaining a water supply,
+building hospitals and dwellings and finding a sufficient labor force,
+as well as the more difficult problems of excavating soil and building
+locks in regions where land-slides constantly threatened to destroy
+important parts of the work. At length, however, all obstacles were
+overcome and on August 15, 1914, the canal was opened to the passage of
+vessels.
+
+The final diplomatic question relating to the canal concerned the rates
+to be charged on traffic passing through. By the terms of the
+Hay-Pauncefote treaty with Great Britain, the United States agreed that
+the canal should be free and open to all nations "on terms of entire
+equality." In 1912 Congress enacted legislation exempting American
+coast-wise vessels from the payment of tolls, despite the protest of
+Great Britain. As President Wilson was of the opinion that our action
+had been contrary to our treaty agreement, he urged the repeal of the
+act upon his accession in 1913, and succeeded in accomplishing his
+purpose.
+
+The construction of the Canal under American auspices committed the
+United States to new responsibilities in the Caribbean. Her coaling
+station in Cuba, the possession of Porto Rico and the protection of the
+isthmus made it a matter of national safety to preserve stable
+governments in Central America and the West Indies. The infiltration of
+American capital into the region served to ally economic with political
+interest, for like European investors, our capitalists have taken a
+part in the exploitation of South American sugar, fruit, coffee, oil
+and asphalt. With the islands and shores of the Caribbean Sea alone,
+American trade doubled in the decade after 1903. Orderly government
+south of the United States became accordingly essential to the welfare
+of our outlying possessions, and to the commercial interests of a group
+of investors. The most important international questions that have
+arisen in Spanish America related to Venezuela in 1902 and Santo
+Domingo in 1905.
+
+Venezuela had long granted concessions to foreign investors--Germans,
+English, Italians and others--in order to develop her mines, timber and
+railroads, but unsettled conditions in the country frequently resulted
+in the non-fulfillment of the obligations which had been entered into.
+Germany, for example, claimed that the government of Venezuela had
+guaranteed dividends on the stock of a railroad built by German
+subjects and had failed to live up to the contract. Having in mind the
+possible use of force to compel Venezuela to carry out her alleged
+obligations, Germany consulted our state department to discover whether
+our adherence to the Monroe Doctrine would lead us to oppose the
+contemplated action. The attitude of President Roosevelt in 1901 was
+that there was no connection between the Monroe Doctrine and the
+commercial relations of the South American republics, except that
+punishment of those nations must not take the form of the acquisition
+of territory. In 1902 Germany, Great Britain and Italy proceeded to
+blockade some of the ports of Venezuela, and the latter thereupon
+agreed to submit her case to arbitration. Apparently, however, Germany
+was unwilling to relinquish the advantage which the blockade seemed to
+promise, and in the meantime Roosevelt became fearful that the result
+of the blockade might be the more or less permanent occupation of part
+of Venezuela. He therefore told the German ambassador that unless the
+Emperor agreed to arbitration within ten days, the United States would
+send a fleet to Venezuela and end the danger which Roosevelt feared.
+The pressure quickly produced the desired results, and during the
+summer of 1903 many of the claims were referred to commissions. The
+three blockading powers believed themselves entitled to preferential
+treatment in the settlement of their claims, over the non-blockading
+nations, while the latter held that all of Venezuela's creditors should
+be treated on an equality. This portion of the controversy was referred
+to the Hague tribunal, which subsequently decided in favor of the
+contention raised by Germany, Great Britain and Italy, and eventually
+all the claims were greatly scaled down and ordered paid.[4]
+
+The Venezuela case made evident the possibility that European creditors
+of backward South American nations might use their claims as a reason
+for getting temporary control over harbors or other parts of these
+countries. There was also ground for the fear that temporary control
+might become permanent possession. Hence in the Santo Domingo case, the
+United States adopted a new policy. The debts of Santo Domingo were far
+beyond its power to pay; its foreign creditors were insistent. An
+arrangement was accordingly made by which the United States took over
+the administration of the custom houses, turned over forty-five per
+cent. of the income to the Dominican government for current expenses,
+and used the remainder to pay foreign claims. The plan worked so well
+that its main features were continued and imitated in the protectorates
+over Haiti (1915) and Nicaragua (1916).
+
+The progress which has been made in composing the jarring relations
+among the American states is due in part to the Pan American Union and
+to the Pan American Conferences. The Union is an organization of
+twenty-one American republics which devotes itself to the improvement
+of the commercial and political relations of its member states. The
+first Pan American Conference, held at Washington in 1889, has already
+been mentioned.[5] At the second, at Mexico City in 1901, the American
+republics which had not already done so agreed to the conventions
+signed at The Hague in 1899. At the third conference at Rio de Janeiro
+in 1906 and the fourth in Buenos Aires in 1910, its field of effort was
+further broadened, and in the latter year a recommendation was passed
+that the Pan American states bind themselves to submit to arbitration
+all claims for pecuniary damages.
+
+President Wilson continued unbroken the policy of protectorates which
+President Roosevelt had initiated in the case of San Domingo. His
+statements of general policy were conciliatory and evidently designed
+to allay suspicion, and he constantly expressed the view that the
+American states were cooperating equals. And having asserted that the
+United States had no designs upon territory, and nothing to seek except
+the lasting interests of the peoples of the two continents, he gave
+practical evidence of his purposes by urging that all unite to
+guarantee one another their independence and territorial integrity,
+that disputes be settled by investigation and arbitration, and that no
+state allow revolutionary expeditions against its neighbors to be
+fitted out on its territory.[6]
+
+American relations with Great Britain between 1896 and 1914 were such
+as to lend themselves to amicable settlement. The question of the
+boundary between Alaska and Canada, to be sure, contained some of the
+elements of trouble. The treaty of 1825, between Russia and Great
+Britain, had established the boundary between Alaska and Canada in
+terms that were somewhat ambiguous, the most important provision being
+that the line from the 56th degree of north latitude to the 141st
+degree of west longitude should follow the windings of the coast, but
+should be drawn not more than ten marine leagues inland. The coast at
+this point is extremely irregular, and the few important towns of the
+region are at the heads of the bays. With the discovery of gold in the
+Klondike region in 1897 and the consequent rush of population to the
+coast settlements, the question of jurisdiction became important.
+
+The claim of Great Britain was that the word "coast" should be
+interpreted to include adjacent islands. Hence the ten league line
+would follow the general direction of the shore but would cut across
+the inlets and headlands and thus leave the towns in the possession of
+Canada. The American contention was that the line should follow closely
+the windings of the shore of the mainland, thus giving the United
+States a continuous strip of coast. The controversy was referred in
+1903 to a board composed of three Americans, two Canadians and the Lord
+Chief Justice of England. On all the important points the English
+representative concurred with the Americans and a line was subsequently
+drawn in general conformity with our contention.[7]
+
+The most complicated negotiation of the period, as well as one of the
+most complicated in our history, concerned the North Atlantic Coast
+fisheries. Under the treaty of 1818 relating to matters remaining over
+from the War of 1812, the United States possessed certain rights on the
+fishing grounds off Newfoundland and Labrador. From then on there was
+intermittent negotiation concerning the meaning of the terms of the
+treaty and the justice of fishing regulations made by Canada. In 1908
+the United States and Great Britain made a general arbitration treaty,
+under the terms of which the fisheries question was referred to members
+of the Court of Arbitration at The Hague.[8] The award, made in 1910,
+upheld the rights of American fishermen on the coasts of Newfoundland,
+and recommended the establishment of a permanent fishery commission to
+settle all future controversies. This was accomplished in 1912 and an
+irritating and long-standing dispute was put to rest.
+
+"Dollar diplomacy" was the chief novelty in our relations with China.
+The expression was used in President Taft's administration, when his
+Secretary of State, P.C. Knox, devoted much attention to promoting
+loans, contracts and concessions in Central and South America, and more
+particularly in China. The argument for dollar diplomacy was that it
+opened new fields for the use of American capital, and thus indirectly
+benefited the whole people. The President also believed that
+investments in China would further American influence there and react
+favorably in continuing the open-door policy which had been initiated
+by Secretary Hay. The objection most commonly made was that the
+government became bound up in the interests of investors and might be
+compelled to interpose with armed force when difficulties arose between
+the investor and the state where the investment was made.
+
+An opportunity for large investments in China was presented during
+1912-1913. In the former year a revolution in that distracted country
+had come to an end and a republic had been set up with Yuan Shih-kai as
+President. Since the new government was in need of funds, it undertook
+to borrow through an associated group of bankers from six foreign
+nations, the United States among them. The financial interests agreed
+to the loan, but insisted on having a hand in the administration of
+Chinese finance, so as to ensure repayment. At this point President
+Wilson's administration began. The bankers at once asked him whether he
+would request them to participate in the "six-power" loan, as President
+Taft had done. Wilson declined to make the request, fearing that at
+some future time the United States might be compelled to interfere in
+Chinese financial and political affairs, whereupon the American bankers
+withdrew and the six-power group subsequently disintegrated.
+
+Relations with Japan have been a cause for negotiation on several
+occasions. During the Russo-Japanese War, which came to a close in
+1905, American sympathies were mainly with the Japanese. The
+correspondence which brought about a cessation of hostilities was
+initiated by President Roosevelt, and the peace conference was held in
+Portsmouth, New Hampshire. During the course of the sessions American
+sympathies shifted somewhat to the Russian side, and when the Japanese
+did not receive all that they demanded of Russia they felt somewhat
+dissatisfied.
+
+A subject which seemed at times to contain unpleasant possibilities was
+the restriction of Japanese immigration into the United States. The
+western part of the country, especially California, has objected
+vigorously to the presence of the Japanese on the coast, and as Japan
+refused to agree to such a treaty as that which restricts Chinese
+immigration, recourse was had to the Root-Takahira agreement of 1908,
+by which the Japanese government itself undertook to prevent the
+emigration of laborers to the United States. It was more difficult to
+reach an agreement concerning Japanese who were already living in the
+United States. In 1913 the legislature of California had before it a
+law forbidding certain aliens from holding land in the state. As the
+act would apply almost solely to the Japanese, the federal government
+was placed in an embarrassing position. Under existing treaties the
+Japanese were granted equal rights with other aliens, but the states
+were able to modify the practical operation of treaty provisions, as
+California planned to do, by declaring certain aliens ineligible to
+citizenship and then placing particular restrictions upon them. The
+Secretary of State, William J. Bryan, went to California and attempted
+to persuade the state authorities to alter their land laws. Although
+the law was eventually passed, it was modified to the extent of
+allowing Japanese to lease agricultural lands for terms not greater
+than three years.
+
+In 1917, Robert Lansing, the American Secretary of State, and Viscount
+Ishii, special ambassador of Japan, reached an important agreement
+concerning American relations in the Orient. By it the United States
+admitted the interest of Japan in China, but the two placed themselves
+on record as mutually opposed to the acquisition by any government of
+special rights in China that would affect the independence or the
+territorial integrity of that country. Nevertheless Japan had already
+forced China in 1915 to grant her territorial and economic concessions
+that constituted a grave menace to Chinese independence, and final
+settlement between the two awaited later events.
+
+It is impossible at the present time to give an accurate account of
+American relations with Mexico during the decade preceding 1920. Mexico
+and Mexican affairs are but ill understood in the United States; and
+the purposes and acts of the chief figure in the most important events,
+President Wilson, will not be fully known until papers are made public
+and explanations presented that only he can give. His conduct of
+Mexican affairs, moreover, had to face constant change on account of
+the outbreak and progress of a European war in 1914, and many critical
+decisions had to be arrived at during 1915-1916 when political
+partisanship in the United States was at fever heat and when the most
+bitter opponents of the administration were ready to pounce upon every
+act and hold it up to public scorn. Nor is the exact character of some
+of the pressure brought to bear upon the President fully known.
+American capital in vast amounts had gone into Mexico as into other
+parts of Latin America. Mining companies, railroad, ranching and
+plantation companies, and private individuals had invested in a land
+that has been called "the storehouse of the world," because of its
+fabulous resources in mineral wealth and fertile soil. In 1912
+President Taft said that American investments had been estimated at one
+billion dollars. President Wilson in 1916 warned the public that agents
+of American property owners in Mexico were scattered along the border
+originating rumors which were unjustified by facts, in order to bring
+about intervention for the benefit of investors. For these reasons most
+accounts of Mexican relations, whether they uphold or condemn the steps
+taken by the administration, are rendered defective by prejudice or
+lack of information. It is possible, therefore, to give only a bare
+narrative of a few of the most important events following 1910.
+
+The strong hand of Porfirio Diaz ruled Mexico from 1877 to 1880 and
+from 1884 to 1911. The government was autocratic; the resources of the
+country were in the hands of foreigners; and while a few magnates were
+wealthy, the mass of the people were poor and ignorant. The country was
+infested with bands of robbers, but Diaz managed to control them and
+even made some of the leaders governors of states. Such was the country
+that is separated from Arizona and New Mexico by an imaginary line and
+from Texas by a narrow river that shrinks in summer almost to a bed of
+sand.
+
+In 1910 Francisco Madero organized a revolt, compelled Diaz to flee to
+Europe in 1911, and was himself chosen President. Taft meanwhile had
+sent troops to the border, stray bullets from across the line killed a
+few American citizens and the demand for intervention began. Madero was
+soon overthrown by General Victoriano Huerta, who became provisional
+president. Shortly afterward Madero was shot under circumstances that
+pointed to Huerta as the instigator of the assassination, but his
+friends kept the fires of revolt alive, and Governor Carranza of
+Coahuila, the state across the border from northwest Texas, refused to
+recognize the new ruler. It was at this juncture that Wilson succeeded
+Taft. General Huerta was promptly recognized by the leading European
+nations but President Wilson refused to do so, on the ground that the
+new government was founded on violence, in defiance of the constitution
+of Mexico and contrary to the dictates of morality. He then sent John
+Lind to Mexico to convey terms to Huerta--peace, amnesty and a free
+election at which Huerta himself would not be a candidate. When the
+latter refused the proposal, President Wilson warned Americans to leave
+Mexico and adopted the policy of "watchful waiting," hoping that Huerta
+would be eliminated through inability to get funds to administer his
+government. In the meanwhile the destruction of lives and property
+continued.
+
+War was barely avoided in the spring of 1914 when a boat's crew of
+American marines was imprisoned in Tampico. An apology was made, but
+General Huerta refused to order a salute to the United States flag, and
+troops were accordingly landed at Vera Cruz, where slight encounters
+ensued. At this juncture Argentina, Brazil and Chile, "the ABC powers"
+made a proposal of mediation which was accepted. The conference averted
+war between the United States and Mexico, although failing to solve the
+questions at issue. Shortly afterward, however, Huerta retired from the
+field unable to continue his dictatorship, and the American troops were
+withdrawn.
+
+The end was not yet however. Carranza and his associate, Villa, fell to
+quarreling. Bands of ruffians made raids across the border, and Mexico
+became more than before a desolate waste peopled with fighting
+factions. At President Wilson's suggestion six Latin-American powers
+met in Washington in 1915 for conference, and decided to recognize
+Carranza as the head of a _de facto_ government. Diplomatic relations
+were then renewed after a lapse of two and a half years. In a message
+to Congress the President reviewed the imbroglio, but expressed doubts
+whether Mexico had been benefited.
+
+His fears soon proved to be well founded. In 1916 Villa crossed into
+New Mexico and raided the town of Columbus. With the consent of
+Carranza the United States sent troops under General Pershing across
+the line to run down the bandits, but the only result was to drive the
+Villistas from the region near the border. Renewed raids, this time
+into Texas, indicated the need of larger forces and the state militia
+were called upon, but after nearly a year of service they were
+withdrawn early in 1917. Not long afterward Carranza was elected
+president for a term of four years, but in 1920 another revolt ended in
+his assassination. The country is in a condition of wretchedness, and
+neither life nor property is safe from bands of marauders, President
+Wilson has patiently attempted to give Mexico a chance to work out her
+own salvation without hindrance from other countries and without
+exploitation by investors,--but the problem remains unsettled.[9]
+
+In view of some aspects of the foreign relations of the United States
+since 1914, it is apparent that such diplomatic incidents as those
+concerned with boundaries, fisheries and Latin-American protectorates
+were not the most important forces in determining the outlook of
+America upon Europe. In spite of the huge immigration of Europeans into
+America since the Civil War, the United States has seldom drawn upon
+European experience and has never sought to model itself on European
+lines. American legislators have not commonly studied either English or
+continental practices; our institutions and our constitutional
+limitations have been so peculiarly our own that slight attention has
+been paid to the outside world. Even the ancient resentment against
+England had dwindled by 1914, leaving the United States without any
+traditional "enemy." Tradition, as well as geographical isolation,
+tended to keep us apart from the currents of European action.
+
+Nevertheless America was being inter-related with the rest of the world
+through means with which the diplomats had little to do. In 1867 the
+Atlantic cable had finally been placed in successful operation, and
+forty years afterward the globe was enmeshed in 270,000 miles of
+submarine telegraph wires. In 1901 wireless telegraphic messages were
+sent across the ocean, and within a few years private and press notices
+were being sent across the Atlantic, vessels were commonly equipped
+with instruments, and international regulations concerning
+radio-telegraphy were adopted by the chief powers of the world. Most
+important of all was the constant passage of merchant vessels shuttling
+back and forth between America and Europe, and weaving the two into one
+commercial fabric. With Great Britain, with Germany, with France, Italy
+and the Netherlands, during 1913, the United States exchanged products
+valued at nearly two and a half billion dollars. This was an amount
+more than twice as great as the entire trade with Europe twenty years
+before. Over half a billion dollars' worth was with Germany, to which
+country we sent cotton, copper, food-stuffs, lard and furs in return
+for fertilizers, drugs, dyes, cotton manufactures and toys. American
+corporations had branches in Germany, while German manufacturers
+invested hundreds of millions of dollars in factories here. So huge a
+volume of commerce concerned the welfare not only of the ordinary
+commercial classes--ship owners, exporters and investors--but the much
+larger number of producers, manufacturers, miners, meat-packers, and
+farmers who directly and indirectly supplied the materials for export.
+
+In the meantime a change was taking place in the attitude of America
+toward world affairs. Inaccurate as it was to describe the United
+States as a world power at the time of the Spanish War, nevertheless
+the war itself and the colonial responsibilities which it entailed
+helped to a small degree to break down the isolation of America;
+frequent communication with Europe, and the expansion of American
+commerce tended in the same direction.
+
+The international relations of the United States for the twenty years
+immediately preceding 1914 may then be briefly summarized. The one
+international problem which interested the greatest numbers of people
+was the best method of arriving at international peace. Other problems,
+except the Mexican question, were simple and inconspicuous, and the
+majority of Americans knew little of European politics or international
+relations. Only in the fields of communication and commerce was the
+United States becoming increasingly and intimately related to the
+remainder of the world, and the extent to which this change
+supplemented the effect of the war with Spain in broadening the
+American international outlook was a matter of conjecture.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The general texts mentioned at the close of Chapter XIII continue to be
+useful.
+
+On the Hague Conferences reliance should be placed upon G.F.W. Holls,
+_The Peace Conference at the Hague_ (1900), by the secretary of the
+American delegation; A.D. White, _Autobiography of Andrew D. White_ (2
+vols., 1905), by a member of the delegation; J.W. Foster, _Arbitration
+and the Hague Court_ (1904); P.S. Beinsch, in _American Political
+Science Review_, II, 204 (Second Conference).
+
+The best brief account of the acquisition of the canal strip is in
+Latane; Theodore Roosevelt's story is in his _Autobiography_ and his
+_Addresses and Presidential Messages_. On the Caribbean, C.L. Jones,
+_Caribbean Interests of the United States_ (1916). The Venezuela
+arbitrations are in _Senate Documents_, 58th Congress, 3rd session, No.
+119 (Serial Number 4769). The Alaskan boundary question is clearly
+discussed in Latane, with a good map, and J.W. Foster, _Diplomatic
+Memoirs_ (2 vols., 1909). _The Proceedings in the North Atlantic Coast
+Fisheries Arbitration_ are in _Senate Document_ No. 870, 61st Congress,
+3rd session (12 vols, 1912-1913): more briefly in G.G. Wilson, _Hague
+Arbitration Cases_ (1915). S.K. Hornbeck, _Contemporary Politics in the
+Far East_ (1916), is useful for Asiatic relations. Ogg, Fish, and the
+_American Year Book_ provide material on Mexican affairs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The Presidents and Secretaries of State during this period were as
+follows:
+
+    McKinley, 1897-1901; John Sherman, William R. Day, John Hay.
+    Roosevelt, 1901-1909; John Hay, Elihu Root, Robert Bacon.
+    Taft, 1909-1913; P.C. Knox.
+    Wilson, 1913-1921; W.J. Bryan, Robert Lansing, B. Colby.
+
+[2] The French company had a concession on the isthmus and had already
+done considerable work.
+
+[3] Roosevelt, after his retirement from office was widely reported as
+having said in an address at the University of California: "If I had
+followed traditional, conservative methods, I would have submitted a
+dignified state paper of probably two hundred pages to Congress, and
+the debate on it would have been going on yet; but I took the Canal
+Zone and let Congress debate." Cf. Jones, _Caribbean Interests_,
+238-239.
+
+[4] For the Roosevelt "threat," together with another version of the
+story, cf. Thayer, _Hay_, II, 284-289 and _North American Review_,
+Sept., 1919, 414-417, 418-420.
+
+[5] Above, p. 289.
+
+[6] The latest acquisition of the U.S. in the Caribbean Sea was the
+Virgin Islands which were purchased from Denmark in 1916.
+
+[7] The American members of the Commission were Elihu Root, who was
+then Secretary of War, Senator H.C. Lodge, and ex-Senator George
+Turner. The English member was the Lord Chief Justice, Baron
+Alverstone; the Canadians were Sir Louis Amable Jette, Lieutenant
+Governor of Quebec, and Allen B. Aylesworth of Toronto.
+
+[8] The American member of the tribunal was Judge George Gray. The
+closing argument for the United States was made by Elihu Root. Robert
+Lansing was one of the associate counsel.
+
+[9] The number of Americans killed in Mexico as given by the ambassador
+in 1919 was as follows: 1911, 10; 1912, 6; 1913, 24; 1914, 30; 1915,
+26; 1916, 46; 1917, 39; 1918, 31. N.Y. _Times_, July 20, 1919. For the
+revolution of 1920 consult N.Y. _Times_, May 16 ff.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+WOODROW WILSON
+
+A definite account of the eventful years following 1913 can be written
+only after time has allayed partisanship; after long study of the
+social, economic and political history has separated the essential
+from the trivial; after papers that are now locked in private files
+have been opened to students; and after the passage of years has given
+that perspective which alone can measure the wisdom or the folly of a
+policy. It will be little less difficult to make a just appraisal of
+the chief American participants in those years, and particularly of
+President Woodrow Wilson. At present it is possible only to avoid
+partisanship so far as it can be done, read with open mind whatever
+documents are available, and refrain from either praise or condemnation.
+On all sides it is agreed that during his administration Wilson
+became one of the three or four world-figures, and for that reason
+his characteristics, as well as the events of his presidency demand
+unusual attention.
+
+Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia, in 1856. His ancestors
+were Scotch-Irish and his father an educator and Presbyterian
+clergyman. After graduating from Princeton College he practiced law,
+studied history and politics, and taught these subjects at several
+different institutions. Subsequently he became a professor at
+Princeton and later its President. He was a prolific and successful
+writer. His book on _Congressional Government_, for example, went
+through twenty-four impressions before he became President of the
+United States. _The State_, an account of the mechanism of government
+in ancient and modern times, and some of his portrayals of American
+history were hardly less in demand. His election as Governor of New
+Jersey in 1910 and his election to the presidency two years later have
+already been mentioned.
+
+The outstanding characteristic of Wilson is a finely-organized,
+penetrating intelligence. Somewhat like a silent chess-player he
+thinks many moves in advance, a fact which makes it difficult to judge
+a single act of his without a knowledge of the whole plan. Before
+coming to the presidency he had long pondered on the proper and
+possible function of that office, and had drawn in imagination the
+outlines and many of the details of the role which he was to play.
+Years of careful study had drilled him in the accumulation of facts.
+As a specialist in polities and history he was accustomed to make up
+his mind on the basis of his own researches, and to change his
+judgments without embarrassment when new facts presented themselves.
+His literary style is characterized by precision, a close texture and
+frequently by suppressed emotion. He thinks on an international scale
+and with a profundity that often dwarfs associates who are by no means
+pygmies themselves. An unbending will, an alert conscience, stubborn
+courage, restrained patience, political sagacity, a thoroughgoing
+belief in democracy and above all an instinctive understanding of the
+spiritual aspirations of the common people made him the most powerful
+political figure in America within a brief time after his accession to
+the presidency. On the other hand, his aloofness from counsel during
+the later part of his presidency exceeded that of Cleveland, and his
+abnormal self-reliance was greater than that of Roosevelt.
+
+In reviewing the history of the years following 1913, it is necessary
+to have a sense of the immensity of the problems involved, as well
+as a restrained judgment and some knowledge of the chief actors.
+Beginning in 1914, the great nations of Europe were constantly menaced
+by appalling dangers; their leaders were daily confronted with
+decisions of the utmost importance. Because of the close commercial,
+industrial and financial bonds between the two continents, America
+could not fail to be affected. She too was compelled to take her part
+in a drama which was far greater than any in which she had before
+engaged. Both the President and Congress were confronted with problems
+the solution of which would vitally affect not only the people of
+America, but the people of the world; never before had their decisions
+been so subject to the possibilities of mistakes which would certainly
+be momentous and might be tragic.
+
+When Wilson and his party came into power in 1913, as the result of
+the schism among the Republicans, their position was by no means
+secure. The President had been elected by a distinct minority in the
+popular vote and his practical political experience had been less than
+that of any chief executive since Grant. His party had been in power
+so little since the Civil War that it had no body of experienced
+administrators from which to pick cabinet officers, and no corps of
+parliamentary leaders practiced in the task of framing and passing a
+constructive program. The party as a whole was lacking in cohesion
+and had perforce played the role of destructive critic most of the
+time for more than half a century; its principles were untested in
+actual experience, and although its majority in the House was large,
+in the Senate its margin of control was so narrow as to suggest the
+near possibility of the failure of a party program. Wilson was under
+no illusions as to the circumstances of his election and he realized
+that both he and his party were on probation.
+
+The appointment of the cabinet occasioned unusual interest. Bryan, the
+one Democrat who had a large and devoted personal following, became
+Secretary of State. His influence in nominating Wilson had been very
+great and the adherence of his admirers was necessary if the party was
+to be welded into an effective organization. Several of the other
+members of the cabinet proved themselves to be men of unusual
+capacity, and their ability to cooperate with one another provided
+the "teamwork" which the President was anxious to obtain.[1]
+
+His conception of the part which the chief executive ought to play
+was a definite one. He looked upon the President as peculiarly the
+representative of the whole people in the federal government, as the
+leader of the party in power and as commissioned by the voting
+population to carry out the platform of principles upon which the
+party and its leader were elected. He believed that the unofficial
+leaders who are better known as "bosses" existed partly because of the
+absence of official leaders. As Governor of New Jersey he had acted on
+the principles that he had outlined for the chief executive of the
+nation, and upon his accession to the presidency he began at once to
+put into effect a similar program.
+
+Congress was called for a special session on April 7, 1913, in order
+to revise the tariff. It was a dangerous task--one which had
+discredited the Democrats in 1894 and divided the Republicans in
+1909--but plans had been laid with care in order to avoid previous
+mistakes. The Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means in the
+House, Oscar W. Underwood, had begun the preparation of a bill during
+the session before and had discussed it with Democratic members of the
+Senate Committee on Finance, and with the President.
+
+At the opening of the session Wilson broke the precedent established
+by Jefferson in 1801, and read his message personally to Congress,
+instead of sending it in written form to be read by a clerk. In
+substance the message expressed the President's conviction that the
+appearance of the chief executive in Congress would assist in
+developing the spirit of cooperation, and outlined the tariff problem
+which they were together called upon to settle. He declared that the
+country wished the tariff changed, that the task ought to be completed
+as quickly as possible and that no special privileges ought to be
+granted to anybody. He advocated a tariff on articles which we did not
+produce and upon luxuries, but he urged that otherwise the schedules
+be reduced vigorously but without undue haste. Other considerations
+were more important, however, than the substance of the message.
+Previous documents of this kind had been long and filled with a wide
+variety of recommendations concerning both international and domestic
+relations; Wilson's speech occupied but a few moments, it focused the
+attention of Congress upon one subject, and fixed the eyes of the
+country upon the problem. The nation knew that one task was in hand,
+and knew where to lay the blame if delay should ensue. It was a great
+responsibility that the President had assumed, but he assumed it
+without hesitation.
+
+Underwood presented his bill at once and it passed the House without
+difficulty, but in the Senate the Democratic majority of six was too
+small to guarantee success in the face of the objections of Louisiana
+senators to the proposal for free sugar, and the usual bargaining for
+the protection of special interests. When the lobby appeared--the
+group that had so mangled the Wilson-Gorman bill and discredited the
+Payne-Aldrich Act--the President issued a public statement warning the
+country of the "extraordinary exertions" of a body of paid agents
+whose object was private profit and not the good of the public. So
+vigorous an action resulted in hostility to Wilson, but Congress found
+itself unusually free from objectionable pressure. Hence while experts
+differed in regard to the wisdom of one part or another of the bill,
+it was not charged that its schedules bore the imprint of favoritism
+for any particular private interests. Discussion in the Senate was so
+extended that the Underwood act did not finally pass and receive the
+President's signature until October 3.
+
+The general character of the measure is indicated by the number of
+changes made in the tariffs as they existed at the time of the passage
+of the act. On 958 articles the duties were reduced; on 307 they were
+left unchanged; and on eighty-six (mainly in the chemical schedule),
+they were increased. Despite the numerous reductions, the Underwood
+law retained much of the protective purpose of preceding enactments.
+Attempts were made to decrease the cost of living by considerable
+reductions on certain agricultural products and by placing others on
+the free list; wool was to be free after December 1, 1913, and the
+duty on sugar was to be reduced gradually and taken off completely on
+May 1, 1916; duties on cotton goods and on woolens ("Schedule K") were
+heavily reduced. Underwood represented an iron manufacturing section
+of Alabama, but he showed an uncommon attention to the general
+interest by favoring large reductions on pig-iron and placing iron ore
+and steel rails on the free list. An important part of the law was a
+provision for an income tax, which had been made possible by the
+Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution proclaimed on February 25,
+1913. Incomes over $3,000 ($4,000 in the case of married persons),
+were to be taxed one per cent., with an additional one per cent. on
+incomes of $20,000 to $50,000, and similar graded "surtaxes" on higher
+incomes, reaching six per cent. on those above $500,000. The board
+which the Republicans had established for the scientific study of the
+tariff had been allowed to lapse by the Democrats, but was revived in
+1916 through the appointment of a bi-partisan Commission of six
+members with twelve-year terms.
+
+On June 23, 1913, after the tariff bill had been piloted around the
+chief difficulties in its way, the President again addressed
+Congress-this time on currency legislation. Again he laid down certain
+principles-a more elastic currency, some means of mobilizing bank
+reserves, and public control of the banking system. Before mentioning
+the further history of this recommendation, however, it is necessary
+to have in mind the main facts in the development of the monetary
+issue since 1900. Complaint had been common since that year. One
+difficulty lay in the fact that the volume of the currency could not
+quickly increase and decrease as busy times demanded more or quiet
+times required less of the circulating medium. At those parts of the
+year, for example, when the crops were being moved there was a greater
+demand for currency than the banks could conveniently meet. They
+could, to be sure, buy United States bonds and issue national bank
+notes upon them as security, but this was a slow and costly process.
+The dangers of the existing inelastic arrangement were illustrated in
+the panic of 1907.
+
+In that year occurred a financial crisis which resulted in business
+failures, unemployment and the indictment of prominent figures in the
+commercial world; it was precipitated by a gamble in copper stocks. An
+unsuccessful attempt to corner the stock of a copper company led to
+the examination of the Mercantile National Bank of New York, with
+which the speculators had intimate connections. Meanwhile the
+president of the bank and all the directors were forced to resign. One
+of the associates of a director in the Mercantile was the president of
+the Knickerbocker Trust Company, and depositors in the latter bank
+thereupon became frightened, and $8,000,000 were withdrawn in three
+hours. The alarm then spread to the depositors of the Trust Company of
+America--the president of the Knickerbocker was one of its
+directors--and $34,000,000 were withdrawn by the now thoroughly
+anxious depositors, who stood in line at night in order to be ready
+for the next day. The panic spread to other parts of the nation;
+country banks withdrew funds from the city banks, and they from New
+York; and at length the government came to the aid of the distressed
+institutions and deposited $36,000,000 between October 19 and 31.
+Nevertheless, at the time when depositors were trying to get their
+money there was sufficient currency in existence to satisfy all needs.
+The defect lay in the lack of machinery for pooling resources in such
+a way as to relieve any institution that was in temporary straits. The
+experts pointed also to the unscrupulous manipulation of the supplies
+of currency by New York financiers. There was widespread comment on
+the fact that if the magnates did not actually constitute a "money
+trust" they were nevertheless able to expand and contract the
+available supply to such an extent as to serve their own ends and
+embarrass the public.
+
+In the meanwhile many experts, among them Senator Nelson W. Aldrich,
+had been studying the entire banking system. The result of this work
+was the Aldrich-Vreeland Act of 1908 providing a temporary method for
+making the supply of currency more flexible and also arranging for a
+National Monetary Commission to investigate the currency and banking
+systems in this and other countries. The Commission published
+thirty-eight volumes of information and recommendations, which were a
+storehouse of facts concerning the problem, although no legislation
+resulted. All that Taft did was to pass the task along to Wilson.
+
+As has been seen, President Wilson seized the opportunity at once.
+Senator Owen and Carter Glass, Chairmen of the Senate and House
+Committees on Banking and 'Currency, together with William G. McAdoo,
+the Secretary of the Treasury, and the President himself drafted the
+Federal Reserve bill. This measure received careful attention, being
+the cause of extended hearings and debate in Congress and of
+discussion in banking circles. The special session wore on and came to
+an end, but the regular session began at once (December 1), and
+consideration of the measure continued without interruption. At length
+on December 22 the House acted favorably, thirty-four Republicans,
+eleven Progressives, and one Independent assisting the Democrats in
+passing the bill; on the following day the Senate passed it, one
+Progressive and three Republicans voting with the majority. In many
+details the act as passed differed from the original plan, but in its
+essential points it was not amended. Although its precise form was the
+work of a few men, the project in general, of course, represented the
+labors of many persons extending over many years, and for that reason
+embodied the best that American experts could give.
+
+The Act provided for the establishment of Federal Reserve Banks, to be
+placed in districts--the number being eventually fixed at twelve. The
+capital for each Reserve Bank was to be supplied by the banks in its
+district which became member banks. In other words the Reserve Banks
+were to act as banks for their members, but not for private
+individuals. In control of the twelve was a Federal Reserve Board,
+composed of the Secretary of the Treasury, the Comptroller of the
+Currency and five persons appointed by the president for terms of ten
+years. It was at this point that the chief controversies raged between
+the bankers and the proponents of the administration measure. The
+bankers desired one central bank, which the administration opposed
+because it feared centralized control over the currency supply; and
+the bankers disliked the proposal for a Reserve Board appointed by the
+president, because they apprehended the entrance of politics into the
+appointments. The President and his supporters were determined,
+however, not to allow the bankers to appoint the Board or any portion
+of it, because they wished the system to be operated solely in the
+public interest.
+
+Greater elasticity was given to the currency supply through the
+issuance of federal reserve notes, at the discretion of the Federal
+Reserve Board, to the several regional Federal Reserve Banks. These
+notes were to be obligations of the government and were expected to
+replace the former national bank notes. When a local bank requires
+more currency it may deposit with the Federal Reserve Bank such
+valuable commercial paper as may be acceptable--for example,
+promissory notes of reliable business firms--and receive at once a
+supply of federal reserve notes. When business is brisk and large
+supplies of currency are demanded, the local banks will deposit
+whatever paper may be necessary to meet their needs; when the
+emergency has passed they will withdraw notes from circulation, return
+them to the reserve bank and receive their paper again.[2] The second
+great purpose of the new system was to supply central reservoirs for
+the storage of the reserves of the member banks. Each local bank is
+required to keep certain prescribed balances in the reserve bank of
+its district, and the federal government may also deposit funds in it.
+In conformity with strict regulations the reserves thus accumulated in
+a Federal Reserve Bank may be directed here and there in the district
+as needed, and even from district to district, under the control of
+the Federal Reserve Board. Moreover they are not available for those
+speculative ventures which have caused so much trouble in the past.[3]
+The operation of the law has apparently more than met the expectation
+of its friends. It had hardly been established when a war broke out in
+Europe, but the unusual financial situation which resulted in America
+was cared for without great strain.
+
+The third major plank in the Democratic platform of 1912 called for
+legislation concerning trusts, and the President accordingly turned
+his attention to that topic in his address to Congress on January 20,
+1914. He declared that there was no intent to hamper business as
+conducted by enlightened men, but that, on the contrary, the
+antagonism between business and government had passed. He recommended
+the prohibition of interlocking directorates by which railroads, banks
+and industrial corporations became allied in one monopolistic group,
+and he suggested that the processes and methods of harmful restraint
+of trade be forbidden item by item in order that business men might
+know where they stood in relation to the law. Finally, he believed
+that the country demanded a commission which should act as a clearing
+house for facts relating to industry and which should do justice to
+business where the processes of the courts were inadequate. The
+results of this undertaking were the Federal Trade Commission act of
+September 26, 1914, and the Clayton Anti-trust act of October 15.
+
+The former of these laws created a Commission of five persons to
+administer the anti-trust laws and to prevent the use of unfair
+methods by any persons or corporations which were subject to the
+anti-trust laws. Whenever it had reason to believe that such
+expedients were being used, the Commission was to issue an order
+requiring the cessation of the practice. If the order was not obeyed,
+the Commission was to apply for assistance to the circuit court of
+appeals in the district where the offense was alleged to have been
+committed. The purpose of the provision was evidently to prevent
+unfair practices rather than to punish them. Another section of the
+law empowered the Commission to gather information concerning the
+practices of industrial organizations, to require them to file reports
+in regard to their affairs, and to investigate the manner in which
+decrees of the Courts against them were carried out. Under direction
+of the president or Congress, the Commission could investigate alleged
+violations of the law, and on its own initiative it might report
+recommendations to Congress for additional legislation.[4]
+
+The Clayton act specifically prohibited many of the practices common
+to industrial enterprises. Sellers of commodities were forbidden to
+discriminate in price between different purchasers--after making due
+allowance for differences in transportation costs; corporations were
+forbidden to acquire any of the stock of other similar industries,
+where the effect would be substantially to lessen competition; and
+directors of banks and corporations were prohibited, with stated
+exceptions, from serving in two or more competing organizations. The
+Clayton act also settled, at least for the time, several of the
+complaints raised by the labor interests, especially at the time of
+the Pullman strike. Labor and agricultural organizations were
+specifically declared not to be conspiracies in restraint of trade;
+injunctions were not to be granted in labor disputes unless necessary
+to prevent irreparable injury; and trials for contempt of court were
+to be by jury, except when the offense was committed in the presence
+of the court. The law also prohibited the railroads from dealing with
+concerns in which their directors were interested, except under
+specified conditions.
+
+The success of the President in pushing his party program made his
+prestige the outstanding fact in politics. His leadership was
+indisputable and it was evident that he regarded a party platform as a
+serious program, to the fulfilment of which the party was committed by
+its election. While the trust legislation was under discussion,
+however, he asked for an act which required all the strength that he
+could muster.
+
+It will be remembered that the Panama Canal act of 1912 had exempted
+American coast-wise traffic through the canal from the payment of
+tolls. The law had been passed under a Republican, President Taft, and
+both the Progressive and Democratic platforms of 1912 had favored
+exemption. On March 5, 1914, Wilson appeared before Congress and urged
+the repeal of the act on the ground that it was a violation of that
+part of the treaty with Great Britain in which this country agreed
+that the canal should be open to all nations upon an equality, and
+that it was based on a mistaken economic policy. He was opposed by
+Underwood and Champ Clark, two of the most powerful Democratic
+leaders, but he had the aid of Senator Root, a distinguished
+Republican who had been Secretary of State under President Roosevelt,
+and in the end he was victorious. The division in the party was
+quickly healed and forgotten.
+
+The Congressional elections of 1914 greatly reduced the Democratic
+majority in the House, although leaving control with that party, but
+they slightly increased its margin in the Senate. European affairs and
+the election of 1916 occupied political attention during the second
+half of the administration, nevertheless the President and Congress
+proceeded with their program of legislation. Important acts were those
+providing for the development of the resources of Alaska, the Newlands
+act for the arbitration of disputes among railway employees, a law
+providing for federal aid in the building of state highways, measures
+giving a larger amount of self-government to the Philippines and Porto
+Rico, and one establishing a series of Federal Farm Loan Banks
+intended to enable the agricultural population to get capital at low
+rates of interest.[5] The major items, as well as the smaller ones in
+the Democratic program were in line with many of the proposals made by
+the Progressives in their platform in 1912. Attracted by these
+accomplishments and by the forceful leadership of the President large
+numbers of the Progressives made the transition into the Democratic
+party, and from 1913 to 1916 much of the political strategy of both
+Democrats and Republicans was devoted to attracting the insurgent wing
+of the Republican organization.
+
+The enactment of such a body of legislation, with the resulting
+appointment of many officials and clerks, brought the President face
+to face with the same civil service problem that had caused so much
+trouble for Cleveland. Upon their accession in 1913 the Democrats had
+been out of power so long that they exerted the pressure, usual under
+such circumstances, for a share in the offices. The merit system,
+however, was even more firmly entrenched than in 1897 when Cleveland
+had made such additions to the classified lists, for both Roosevelt
+and Taft had extended the merit principle to certain parts of the
+consular and diplomatic service. Roosevelt had also made considerable
+extensions in the application of the system to deputy collectors of
+internal revenue, fourth-class postmasters, and carriers in the rural
+free-delivery service; Taft had also increased the number of employees
+who were appointed under the merit system, notably about 36,000
+fourth-class postmasters not touched by his predecessor. Some of the
+acts passed early in President Wilson's administration--the Federal
+Reserve law, for example--expressly excepted certain employees from
+civil service examinations. Bryan, as Secretary of State, showed a
+lack of devotion to the cause of reform in the conduct of his
+department. On the other hand the President took a most important step
+in relation to postmasters of the first, second and third classes,
+which had always been appointed by the president with the advice and
+consent of the Senate, and had been among the plums in the gift of the
+executive that had been most sought after. On March 31, 1917, Wilson
+announced that thereafter the nominees for postmasters of the first
+three classes would be chosen as the result of civil service
+examination.
+
+While the United States was absorbed, in these various ways, in the
+task of internal construction, an event was occurring in a town in
+Bosnia which was destined to affect profoundly the course of American
+history. On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir-apparent
+to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was assassinated by a
+youth of Serbian blood and sympathies in Sarajevo. In Austria the act
+was looked upon as an incident in a revolutionary movement intended to
+detach a part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and unite it with
+Serbia. A month later Austria declared war on Serbia, and in a brief
+time, such was the state of the European alliances, Austria and
+Germany were opposed to Serbia, Russia, Belgium, France, Montenegro
+and Great Britain in a devastating war. In August, Japan joined the
+"Allies," as the nations on Serbia's side were known, and Turkey, in
+November, took the side of the Teutonic powers. The act that brought
+Belgium into the war was of interest to the United States. Germany had
+declared war on Russia, the friend of Serbia, and expected that
+France, Russia's ally, would step into the fray. Being thoroughly
+prepared for war, Germany believed that she could crush France before
+the latter could take any effective steps. The most convenient path
+into France lay through Belgium, a small, neutral nation with no
+interest in the conflict, and the German armies were thereupon poured
+across the boundary. High German authority freely admitted the wrong
+of the act, but excused it on the ground of military necessity.
+Belgium felt that she could not do otherwise than resist the invader
+and was thus drawn into the vortex. Her danger helped bring Great
+Britain into the conflict.
+
+The relation of the United States to the conflict seemed remote, and
+President Wilson on August 4 issued a formal proclamation of
+neutrality, which was soon followed by an address to the people of the
+country urging them to be neutral both in thought and in act. For a
+time it was not difficult for the country to obey the injunction.
+Although stories of the ruthlessness, of the German soldiery in
+Belgium poured into the columns of American periodicals, the people
+found difficulty in believing them because they had long admired the
+efficiency and virility of the Germans. Scarcely a year before the war
+broke out, ex-Presidents Roosevelt and Taft had extolled the German
+Emperor as an apostle of peace, and President Butler of Columbia
+University had declared that the people of any nation would gladly
+elect him as their chief executive. More than a month and a half after
+the invasion of Belgium, Roosevelt published an article in _The
+Outlook_ in which he expressed pride in the German blood in his veins,
+asserted that either side in the European conflict could be sincerely
+taken and defended, and continued:
+
+    When a nation feels that the issue of a contest in which ... it
+    finds itself engaged will be national life or death, it is
+    inevitable that it should act so as to save itself.... The rights
+    and wrongs of these cases where nations violate the rules of
+    abstract morality in order to meet their own vital needs can
+    be precisely determined only when all the facts are known and
+    when men's blood is cool.... Of course it would be folly to jump
+    into the gulf ourselves to no good purpose; and very probably
+    nothing that we could have done would have helped Belgium. We
+    have not the smallest responsibility for what has befallen her.
+
+In view of the mass of conflicting rumors concerning the war, which
+reached American attention, it was natural to take the neutral
+position adopted by Roosevelt, but it was inevitable, because of our
+racial diversities, that sympathies and opinions should soon differ
+widely. Within a short time, pamphlets were published containing the
+correspondence among the several European powers which had taken place
+just before the outbreak of the war. These and other documents were
+widely studied in the United States and led to the belief that
+England, France and Russia had been the real peace lovers and that
+Germany had been the aggressor.
+
+The immediate economic effect of the war, in the meanwhile was the
+unsettlement of American financial and industrial affairs, but when
+the English navy obtained the mastery of the seas, the vessels of the
+Teutonic powers were driven to cover in neutral ports or kept
+harmlessly at home, and American trade with neutral nations and the
+Allies took on new life. Moreover the latter were in need of food,
+munitions and war materials of all kinds and they turned to American
+factories. Manufacturers who could accept "war orders" began at once
+to make fortunes; wages and prices rose, and it became evident that
+the United States would be profoundly affected by the struggle.
+England's control of the sea, moreover, early presented other
+problems. According to international practice, both sides in the
+European conflict might purchase munitions from neutrals, of which the
+United States was the largest, but on account of her weakness on the
+sea Germany was unable to take advantage of this opportunity, while
+the Allies constantly purchased whatever supplies were needed. At
+first, the German government protested through diplomatic channels,
+but our government was able to show not only that international
+practice approved the course followed by the United States, but also
+that Germany had herself followed it in previous wars.
+
+There then followed propaganda on a large scale by German agents
+under the direction of Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, which was intended to
+influence public opinion to demand the prohibition of the shipment of
+munitions to the Allies. As this activity failed of its purpose,
+resort was then had to fraudulent clearance papers by which military
+supplies for German use were shipped from the United States without
+conforming to our customs regulations; bombs were placed in ships
+carrying supplies to England; fires were set in munitions factories;
+strikes and labor difficulties were fomented by German agents and at
+length the government had to ask for the recall of the Austrian
+Ambassador, Dr. Dumba, and the German military and naval _attaches_
+at Washington, Captain Franz von Papen and Captain Karl Boy-Ed.
+
+Relations with the Allies, in the meantime, were far from
+satisfactory. The unprecedented scale on which the war was being
+fought made huge supplies of munitions, food and raw materials such as
+copper and cotton absolute necessities. England was able to shut off
+the direct shipment into Germany of stores having military value, but
+this advantage was of little use so long as the ports of Holland and
+the Scandinavian countries were open to the transit of such supplies
+indirectly to Teutonic soil. When England attempted to regulate and
+restrict trade with these countries, the United States was the chief
+sufferer. Ships were held up and their cargoes examined-during 1915,
+for example, copper valued at $5,500,000 was seized while on the way
+from the United States to neutral nations. On December 26, 1914, the
+United States protested against the number of vessels that were
+stopped, taken into British ports and held, sometimes, for weeks; and
+in reply England pointed out the large increase in the amount of
+copper and other materials sent to countries near Germany, and
+declared that the presumption was strong that these stores were being
+forwarded to the enemy.
+
+With her navy driven from the seas, Germany began to feel the effects
+of the blockade, and accordingly turned to the submarine as the hope
+for victory. On February 4, 1915, Germany declared the English channel
+and the waters around Great Britain a war zone, in which enemy
+merchant vessels would be destroyed "even if it may not be possible
+always to save their crews and passengers." Great Britain replied on
+March 11 by an order that merchant vessels going into Germany or out
+of her ports, as well as merchant vessels bound for neutral countries
+and carrying goods bound for the enemy, must stop at a British or
+allied port. At these points the cargoes were looked over and any war
+materials or goods which were regarded as "contraband" were seized.
+Even though the owners were eventually reimbursed for the cargoes
+taken, the delay and the interference with trade were burdensome, and
+the United States accordingly protested that England was establishing
+an illegal blockade and that the United States would champion the
+rights of neutrals. Some slight retaliatory legislation aimed at the
+Allies was passed by Congress, but for the most part interest in this
+controversy died in the face of the growing irritation with Germany.
+The German declaration of February 4, 1915, in regard to submarine
+warfare caused an energetic protest by the United States on the ground
+that an attack on a vessel made without any determination of its
+belligerent character and the contraband character of its cargo would
+be unprecedented in naval warfare. The American note declared Germany
+would be held to a "strict accountability" for any injury to American
+lives and property. Nevertheless, the results of the submarine
+campaign began to appear at once, and in ten weeks sixty-three
+merchant ships belonging to various nations were sunk, with a loss of
+250 lives. On May 7 the United States was astounded to hear that the
+passenger ship _Lusitania_ had been torpedoed, and 1,153 persons
+drowned, including 114 Americans. The allied and neutral nations were
+profoundly stirred, and from that moment there grew an increasing
+demand in the United States for war with Germany. The President called
+for a disavowal of the acts by which the _Lusitania _and other vessels
+had been sunk, all possible reparation, and steps to prevent the
+recurrence of such deeds.
+
+Within a few days of the _Lusitania _catastrophe and before the
+protest of our government was made public, President Wilson spoke in
+Philadelphia, and in the course of his remarks said, "There is such a
+thing as a man being too proud to fight." The address had no relation
+to the international situation, and moreover the objectionable phrase
+carried an unexpected and different meaning when separated from its
+context and linked to the _Lusitania_ affair. The words were seized
+upon by the President's critics, however, as an indication of the
+policy of the government in the crisis and were severely condemned. On
+the other hand the formal protest was received with marked
+satisfaction. It was understood to be the work of Wilson himself, who
+practically took over the conduct of the more important foreign
+affairs. When the German government replied without meeting the
+demands of the President, he framed a second note which brought the
+possibility of war so near that Secretary Bryan resigned rather than
+sign it.[6] A second reply merely prolonged the controversy and Wilson
+thereupon renewed his demands and declared that a repetition of
+submarine attacks would be regarded as "deliberately unfriendly." The
+statement brought the nation appreciably nearer war, but if the
+comments of the newspaper press may be relied upon as an index of
+public opinion, the President had again expressed the feelings of the
+people. In the meanwhile German submarine warfare was modified in the
+direction desired by the United States. Instead of sinking merchant
+vessels on sight and without warning, the commanders of submarines
+stopped them, visited and searched them, and gave the passengers and
+crews opportunity to escape. On August 19, 1915, the _Arabic _was sunk
+without warning, but the German government in conformity with its new
+policy disavowed the act, apologized and agreed to pay an indemnity
+for American lives lost. The negotiations concerning the _Lusitania_
+continued to drag on, but otherwise relations between Germany and the
+United States had reached the point where peace could be maintained if
+no further accident or provocation intervened.
+
+Despite the general approval of the President's firm stand against
+Germany, there was an inclination in some quarters to do everything
+possible to avoid a conflict, even if the effort necessitated the
+relinquishment of rights that had hitherto been well recognized. In
+February, 1916, Representative McLemore introduced a resolution
+requesting the President to warn American citizens to refrain from
+traveling on armed belligerent vessels, whether merchantmen or
+otherwise and to state that if they persisted they would do so at
+their own peril. The House, according to the Speaker, was prepared to
+pass the resolution. The positions taken on this subject by the
+administration had not been entirely consistent, but the President was
+now holding that Americans had the right under international law to
+travel on such vessels and that the government could not honorably
+refuse to uphold them in exercising their right. "Once accept a single
+abatement of right," he asserted, "and many other humiliations would
+certainly follow, and the whole fine fabric of international law might
+crumble under our hands piece by piece." Moreover he felt that the
+conduct of international relations lay in the hands of the executive
+and that divided counsels would embarrass him in dealing with Germany.
+He therefore asked the House to discuss the McLemore resolution at
+once and come to a vote. Under this pressure the House gave way and
+tabled the resolution, ninety-three Republicans joining with 182
+Democrats against thirty-three Democrats and 102 Republicans.
+
+On March 24 the French channel steamer _Sussex_ was sunk, with the
+loss of several Americans, and the submarine issue was thus brought
+forward again. The President accordingly appeared before Congress and
+reviewed the entire controversy. "Again and again," he reminded his
+hearers, "the Imperial German Government has given this Government its
+solemn assurances that at least passenger ships would not be thus
+dealt with, and yet it has again and again permitted its undersea
+commanders to disregard those assurances with entire impunity." He
+asserted that America had been very patient, while the toll of lives
+had mounted into the hundreds, and informed Congress that he was
+presenting a warning that "unless the Imperial German Government
+should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its
+present methods of warfare against passenger and freight carrying
+vessels this Government can have no choice but to sever diplomatic
+relations with the Government of the German Empire altogether." The
+_Lusitania _notes, the _Sussex_ address and other speeches made by the
+President wore read all over the United States and, indeed, throughout
+a great part of the world. He was attempting the novel and daring
+experiment of framing a foreign policy in public view, and was thus
+becoming the recognized spokesman of the neutral world.
+
+Our international relations were in a disturbed and critical condition
+when the presidential campaign of 1916 came on. The Republicans and
+the Progressives planned to meet in Chicago on June 7 for the
+nomination of candidates, in the hope that the two parties might unite
+upon a single nominee and platform, and thus defeat Wilson who was
+sure to be the Democratic candidate. At first, however, the two wings
+of the Republican party were in complete disagreement. As far as
+principles went they had not thoroughly recovered from the schism of
+1912. For their candidate the Progressives looked only to Roosevelt,
+whom the Republicans would not have. Roosevelt himself refused to
+enter any fight for a nomination and announced, "I will go further and
+say that it would be a mistake to nominate me unless the country has
+in its mood something of the heroic." After conferences between
+Republican and Progressive leaders which failed to bring about
+unanimity, the Republican convention nominated Justice Charles E.
+Hughes of the Supreme Court, and the Progressives chose Roosevelt.
+Hughes was a reformer by nature, recognized as a man of high
+principles, courageous, able and remembered as a vigorous and popular
+governor of New York.
+
+The Republican platform called for neutrality in the European war;
+peace and order in Mexico, preparedness for national defence, a
+protective tariff and women's suffrage. It also advocated some of the
+economic legislation favored by the-Progressives in 1912. The
+Progressive platform laid most emphasis on preparation for military
+defence-a navy of at least second rank, a regular army of 250,000 and
+a system for training a citizen soldiery. It also urged labor
+legislation, a protective tariff and national regulation of industry
+and transportation. The Republican platform severely denounced the
+administration, but the Progressives stated merely their own
+principles.
+
+In the course of his actions after the nomination, however, Roosevelt
+indicated his belief that the public welfare demanded the defeat of
+the Democrats. He declared that he did not know Hughes's opinions on
+the vital questions of the day and suggested that his "conditional
+refusal" be put into the hands of the National Progressive Committee
+and that a statement of the Republican candidate's principles be
+awaited. If these principles turned out to be satisfactory then
+Roosevelt would not run; otherwise a conference could be held to
+determine future action. Subsequently Roosevelt issued a declaration
+expressing his satisfaction with Hughes, condemning Wilson and urging
+all Progressives to join in defeating the Democrats. Such an action
+would, of course, spell the doom of the Progressives as a political
+organization, but he declared that the people were not prepared to
+accept a new party and that the nomination of a third party candidate
+would merely divide the Republicans and ensure a Democratic victory.
+The action of Roosevelt commended itself to a majority of the National
+Committee, but a minority were displeased and supported Wilson.
+
+The Democrats met at St. Louis on June 14 and renominated President
+Wilson in a convention marked by harmony and enthusiasm. For the first
+time in many years the party could point to a record of actual
+achievement and it challenged "comparisons of our record, our keeping
+of pledges, and our constructive legislation, with those of any party
+at any time." After recalling the chief measures passed during the
+administration, the party placed itself on record as favoring labor
+legislation, women's suffrage, the protection of citizens at home and
+abroad, a larger army and navy and a reserve of trained citizen
+soldiers.[7]
+
+The campaign turned upon the question whether the country approved
+Wilson's foreign policy, rather than upon the record of the Democratic
+party and its platform of principles, and in such a contest each side
+had definite advantages. As the candidate of the party which had been
+in power most of the time for half a century, Hughes had the support
+of the two living ex-presidents and the backing of a compact
+organization with plenty of money. He had been out of the turmoil of
+politics for six years as a member of the Supreme Court and hence had
+not made enemies. His party was strong in the most populous portions
+of the country and in the East where dissatisfaction with the
+President's foreign policy was strongest. In particular the unhappy
+Mexican difficulty, which has already been mentioned, had not been
+settled, and it was an easy matter for Hughes to point out real or
+alleged inconsistencies and mistakes in his opponent's acts. Wilson
+had been elected four years before by a minority vote and had served
+through a term of years that had brought forward an unusual number of
+perplexing questions on which sincere men disagreed, and had,
+therefore, aroused a host of enemies. On the other hand, he had the
+advantage of being in power, and his supporters could urge the danger
+of "swapping horses while crossing a stream." He had a foreign policy
+which the people knew about, experience in the Presidency and a record
+for leadership in constructive accomplishment.[8]
+
+The particular characteristics of the campaign were mainly the results
+of the activities of Hughes, Roosevelt and Wilson. In his speech
+accepting the nomination Hughes attacked the record of the
+administration in regard to the civil service, charged the President
+with interfering in Mexican affairs without protecting American
+rights, and asserted that if the government had shown Germany that it
+meant what it said by "strict accountability" the Lusitania would not
+have been sunk. He also announced that he favored a constitutional
+amendment providing for women's suffrage. Later he made extended
+stumping tours in which he reiterated his attacks on the
+administration, but he disappointed his friends by failing to reveal a
+constructive program. Roosevelt, meanwhile, assisted the Republican
+candidate by a series of speeches, one of the earliest of which was
+that of August 31, in Maine. That state held its local elections on
+September 11 and it was deemed essential by both parties to make every
+effort to carry it so as to have a good effect on party prospects
+elsewhere. Roosevelt's speech typified his criticisms of the
+administration. He declared that Wilson had ostensibly kept peace with
+Mexico but had really waged war there; he asserted that the President
+had shown a lack of firmness in dealing with Mexico and had kissed the
+hand that slapped him in the face although it was red with the blood
+of American women and children; he compared American neutrality in the
+European War with the neutrality of Pontius Pilate and believed that
+if the administration had been firm in its dealings with Germany there
+would have been no invasion of Belgium, no sinking of vessels and no
+massacres of women and children.
+
+Wilson followed the example of McKinley in 1896 and conducted his
+campaign chiefly through speeches delivered from the porch of "Shadow
+Lawn," his summer residence in New Jersey. In this way he emphasized
+the legislative record of the Democrats, defended his foreign policy
+and attacked the Republicans as a party, although not referring to
+individuals. An important part of his strategy was an attempt to
+attract the Progressives to his support. He met his opponent's
+vigorous complaints in regard to his attitude toward Mexico and the
+European War by pressing the question as to the direction in which the
+Republicans would change it. As Hughes was apparently unwilling to
+urge immediate war on Germany, he could only retort that a firm
+attitude in the beginning would have prevented trouble, and there the
+matter rested throughout the campaign. Supporters of Wilson also
+defended his foreign policy, summing up their contentions in the
+phrase, "He kept us out of war."
+
+Foreign policy as a political issue was pressed temporarily into the
+background by the sudden demand of the railroad brotherhoods for
+shorter hours and mote pay, threatening a nation-wide strike if their
+plea was unheeded. Neither party wished to risk the labor vote by
+opposing the unions, and the public did not desire a strike, much as
+it deprecated the attitude of the labor leaders in threatening trouble
+at this juncture. The President took the lead in pressing a program of
+railroad legislation, part of which was a law granting the men what
+they desired. This was immediately passed, although the remaining
+recommendations were laid aside. In the House the Republicans joined
+with the Democrats in putting the law through, although nearly thirty
+per cent. of the members refrained from voting at all, but in the
+Senate party lines were more strictly drawn. In many quarters the
+President was vigorously condemned on the ground that he had
+"surrendered" to a threat. Hughes joined in the dissent, but somewhat
+dulled its effect by giving no evidence of opposition until the law
+was passed and by stating that he would not attempt to repeal it if
+elected. During the closing days of the campaign Hughes issued a
+statement declaring that he looked upon the presidency as an executive
+office and stated that if chosen he would consider himself the
+administrative and executive head only, and not a political leader
+commissioned with the responsibility of determining policies. At the
+close of the campaign, also, the benefits of a protective tariff were
+urged as a reason for electing Hughes.
+
+[Illustration:
+Election of 1916, by Counties]
+
+The result of the balloting on November 7 was in doubt for several
+days because the outcome hinged on the votes of California and
+Minnesota, either of which would turn the scale. In the end Wilson was
+found to have received 9,128,837 votes and Hughes, 8,536,380. The vote
+in the electoral college was 277 to 254. The outcome was remarkable in
+several respects. Each candidate received a larger popular vote than
+had ever before been cast; Wilson won without New York or any of the
+other large eastern states, finding his support in the South and the
+Far West; each side was able to get satisfaction from the result, the
+Republicans because their party schism was sufficiently healed to
+enable them to divide the House of Representatives evenly with their
+opponents, and the Democrats because their candidate was successful in
+states which elected Republican senators and governors by large
+majorities.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+In the nature of the case, any bibliography which concerns the events
+of so recent and important a period is of temporary value only. Ogg
+presents an excellent one, but many important volumes have been
+printed since 1917, his date of publication.
+
+A reliable account of the chief events is contained in the _American
+Year Book_. The numerous biographies of President Wilson are written
+under the difficult conditions that surround the discussion of recent
+events. Available ones are: E.C. Brooks, _Woodrow Wilson as President_
+(1916), eulogistic, but contains extracts from speeches; W.B. Hale,
+_Woodrow Wilson, The Story of His Life_ (1912); H.J. Ford, _Woodrow
+Wilson_ (1916); A.M. Low, _Woodrow Wilson, an Interpretation_ (1918),
+a friendly and substantial analysis by an English newspaper
+correspondent; W.B. Dodd, _Woodrow Wilson and His Work_ (1920),
+sympathetic, written in the spirit of the investigator, and the best
+life up to the time of its publication. Better than any biography is a
+careful study of Wilson's addresses and speeches, editions of which
+have been prepared by A.B. Hart, J.B. Scott, A. Shaw and others.
+
+Periodical literature concerning the legislative program of the first
+Wilson administration is especially abundant. On the tariff, in
+addition to Taussig, consult: _Quarterly Journal of Economics_ (1913),
+"The Tariff Act of 1913"; _Journal of Political Economy_ (1914), "The
+Tariff of 1913." On the federal reserve system, _Political Science
+Quarterly_ (1914), "Federal Reserve System"; _Quarterly Journal of
+Economics_ (1914), "Federal Reserve Act of 1913"; _American Economic
+Review_ (1914), "Federal Reserve Act"; _Journal of Political Economy_
+(1914), "Banking and Currency Act of 1913"; H.P. Willis, _The Federal
+Reserve_ (1915); E.W. Kemmerer, _The A B C of the Federal Reserve
+System_ (1918). On the anti-trust acts, _Political Science Quarterly_
+(1915), "New Anti-Trust Acts"; _Quarterly Journal of Economics_
+(1914), "Trust Legislation of 1914"; _American Economic Review_
+(1914), "Trade Commission Act." For the early stages of the European
+conflict see the references under Chapter XXV.
+
+The best accounts of the election of 1916 are in the _American Year
+Book_, and in Ogg. Other readable accounts are: _Nineteenth Century_
+(Dec., 1916), "The Re-Election of President Wilson"; W.E. Dodd,
+_Woodrow Wilson_ (1920).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The cabinet, 1913-1920, was as follows: Secretary of State, W.J.
+Bryan (to 1915), R. Lansing (to 1920), B. Colby; Secretary of the
+Treasury, W.G. McAdoo, C. Glass, D.F. Houston; Secretary of War, L.M.
+Garrison, N.D. Baker; Attorney-General, J.C. McReynolds, T.W. Gregory,
+A.M. Palmer; Postmaster-General, A.S. Burleson; Secretary of the Navy,
+J. Daniels; Secretary of the Interior, F.K. Lane, J.B. Payne;
+Secretary of Commerce, W.C. Redfield, J.W. Alexander; Secretary of
+Labor, W.B. Wilson.
+
+[2] On Apr. 23, 1920, the amount of federal reserve notes outstanding
+was $3,068,307,000.
+
+[3] On Apr. 23, 1920, the reserves deposited by member banks reached a
+total of $2,083,568,000.
+
+[4] The Commission superseded the Bureau of Corporations.
+
+[5] The appointment of Louis D. Brandeis to the Supreme Court brought
+to that body a well-known proponent of the newer types of social and
+economic theory. At first the opposition to confirming his nomination
+in the Senate, based upon certain facts in his career and allegations
+concerning them, was uncommonly pronounced. Dissent diminished,
+however, in the face of investigation, and the nomination was
+confirmed by a large majority on June 1, 1916.
+
+[6] Bryan remained in sympathy with the administration in other
+respects, and aided in the campaign of 1916.
+
+[7] Despite Roosevelt's refusal to run, the Progressive
+Vice-Presidential candidate continued the campaign. The Socialist
+Labor party, the Socialist party and the Prohibitionists also
+presented candidates.
+
+[8] The Republican campaign fund was $2,445,421 contributed by 34,205
+persons; the Democratic fund, $1,808,348 given by 170,000 persons.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+THE UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD WAR
+
+The reelection of Wilson in November, 1916, could hardly be interpreted
+in any other light than as an approval of his patient foreign policy.
+Nevertheless, for the ensuing five months the problem of our
+international relations, and especially the question whether we ought
+to enter the World War, continued to divide the American people into
+hostile camps. The opponents of the President, led by Roosevelt,
+contended that Wilson was lacking in "patriotism, courage and
+foresight"; that the failure of the administration to protest against
+Germany's march across Belgium was due to timidity and a "mean
+commercial opportunism" which caused the President to act in the spirit
+of refusing to perform a duty unless there was a pecuniary profit to be
+gained thereby; and that the interchanges of diplomatic notes with the
+German government were "benevolent phrase-mongering" which did not
+accomplish anything. When Germany used the submarine to sink vessels
+despite the President's "strict accountability" note and when the
+administration did not then take forceful action against the offender,
+his opponents declared that the President meant "precisely and exactly
+nothing" by his words. Late in 1915 Wilson became convinced of the
+necessity of an increase in our means of defense, and in order to
+arouse Congress to action he went out into the Middle West where he
+addressed large audiences on "preparedness." After long discussion
+Congress passed the National Defense Act by the provisions of which the
+military strength of the country was to be expanded to 645,000 officers
+and men during a period of five years. The President's conversion to
+preparedness was interpreted as a tardy recognition of an obvious duty,
+and his plan deprecated as no more than a "shadow program." And later,
+as his attitude became more warlike, the opposition declared that he
+had at last acted because of "pressure" and "criticism," rather than
+because of a definite and positive purpose of his own. In brief, then,
+a considerable portion of the country insisted upon America's early
+entrance into the European conflict, and judged Wilson to be a timid
+politician who lacked a courageous foreign policy and who was being
+driven toward war by the force of public opinion.
+
+On the other hand, the traditional American disinclination to become
+entangled in foreign complications was the decisive force with the
+majority. In an address which the President delivered in New York he
+said that he received a great many letters from unknown and
+uninfluential people whose one prayer was, "Mr. President, do not allow
+anybody to persuade you that the people of this country want war with
+anybody." There were, moreover, Americans who still retained the
+traditional dislike of England and who hesitated to support an alliance
+with that nation; others did not relish association with Russia, which
+had long been looked upon as the arch-representative of autocracy; and
+others were indifferent or confused or inclined to the German side.
+
+The attitude of the President, meanwhile, constantly found expression
+in addresses to Congress and the people, which were so widely read and
+discussed and which had so great an influence in forming public opinion
+that the more prominent of them must be mentioned. Beginning with the
+proclamation of neutrality on August 18, 1914, and a speech at
+Indianapolis on January 8, 1915, he asserted the belief that the United
+States should remain neutral, not only because it was the traditional
+policy to stand aloof from European controversies but also because "it
+was necessary, if a universal catastrophe was to be avoided, that a
+limit should be set to the sweep of destructive war ... if only to
+prevent collective economic ruin and the breakdown throughout the world
+of the industries by which its populations are fed and sustained." He
+also hoped that the time might quickly come when both sides would
+welcome mediation by a great people that had preserved itself neutral,
+self-possessed and sympathetic with the burdens of the warring powers.
+Before the close of 1915 he gave up his earlier opposition to military
+preparation, as has been seen, and while the project for a larger
+defensive force was being discussed, he made a significant address on
+May 27, 1916, to the League to Enforce Peace. With the causes and
+objects of the war, he declared, America was not concerned; the
+"obscure fountains" of its origins we were not interested to explore;
+in its spread, however, it had so "profoundly affected" America that we
+were no longer "disconnected lookers-on," but deeply concerned. "We are
+participants," he asserted, "whether we would or not, in the life of
+the world. The interests of all nations are our own also. We are
+partners with the rest." Oddly enough the statement that the origins of
+the war and the purposes for which it was started did not concern us
+was widely circulated, and misinterpreted as indicating a lack of
+sympathy with the ideals for which the Allies were fighting at the time
+speech, while the remainder of the address, which was far more
+significant, was largely overlooked. Nevertheless the declaration that
+the war had become our concern was an important part of Wilson's series
+of utterances on the issues of the day, and demands emphasis at this
+point because the President was representative, in holding this
+opinion, of a great body of his countrymen. The conviction that the
+European war had become our affair was deepened in the minds of many
+Americans when news arrived late in 1916, that the Teutonic military
+authorities were seizing and deporting Belgian workmen and compelling
+them to labor in German fields and factories.
+
+In December, President Wilson again claimed the attention of the world
+by his reply to a proposal by Germany that peace negotiations be entered
+upon. He declared--and his note was sent to all belligerents--that the
+leaders of the two sides had stated their objects in general terms only:
+
+But, stated in general terms, they seem the same on both sides. Never
+yet have the authoritative spokesmen of either side avowed the precise
+objects which would, if attained, satisfy them and their people that
+the war had been fought out.
+
+The support of America in the war had long since become the great stake
+for which both sides in the conflict were playing, and the crisis of
+the game was at hand. On January 22, 1917, Wilson addressed the Senate
+and stated the results of his action. The reply of the Germans, he
+declared, had merely stated their readiness to meet their antagonists
+in conference to discuss terms of peace; the Allies had detailed more
+definitely the arrangements, guarantees and acts of reparation which
+would constitute a satisfactory settlement. He proceeded then to add
+that the, United States was deeply concerned in the terms of peace
+which would be made at the close of the conflict, and to enumerate some
+of those for which Americans would be most insistent: equality of
+rights among nations; the recognition of the principle that territories
+should not be handed about from nation to nation without the consent of
+the inhabitants of the territories; an outlet to the sea for every
+nation where practicable; the freedom of the seas; and the limitation
+of armaments. The interchange of notes had made two things clear; that
+the concern of the United States in the war was intimate, and that
+the people of this country would know definitely the purposes of the
+conflict before they decided to enter it.
+
+On January 31, Germany announced an extension of her submarine warfare.
+A wide area surrounding the British Isles, France, and Italy, and
+including the greater part of the eastern Mediterranean Sea was
+declared to be a barred zone. All sea traffic, neutral as well as
+belligerent, the note warned, would be sunk, except that one American
+ship would be allowed to pass through the zone each week provided that
+it followed a designated, narrow lane to the port of Falmouth, England,
+that it was marked with broad red and white stripes, and carried no
+contraband. The President promptly broke off relations with Germany,
+sent the German ambassador home and appeared before Congress to state
+to that body and to the people the reasons for his decision. He
+recounted the substance of his earlier correspondence with Germany in
+regard to submarine warfare and recalled the promise of the German
+government that merchant vessels would not be sunk without warning and
+without saving human lives. He declared that the American government
+had no alternative but to sever relations, although refusing to believe
+that Germany would ruthlessly use the methods which she threatened,
+until convinced of her determination by "overt acts." Information of
+the move made by the United States was sent to American diplomatic
+representatives in neutral countries with the suggestion that they take
+similar action. Shortly afterward the President requested Congress to
+pass legislation enabling him to supply armament and ammunition to
+merchant vessels, and an overwhelming majority of both houses was ready
+to accede to the request. A small minority in the Senate, however, was
+able, under existing rules, to prevent Congressional action, although
+the President found authority in existing statutes and was able to
+proceed.[1]
+
+Every important event in March, 1917, tended toward war between the
+United States and Germany. On the first day of the month the State
+Department made public a note from the German Secretary of State to the
+German minister in Mexico which suggested a German-Mexican alliance in
+case of the entry of the United States into the war. Germany was to
+contribute financial support to Mexico and the latter was to recover
+Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, which had been lost to the United States
+many years before. Knowledge of this intrigue gave a distinct impetus
+to the war spirit in all parts of the country. On March 5, President
+Wilson was inaugurated for the second time and took occasion to state
+again the attitude of the United States toward the war. Although
+disclaiming any desire for conquest or advantage, and reaffirming the
+desire of the United States for peace, he expressed the belief that we
+might be drawn on, by circumstances, to a more active assertion of our
+rights and a more immediate association with the great struggle. Once
+more he stated the things for which the United States would stand
+whether in war or in peace: the interest of all nations in world peace;
+equality of rights among nations; the principle that governments derive
+their just powers from the consent of the governed; the freedom of the
+seas; and the limitation of armaments. Later in the month information
+reached America that there had been a revolution in Russia, that the
+Czar had been compelled to abdicate and that a republican government
+had been established. The news was gladly heard in the United States as
+it seemed to presage the overthrow of autocracy everywhere. On March
+22, the new Russian government was formally recognized by the United
+States and later a loan of $100,000,000 was made.
+
+In the meanwhile the "overt acts" which the President and the American
+people hoped might not be committed became sufficiently numerous to
+prove that Germany had indeed entered upon the most ruthless use of the
+submarine. Seven American vessels were torpedoed, with the loss of
+thirteen lives, and many more vessels of belligerent and neutral
+nations were sunk, in most cases without warning. The President
+accordingly summoned Congress to meet in special session on April 2.
+When that body assembled he again and for the last time explained the
+character of German submarine warfare, charging that vessels of all
+kinds and all nations, hospital ships as well as merchant vessels were
+being sunk "with reckless lack of compassion or of principle."
+International law, he complained, was being swept away; the lives of
+non-combatant men, women and children destroyed; America filled with
+hostile spies and attempts made to stir up enemies against us; armed
+neutrality had broken down in the face of the submarine, and he
+therefore urged Congress to accept the state of war which the action of
+Germany had thrust upon the United States. Such action, he believed,
+should involve the utmost cooperation with the enemies of
+Germany--liberal loans to them, an abundant supply of war material of
+all kinds, the better equipment of the navy and an army of at least
+500,000 men chosen on the principle of universal liability to service.
+An important part of the President's address was that in which he
+distinguished between the German people and the German government. With
+the former, he asserted, we had no quarrel, for it was not upon their
+impulse that their government acted in entering the war. But the
+latter, the Prussian autocracy, "was not and never could be our
+friend." Once more he disclaimed any desire for conquest or dominion:
+
+    We are glad ... to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and
+    for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for
+    the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men
+    everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world
+    must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the
+    tested foundations of political liberty.
+
+The response of Congress was prompt and nearly unanimous. In the House
+by a vote of 373 to fifty, and in the Senate by eighty-two to six, a
+resolution accepting the status of war was quickly passed and proclaimed
+by the President on April 6.[2] His position was a strong one. His
+patience and self-control, to be sure, had been carried to the extreme
+where they seemed like cowardice and lack of policy to the more
+belligerent East; but they had convinced the more pacific West that he
+could not be hurried into war without adequate reasons. All sections and
+all parties were united as the country had never been united before. His
+insistence that the United States had no ulterior motives in entering
+the war and his constant emphasis on ideals and the moral issues of the
+conflict placed the struggle on a lofty plane, besides giving him and
+his country at that time a position of leadership in the world such as
+no man or nation had ever hitherto enjoyed. Moreover the evolution
+through which the President went, from adherence to the traditional
+aloofness from European affairs to throwing himself enthusiastically
+into the conflict, was an evolution through which most of his countrymen
+were passing. Every public address which the President delivered, every
+message to Congress, every request to the legislative branch of the
+government was read widely, disagreed to or received with enthusiasm in
+one quarter or another and discussed everywhere with interest and
+energy. The result was the education of America in a new foreign policy.
+It was no slight matter to discard the traditions of a century and a
+quarter, and the brevity and inconsiderable size of the controversy was
+the marvel, rather than its length and bitterness.[3]
+
+America had need of her unity and her enthusiasm. The size of the
+conflict, the number of men that must be raised and trained, the
+quantity of materials required, the amount of money needed, and, above
+all, the mental readjustment necessary in a nation that had hitherto
+buried itself in the pursuits of peace--all these considerations
+emphasized the importance of the task that the United States was
+undertaking. Into Washington there poured a bewildering stream of offers
+of assistance; organizations had to be built up over night to take hold
+of problems that were new to this country; men found themselves hurried
+into tasks for which they must prepare as best they might, and under
+crowded working conditions, changing circumstances and confusion of
+effort that beggar description. In many cases, America could learn
+valuable lessons from European experience, and to that end commissions
+of eminent statesmen and soldiers were sent to this country to give us
+the benefit of their successes and failures.
+
+An important step had already been taken in the creation of the Council
+of National Defense on August 29, 1916, an act which indicated a
+realization that the United States might at any time be drawn into the
+European struggle. The body was composed of six members of the Cabinet,
+with the Secretary of War as chairman, and was assisted by an Advisory
+Commission composed of seven experts in the various industries that
+would be most essential to the prosecution of the war. The Council
+furnished the means of coordinating the industries of the country and
+getting them into touch with the executive departments of the
+government. State councils of defense were likewise organized to arouse
+the people to the performance of their share in the nation's work, to
+circulate information and to assist the several agencies of the federal
+government. A National Research Council mobilized the scientific talent
+of the country and brought it to bear on certain of the problems of
+warfare. A Naval Consulting Board examined inventions offered to the
+Navy Department. The Committee on Public Information furnished condensed
+war news to town and country papers, circulated millions of pamphlets
+explaining the causes of the war and upholding America's purposes in it,
+and directing speakers who aided in campaigns for raising money and
+educating the people in their duty during the crisis. The War Industries
+Board developed plans for the production of the multifarious supplies
+needed. The United States Shipping Board took hold of the problem of
+building sufficient ships to transport troops and cargoes, and to
+replace vessels sunk by submarines. By means of a Committee on Labor the
+laboring men gave their support to the conduct of the war and agreed to
+delay controversies until the war was over.
+
+The exhausted condition of the supplies of food among the Allies, and
+the size of the armies which America decided to raise, made the Food
+Administration one of importance. At the time when the United States
+entered the war there was a dangerous shortage of food in Europe due to
+the decrease in production and to the lack of the vessels necessary to
+bring supplies from distant parts of the world. The problem centered
+mainly in wheat, meat, fats and sugar. The demand upon the United States
+was not only large but increasing. Accordingly, legislation was passed
+on August 10, 1917, which made it unlawful to destroy or hoard food; it
+provided for the stimulation of agriculture; and it authorized the
+President to purchase and sell foods and fix the price of wheat. Wilson
+appointed as the chief of the Food Administration Herbert C. Hoover,
+whose experience with the problem of Belgian relief enabled him to act
+promptly and effectively. Hoover's one great purpose was to utilize all
+food supplies in such a way as would most help to win the war. He
+cooperated with the Department of Agriculture which had already started
+a campaign for stimulating the cultivation of farms and gardens on all
+available land. Food administrators were appointed in the states and
+local districts. Speakers, posters, libraries and other agencies were
+utilized to urge the people to eat less wheat, meats, fats and sugar in
+order that more might be exported to the Allies. Millions of housewives
+hung cards in their windows to indicate that they were cooperating with
+the United States Food Administration. "Wheatless" and "meatless" days
+were set apart. These voluntary efforts were supplemented by government
+regulation, and dealers in food products were compelled to take out
+federal licenses which enabled the Administration to control their
+operations and to prevent prices from going to panic levels. The Food
+Administration established a Grain Corporation which bought and sold
+wheat; it placed an agency in Chicago to buy meat for ourselves and the
+Allies; it called a conference of the sugar refiners, who agreed to put
+in its hands the entire supply of that commodity. In a word, by
+stimulating voluntary efforts and by means of government regulations,
+the Food Administration increased production, decreased consumption, and
+coordinated the purchase of food for the army, the navy, the Allies, the
+Red Cross and Belgian relief. The Food Administration was hardly
+established before it became necessary to organize a Fuel Administration
+to teach economy in the use of coal, to stimulate production, adjust
+disputes between employers and employees, fix prices and control the
+apportioning of the supply among the several parts of the country.
+
+The vital relation of the transportation system of the country to the
+winning of the war was apparent at the start. As soon as war was
+declared, therefore, nearly 700 representatives of the railroads formed
+a Railroads' War Board to minimize the individual and competitive
+activities of the roads, coordinate their operation, and produce a
+maximum of transportation efficiency. The attempt of the railroad
+executives, however, quickly broke down. In the first place, as has been
+seen, our entire body of railroad legislation is based upon the idea of
+separating the several systems and compelling them to compete rather
+than cooperate. The habits and customs thus formed could hardly be done
+away with in an instant. In the second place the cost of labor and
+materials was constantly mounting, and the demand for more equipment was
+insistent. The railroads could meet these greater costs only by raising
+rates, a process which involved obtaining the assent of the Interstate
+Commerce Commission and required a considerable period for its
+accomplishment. The roads were also embarrassed by an unprecedented
+congestion of traffic on the eastern seaboard, from which men and
+cargoes must be shipped to Europe. Accordingly, on December 26, 1917,
+the President took possession of the railroad system for the government
+and appointed the Secretary of the Treasury, William G. McAdoo, as
+Director General. As rapidly as possible the railroads were merged into
+one great system. The entire country was divided into districts at the
+head of which were placed experienced railroad executives. Terminals,
+tunnels and equipment were used regardless of ownership in the effort to
+get the greatest possible service out of existing facilities. The
+passenger service was greatly reduced in order to free locomotives and
+crews for freight trains, duplication of effort was done away with where
+possible, officials who were not necessary under the new plan were
+dropped, and equipment was standardized. Existing legislation allowed
+the government to change freight and passenger rates, and on May 25,
+1918, these were considerably raised. The winter of 1917-1918 was
+memorable for its severity, and placed great difficulties in the way of
+the railroads; nevertheless, between January 1, 1918, and November 11 of
+the same year nearly six and a half million actual and prospective
+soldiers were carried for greater or smaller distances.
+
+An important part of American preparation for war was the attention paid
+to the "morale" organizations, which were designed to maintain the
+courage and spirit of the fighting man. As far as legislation could do
+it, the most flagrant vices were kept away from the camps. Moreover the
+Commissions on Training Camp Activities attempted to supply wholesome
+entertainment and associations. Under their direction, various
+organizations established and operated theatres, libraries and
+writing-rooms, encouraged athletics in the camps, and offered similar
+facilities for soldiers and sailors when on leave in towns and cities
+near by. The Red Cross conducted extensive relief work both in this
+country and abroad; surgical dressings were made, clothing and comfort
+kits supplied, and money contributed. In France, Belgium, Russia,
+Roumania, Italy and Serbia the Red Cross conducted a fight against the
+suffering incident to war.
+
+The legislation which established the system of allotments, allowances
+and War Risk Insurance was also designed in part to maintain the
+_morale_ of the army and navy. The pay of the "enlisted man" or private
+was $30.00 per month. In the case of men with dependents, an "allotment"
+of $15.00 was to be sent home and the government thereupon contributed
+an "allowance" which normally amounted to $15.00 or more, and was graded
+according to the number of the man's dependents and the closeness of
+their relationship to him. Provision was made also for compensation for
+officers and men injured or disabled in the line of duty, and for
+training injured men in a vocation. In addition, the War Risk Insurance
+plan provided means by which both officers and men could at low cost
+take out government insurance against death or total disability. In this
+way, it was hoped, some of the distresses of war would be alleviated so
+far as possible and a repetition of the pension abuses of the Civil War
+somewhat guarded against.
+
+The total direct money cost of the war from April, 1917, to April, 1919,
+was estimated by the War Department at $21,850,000,000, an average of
+over a million dollars an hour, and an amount sufficient to have carried
+on the Revolutionary War a thousand years. In addition, loans were
+extended to the Allies at the rate of nearly half a million dollars an
+hour. This huge amount was raised in part through increased taxes.
+Income taxes were heavily increased; levies were made on such profits of
+corporations as were in excess of profits made before the war, during
+the three years 1911-1913; additional taxes were laid upon spirits
+and tobacco, on amusements and luxuries; and the postage rates were
+raised. In part, also, the cost of the war was defrayed through loans. A
+portion of the amount borrowed was by the sale of War Savings This
+expedient was designed doubtless not merely to encourage persons of
+small means to aid in winning the war--a beginning could be made with
+twenty-five cents--but also to encourage thrift among all classes. Most
+of the borrowed money, however, was raised through the five "Liberty
+Loans," a series of popular subscriptions to the needs of the
+government. In each case the government called upon the people to
+purchase bonds, ranging from two billions at first to six billions at
+the time of the fourth loan. There were four and a half million
+subscribers for the first loan, but after a little experience the number
+was readily increased until 21,000,000 people responded to the fourth
+call. Popular campaigns such as never had been seen in America,
+campaigns of publicity, house-to-house canvassing and appeals to the
+win-the-war spirit resulted in unprecedented financial support. Isolated
+communities in the back country and people of slender means in the
+cities, no less than the great banks and wealthy corporations cooperated
+to make the Liberty loans of social and economic as well as financial
+importance.
+
+Evidence seems to be sufficient to indicate that the resources of the
+United States were thrown into the conflict none too soon. When it was
+determined to place armed guards on merchant ships, Rear Admiral W.S.
+Sims was sent to Great Britain to keep the Navy Department informed on
+problems connected with the possible entry of the United States into the
+conflict. After the American declaration of war the Admiral was placed
+in charge of the naval forces of the United States abroad and thereafter
+worked in close cooperation with our European associates. The German
+submarine policy had been put fully into effect; no solution of the
+submarine menace had been reached; and English officials were fearful
+that England could not last longer than November 1. In taking this view
+the British were probably in harmony with the Germans who expected to
+crush England before the weight of the United States could be felt.
+Although insufficient for so great a conflict, the American navy was
+thoroughly prepared for active service, and six destroyers were sent to
+European waters for a prolonged stay, within eighteen days of the
+declaration of war. This early force was quickly followed by others
+until, at the close of the war, 5,000 officers and 70,000 enlisted men
+were serving abroad. A three-year naval construction program which had
+been adopted in 1916 was pushed forward and somewhat expanded; new craft
+were commandeered wherever they could be found; private citizens loaned
+vessels or leased them at nominal sums; and German ships interned in
+American ports were taken over. Existing stations for the training of
+seamen were enlarged and new ones established, and schools were set up
+in colleges and at other points for radio operators, engineers and naval
+aviators. By such means the number of vessels in commission was
+increased from 197 to 2,003 and the personnel from 65,777 to 497,030.
+
+The most dreaded enemy of the navy, the submarine, was successfully met
+by two devices. When transports and merchant-vessels were being sent
+across the ocean, they were gathered into groups or convoys and were
+protected by war vessels, especially torpedo-boat destroyers. The depth
+charge was also used with telling effect. This consisted of a heavy
+charge of explosive which was placed in a container and dropped into the
+sea where the presence of a submarine was expected. The charge was
+exploded at a pre-determined depth by a simple device, and any
+under-seas craft within 100 feet was likely to be destroyed or to have
+leaks started that would compel it to come to the surface and surrender.
+
+Aside from combatting the submarine, the greatest activity of the navy
+was the transportation of men and supplies to France. First and last
+more than 2,000,000 troops were carried to Europe, and although Great
+Britain transported more than half the men, yet 924,578 made the passage
+through the danger zones under the escort of United States cruisers and
+destroyers. The cargo fleet was substantially all American. The
+transportation of supplies alone required the services of 5,000 officers
+and 29,000 enlisted men, and involved the accumulation of a vast fleet,
+the acquisition of docks, lighters, tugs, and coaling equipment, as well
+as the establishment of an administrative organization, at the precise
+time when the shipping facilities of the world were being strained to
+the breaking point by submarines.
+
+On the other side of the ocean naval bases were established in England,
+Ireland, Scotland, France and Italy; a considerable force operated from
+Gibraltar and others from Corfu, along the Bay of Biscay, in the North
+Sea and at Murmansk and Archangel. Besides cooperating with the navy of
+the Allies in keeping the Germans off the seas, the American navy laid
+about four-fifths of the great mine barrage which extended from the
+Orkney Islands to Norway, a distance of 230 miles. This astonishing
+enterprise--America alone laid 56,000 mines--together with a similar
+chain laid across the Strait of Dover was intended to pen the submarine
+within the North Sea.
+
+In the main the raising of an army for European service rested upon the
+act of May 18, 1917. It provided for the Increase of the regular army
+from approximately 200,000 to 488,000; for the expansion of the strength
+of the National Guard; and for the selection of a National Army by draft
+from men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty years inclusive. The
+determination to raise a draft army was based upon the belief that in
+this way successive and adequate supplies of men could be found without
+disproportionate calls on any section of the country and without undue
+disturbance of the industrial life of the nation. Although the plan ran
+counter to American practice during most of our history, the draft army
+became deservedly popular as a democratic and efficient method of
+finding men. Officers were supplied mainly through training camps, of
+which the best known was that at Plattsburg, New York. A novelty in the
+new army was a plan for the appointment and promotion of officers on a
+scientific rating system which took account of ability and experience,
+thereby doing away with some of the favoritism formerly connected with
+our military system. At a later time an organization was perfected by
+which enlisted men were grouped according to their ability and
+occupations, so that each division of the army might have assigned to it
+the number of mechanics, carpenters, clerks and the like that it might
+require. For the housing and training of the enlarged National Guard,
+sixteen tent-camps were established in the South; and for the National
+Army, sixteen cantonments, built of wood and capable of housing 40,000
+men each. A cantonment comprised 1,000 to 1,200 buildings, and was
+virtually a city with highways, sewers, water supply, laundries and
+hospitals.[4] The problem of obtaining supplies was as great as that of
+housing and training the army. An entire city was erected in West
+Virginia for the making of part of the smokeless powder required; the
+British Enfield rifle was modified to use American ammunition so that
+machinery already making arms for England could be utilized with a
+minimum of change; and European experience having indicated the value of
+the machine gun, a new and improved type was invented by John M.
+Browning. In many cases, however, it was impossible immediately to equip
+both the soldiers in training here, and those who could be sent abroad.
+Hence surplus equipment of certain kinds was supplied by France and
+England. Furthermore, actual combat had emphasized the vital importance
+of aviation and had developed warfare with poisonous gases and with
+tanks, so that it became necessary to establish new branches of the
+service to meet these needs.
+
+Shortly after the declaration of war, General John J. Pershing, who had
+already experienced active operations in the Philippines and on the
+Mexican border, was sent to France to act as Chief of the American
+Expeditionary Force--the A.E.F. as it was commonly called. General
+Pershing was followed by a division of regulars in June, 1917, and by
+the "Rainbow" division of the National Guard, a body composed of
+guardsmen from various states so as to distribute widely the honor of
+early participation in the war. In France the American troops were
+detailed either for the Service of Supply or for combat. The former,
+with headquarters at Tours, developed port facilities, constructed ship
+berths, built railroads and warehouses, and took care of the
+multifarious duties that have to be performed behind the lines.
+Divisions destined for combat were usually given one or two months of
+training in France before going to the front, and were then kept for
+another month in a quiet sector before engaging in more active service.
+
+[Illustration:
+The Western Front]
+
+Between April, 1917, when America declared war, and approximately a year
+later when her weight began to be felt, the Allies suffered reverses
+that were thoroughly disheartening and were almost disastrous. Russia,
+who had conducted a powerful offensive in 1916, began to retreat in the
+summer of 1917 and was thereafter no longer a military factor.[5] Italy
+had driven back the Austrians in the summer of 1916, but in the fall of
+1917 was compelled to conduct a retreat that became all but a disaster.
+Allied conferences were accordingly held in Paris in November and
+December, 1917, for the purpose of bringing about closer unity in the
+prosecution of the war. Nation after nation, on the other hand, had
+severed relations or declared war on the Teutonic powers until a great
+part of the world had ranged itself on the side of the Allies. In March,
+1918, the Germans precipitated a series of crises--the final ones as it
+turned out. In that month they began a terrific drive on a fifty-mile
+front against their opponents in the western theatre of the war. In
+order to meet this thrust the Allies decided to give over the supreme
+command of all their forces to Marshal Ferdinand Foch, chief in command
+of the French army, and General Pershing thereupon offered him all the
+American troops in France. American efforts were redoubled, in the face
+of the new danger, and forces were transported across the ocean in
+numbers which had not been anticipated and which soon began to give the
+Allies a substantial advantage. One vessel, the _Leviathan_, landed in
+France the equivalent of a German division each month. The enemy,
+nevertheless, continued to advance and on May 31 were at
+Chateau-Thierry, only forty miles from Paris, where the American Third
+Division assisted in preventing any further forward movement. The
+leading military experts in the United States, meanwhile, with the
+support of a large portion of the public were demanding a still larger
+army and the Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker, accordingly laid before
+Congress a plan which developed eventually into the "Man Power" act of
+August 31, 1918. It changed the draft ages and added more than
+13,000,000 registrants to the available supply of men. A clause of this
+law, designed in part to provide further supplies of officers, allowed
+the Secretary of War to send soldiers to educational institutions at the
+public expense, thus establishing the Students' Army Training Corps.[6]
+
+[Illustration:
+Strength of the American Expeditionary Force
+July 1, 1917-Nov. 1, 1918]
+
+At the time when General Pershing placed his forces at the disposal of
+Marshal Foch, the Americans numbered 343,000 and were used mainly to
+relieve the French and British at quiet parts or "sectors" on the
+western front. In April, 1918, however, the First Division was placed in
+a more active position, and on May 28 took Cantigny; the Second Division
+was on the Marne River early in June, and later in the month helped
+prevent a German advance at Belleau Wood. Other forces were sent to
+operate with the British, a regiment was sent to Italy, and a small
+force to northern Russia and Siberia. In mid-July the Germans renewed
+their attacks but were shortly turned back again at Chateau-Thierry, and
+Marshal Foch judged this to be the time for the Allies to make a general
+offensive movement. On the 18th the First and Second Divisions, with
+picked French troops, made a successful drive toward Soissons. On August
+30 the Americans were given a permanent portion of the front, and two
+weeks later came the first distinctly American action in the reduction
+of the St. Mihiel salient--a wedge driven by the Germans into the allied
+line. Infantry, artillery, aircraft, tanks and ambulances were
+gathered--about 600,000 men all told--mostly under cover of darkness.
+Preceding the drive a heavy artillery fire was directed upon the enemy
+for four hours, during which brief period thirty times as many rounds of
+ammunition were fired as were used by the Union forces at Gettysburg in
+three days. Then at five o'clock in the morning, on September 12, the
+troops fell upon an enemy which had been demoralized by the artillery,
+and routed them. The American losses were 7,000--injuries for the most
+part--and the gains, 16,000 prisoners, 443 guns and a great quantity of
+war materials, together with an advantageous position for further
+advance. The "American Army was an accomplished fact."
+
+The most important action in which the Americans participated was the
+Meuse-Argonne offensive. The goal of this attack was the
+Carignan-Sedan-Mezieres railroad, which ran parallel to the front and
+comprised the main supply line of the enemy. The drive began late in
+September and continued with greater or less intensity and with
+increasing success until November 11, when it became evident that the
+Germans were in serious difficulties. Their line was cut, and only
+surrender or an armistice could prevent thorough-going disaster.[7]
+
+While the allied armies were first stemming the German advance and later
+making their counter-offensive, the statesmen were attempting to
+preserve the morale of the Allies and break down that of the enemy by
+means of a wide-spread peace offensive. Because of his position as
+President of the United States and his skill in the expression of the
+purposes of the Allies, Wilson became by common consent the spokesman of
+the enemies of Germany, much as he had earlier been the representative
+of the neutral nations. In August, 1917, the Pope proposed peace on the
+basis of "reciprocal condonation" for past offenses, and the reciprocal
+return of territories and colonies. In reply Wilson contended that the
+suggested settlement would not result in a lasting peace. Peace, he
+believed, must be between peoples, and not between peoples on the one
+hand and "an ambitious and intriguing government" on the other. "We
+cannot," he declared, "take the word of the present rulers of Germany as
+a guarantee of anything that is to endure unless explicitly supported by
+such conclusive evidence of the will and purpose of the German people
+themselves as the other peoples of the world would be justified in
+accepting." The reply continued, of course, the attempt made in the
+address to Congress calling for a declaration of war--the attempt to
+drive a wedge between the German people and their rulers, but for the
+moment the attempt was fruitless.
+
+On January 8, 1918, President Wilson again explained the attitude of the
+United States, in an address to Congress in which he gave expression to
+the famous "fourteen points." "The program of the world's peace," he
+stated, must include: the beginning of an era of "open diplomacy" and
+the end of secret international understandings; the freedom of the seas
+in peace and war; the removal of economic barriers between nations; the
+reduction of armaments; the impartial adjustment of colonial claims; the
+evacuation of territories occupied by Germany, such as Russia, Belgium,
+France and the Balkan states; the righting of the wrong done to
+Alsace-Lorraine, the provinces wrested from France by Germany in 1871;
+an opportunity for peoples subject to Austria and Turkey to develop
+along lines chosen by themselves; the establishment of a Polish state
+which should include territories inhabited by indisputably Polish
+populations; and an association of nations to guarantee the safety of
+large and small states alike. Both Austria and Germany replied to this
+address, but not in a manner to make possible a cessation of warfare. In
+setting these replies before Congress, as well as in later speeches both
+to that body and to public audiences, the President reiterated the peace
+program of the Allies.
+
+In the meanwhile conditions in the Teutonic countries were reaching a
+serious point. Germany, Austria, Bulgaria and Turkey were facing an
+enraged world. Their man power was almost exhausted, the numbers of
+killed and wounded in Germany alone being estimated at 6,000,000 men;
+famine, agitation and mutiny were at the door and revolution on the
+horizon; food was scarce and of poor quality; Austria was
+disintegrating; signs were evident of dissensions in the German
+government and suggestions were even made that the Kaiser abdicate.
+Allied pressure in the field together with insistent emphasis on the
+Allied distrust of the German government were at last having their
+combined effect; the Teutonic morale was breaking down. On October 4 the
+German chancellor requested President Wilson to take steps toward peace
+on the basis of the "fourteen points." An interchange of notes ensued
+which indicated that the Teutonic powers were humbled and that the
+Chancellor was speaking in behalf of the people of Germany. The
+Inter-allied Council then met at Versailles and drew up the terms of an
+armistice which were delivered to Germany on November 7. That nation was
+already in a tumult, in the midst of which demonstrations in favor of a
+republic were prominent, and while the German government was considering
+the terms of the armistice the Kaiser abdicated and fled to Holland, and
+a new cabinet was formed with a Socialist at the head. The end was
+evidently at hand and on November 11 the world was cheered with the news
+that Germany had signed the armistice and the war was over.[8]
+
+As far as the United States was concerned the questions of greatest
+public interest after the close of the conflict, fell into two
+categories: one connected with the complicated question of the exact
+terms of settlement between the Allies and the Teutonic powers,
+including modifications of the foreign policy of the United States; the
+other, that concerning the readjustments necessary in the internal
+affairs of the nation--economic, social and moral, as well as political.
+Any adequate discussion of these matters requires so much more
+information and perspective than can now be had, that only the barest
+outlines can be given.
+
+The conference for the determination of the settlements of the war was
+to meet in Paris. The American representatives were to include Robert
+Lansing, the Secretary of State, Henry White, who had represented the
+United States in many diplomatic matters, especially as ambassador to
+Italy and to France, Colonel Edward M. House, a trusted personal advisor
+of the President, and General Tasker H. Bliss, the American military
+representative on the Inter-allied Council. President Wilson himself was
+to head the delegation.
+
+In November, 1918, shortly before the departure of the President for
+Paris, occurred the Congressional elections, which were destined to have
+an important effect on the immediate future. Until late October the
+usual display of partisan politics had been, on the surface at least,
+uncommonly slight. On the 25th, however, the President urged the country
+to elect a Democratic Congress, declaring that the Republican leaders in
+Washington, although favorable to the war, had been hostile to the
+administration, and that the election of a Republican majority would
+enable them to obstruct a legislative program. The Republicans asserted
+that the request was a challenge to the motives and fidelity of their
+party, and a partisan and mendacious accusation. As a result of the
+ensuing contest the control of both Senate and House were won by the
+Republicans. It is impossible to judge whether the President's appeal
+recoiled seriously against his own party or whether the tendency to
+reaction against the administration at mid-term, which has been so
+common since the Civil War, was the decisive force. In any case,
+however, Wilson was compelled to go to Paris encumbered with the
+handicap of political defeat at home.
+
+Nevertheless he was received with unbounded enthusiasm by the French
+people and at once became one of the central figures among the leaders
+at Paris. Not only did the American delegates work in conjunction with
+the representatives of the Allies, but Wilson became a member of an
+inner council, the other participants in which were Premier Lloyd George
+of England, Premier Georges Clemenceau of France and Premier Orlando of
+Italy. The "Big Four," as the group was known, led the conference and
+made its most important decisions. The day of the aloofness of the
+United States from international affairs, which had been ended only
+temporarily by the war with Spain, was apparently brought to a final
+close.[9]
+
+At length the treaty with Germany was completed, President Wilson
+returned to America, and on July 10, 1919, he appeared before the Senate
+to outline the purposes and contents of the agreement and to offer his
+services to that body and to its Committee on Foreign Relations in order
+to enable them intelligently to exercise their advisory function as part
+of the treaty-making power. The Treaty was seen to contain two general
+features: a stern reckoning with Germany which commended itself to all
+except a small minority of the Senate; and a plan for a League of
+Nations which provided for concerted action on the part of the nations
+of the world to reduce armaments and to minimize the danger of war.
+President Wilson's interest in the League was intense and of long
+standing. He had hoped--and in this he was supported doubtless by the
+entire American people--that the European conflict might be a "war to
+end war," and to this conclusion he believed that a world association
+was essential. Public interest in the project was indicated by the
+efforts put forth in its behalf by Ex-President Taft, George W.
+Wickersham, who had been Attorney-General in the Taft cabinet, President
+Lowell of Harvard University, and other influential citizens.
+
+[Illustration:
+The Cost of Food
+Jan. 1913-Jan. 1920]
+
+Although interest in the Treaty and the League of Nations overshadowed
+all other issues, nevertheless many problems relating to internal
+reconstruction pressed forward for settlement. It was commonly, if not
+universally felt that somehow the United States would be different after
+the war, but in what ways and to what degree remained to be determined.
+Reconstruction in the world of industry was complicated by the
+demobilization of several millions of men from the army and navy, as
+well as the freeing of a still larger number of both men and women from
+various kinds of war work.[10] When the armistice was signed, the
+industries of the country were under contract with the War Department to
+provide supplies valued at six billion dollars, and these contracts had
+to be terminated with as little dislocation of industrial life as might
+be consistent with the necessity of stopping the production of materials
+which the government could not use. The laboring classes had loyally
+supported the war and had largely relinquished the use of the strike for
+the time being. In the meantime the cost of living had doubled, while
+wages in most industries had not responded equally. After the war,
+therefore, it was inevitable that the laboring classes should become
+restive under prevailing economic conditions. No more important question
+faced the country, a keen observer declared, than that concerning the
+wages of the laboring man: "How are the masses of men and women who
+labor with their hands to be secured out of the products of their toil
+what they will feel to be and will be in fact a fair return!"
+
+The huge purchases of war materials in the United States by European
+nations had transformed this country to a creditor nation to which the
+chief countries of the world owed large interest payments. The situation
+was a distinct contrast to the past, for the industrial development of
+the country especially since the Civil War, had been made possible in
+considerable measure by capital borrowed in European countries.
+Hitherto, therefore, the United States had been a debtor nation sending
+large yearly interest payments abroad. Moreover, America was being
+increasingly looked to for raw materials as well as manufactured
+articles, and was likely to become more than ever an exporting nation.
+
+The mobilization of the large armies required for the war proved the
+need of energetic reforms in fields that had earlier been too much
+neglected. The fact that so many as twenty-nine per cent. of the young
+men examined for the army between the ages of twenty-one and thirty had
+to be rejected because of physical defects was a cause of astonishment.
+The need of greater efforts in behalf of education was proved by the
+large number of illiterates discovered, and the necessity of training
+immigrants in the fundamentals of American government was so clearly
+demonstrated as to give rise to wide-spread plans for Americanization.
+
+More definite were the effects of the war on the prohibition movement.
+For many years a small but growing minority of reformers had urged the
+adoption of means for stopping the use of intoxicating liquors and they
+had been successful in procuring constitutional amendments in about half
+the states by the close of 1916. The war presented an opportunity for
+further progress. In September, 1918, they procured the passage of a
+resolution in Congress allowing the President to establish zones around
+places where war materials were manufactured; liquors were not to be
+sold within these areas. Soon afterward the manufacture of beer and wine
+was forbidden until the conclusion of the war, on the ground that the
+grains and fruits needed for the production of these beverages could
+better be used as foods. In the meantime a federal constitutional
+amendment establishing prohibition had been referred to the states for
+ratification. By January 16, 1919, it had received the necessary
+ratification by three-fourths of the states and took effect a year
+later.[11]
+
+The railroads constituted another difficult problem. Agreement seemed to
+be general that they could not be relinquished by the government to
+private control without significant changes in existing legislation, and
+several forces, especially the insistence of the President and of the
+opponents of government ownership, combined to spur Congress to act on
+the matter at an early date. The Esch-Cummins law of February 28, 1920,
+was an important addition to the body of interstate commerce
+legislation. It enlarged and increased the powers of the Interstate
+Commerce Commission; it authorized the Commission to recommend
+government loans to the railroads; established a Railroad Labor Board to
+settle disputes between the carriers and their employees; empowered the
+Commission to require the joint use of track and terminal facilities in
+emergencies; forbade the construction of new lines and the issuance of
+stocks and bonds without the consent of the Commission; directed the
+preparation and adoption of plans for the consolidation of the railway
+properties into a limited number of systems; permitted pooling under the
+authorization of the Commission; and provided for the accumulation of
+reserve funds and a fund for purchasing additions to railway equipment.
+Whether a final solution of the transportation problem or not, the new
+act embodied much of the experience gained since the passage of the law
+of 1887.
+
+In the field of politics and government an important part of
+reconstruction was the readjustment of relations between the federal
+executive and Congress. During the war it was inevitable that the
+President should provide most of the initiative in legislation; but it
+was likewise inevitable that the legislative branch should reassert
+itself as soon as possible. The fact that the consideration of the
+Treaty of Versailles necessarily concerned the Senate rather than the
+House of Representatives, gave the upper chamber an opportunity to
+attempt the repression of executive power to the proportions which had
+characterized it immediately before the war. Moreover if the members of
+the Senate should imitate the example of their predecessors in the
+conflict with President Johnson in 1867, that body might attempt to
+regain for itself the primacy in the federal government which had been
+partially lost under Cleveland's regime and completely superseded
+through Roosevelt's development of the presidential office.
+
+The course of the Treaty in the Senate was such as to stimulate any
+friction which might result from the difficult process of
+reconstruction. Despite the early sentiment favorable to prompt
+ratification, that part of the Treaty which related to a League of
+Nations met a variety of opposing forces. Some of them were based on
+personal, political and partisan considerations, and some of them
+founded upon a sincere hesitancy about adventuring into new and untried
+fields of international effort. In the main, party lines were somewhat
+strictly drawn in the Senate, the Democrats favoring and the Republicans
+opposing ratification of the treaty as it stood.[12] All debates in the
+Senate relating to the treaty were for the first time in our history
+open to the public, and popular interest was keen and sustained. Among
+people outside of Congress party lines were more commonly broken than in
+the Senate, and members of that body were deluged with petitions and
+correspondence for and against ratification. At length it appeared that
+a considerable fraction of the Senate desired ratification without any
+change whatever, a smaller number desired absolute rejection and a
+"middle group" wished ratification with certain reservations which would
+interpret or possibly amend portions of the plan for a League of
+Nations--portions which they felt were vague or dangerous to American
+interests. After long-continued discussion, the friends of the project
+were unable to muster the necessary two-thirds for ratification, and its
+enemies failed to obtain the majority required to make amendments, and
+the entire matter was accordingly postponed, pending the results of the
+presidential election of 1920.
+
+The United States, therefore, found itself after the close of the World
+War in much the same position that it had been in more than half a
+century earlier at the end of the Civil War. The unity of purpose and
+the devotion to ideals which had overcome all difficulties during the
+combat had seemingly, at least, given way to partisan diversity of
+endeavor, to strife for supremacy in government and to the avoidance of
+the great problems of reconstruction. Time, patience and controversy
+would be necessary to bring about a wise settlement. The United States
+was face to face with the greatest problems that had arisen since the
+Civil War.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The opposition to the Wilson foreign policy is best expressed in
+Theodore Roosevelt, _Fear God and Take Your Own Part_ (1916).
+Roosevelt's condonation of the invasion of Belgium is in _The Outlook_
+(Sept., 1914), "The World War." Wilson's changing attitude toward the
+war is explained in A.M. Low, _Woodrow Wilson, an Interpretation_
+(1918), but is best followed in his addresses and messages. The early
+stages of the war and American interest in it are described in Ogg; _The
+American Year Book_; J.B. McMaster, _The United States in the World War
+_(1918); J.W. Gerard, _My Four Years in Germany_ (1918), superficial but
+interesting and written by the American Ambassador; Brand Whitlock,
+_Belgium_ (2 vols., 1919), verbose, but well written by the United
+States minister to Belgium; Dodd, already mentioned; J.S. Bassett, _Our
+War with Germany_ (1919), written in excellent spirit. The President's
+address calling for a declaration of war is contained in the various
+editions of his addresses, and in _War Information Series_, No. 1, "The
+War Message and Pacts Behind It," published by the Committee on Public
+Information.
+
+The subject of federal agencies for the prosecution of the war is fully
+discussed in W.F. Willoughby, _Government Organization in War Time and
+After_ (1919); there is no adequate account of the Committee on Public
+Information. On the government and the railroads, consult F.H. Dixon in
+_Quarterly Journal of Economics_ (Aug., 1919), "Federal Operation of
+Railroads during the War." E.L. Bogart, _Direct and Indirect Costs of the
+Great World War_ (1918), is useful.
+
+Combat operations are described in the general histories of the war
+already mentioned, and in "Report of General Pershing" in War
+Department, _Annual Report_, 1918.
+
+Accounts of the Peace Conference, the Treaty and the League of Nations
+labor under the attempt to prove President Wilson right or wrong, in
+addition to such insurmountable difficulties as lack of information and
+perspective. J.S. Bassett, _Our War with Germany_ (1919), has some
+temperate chapters; Dodd is friendly to Wilson, but not offensively
+partisan; R.S. Baker, _What Wilson did at Paris_ (1919) is readable;
+J.M. Keynes, _The Economic Consequences of the Peace_ (1920), is
+interesting and designed to prove a point; see also C.H. Haskins and
+R.H. Lord, _Some Problems of the Peace Conference_ (1920); the account
+in the _American Year Book_ for 1919 lacks something of its usual
+non-partisan balance. On the League of Nations a thorough study is
+S.P.H. Duggan, _The League of Nations_ (1919). Material opposing the
+treaty may be found in _The New Republic_, _The Nation_, and the _North
+American Review_; favorable to it is the editorial page of the New York
+_Times_, whose columns contain the best day-to-day accounts of the
+debates in the Senate.
+
+A full bibliography is A.E. McKinley (ed.), _Collected Materials for the
+Study of the War_ (1918).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] As a result of this incident the Senate decided to limit somewhat
+its rule allowing unlimited debate. Under the "closure" rule adopted
+March 8, 1917, a two-thirds majority may limit discussion on any measure
+to one hour for each member.
+
+[2] War was declared against Austria on December 7, 1917. The United
+States was followed immediately by Cuba and Panama, and before the close
+of the year by Siam, Liberia, China and Brazil. Many other Central and
+South American states severed relations with Germany and before the
+close of the struggle several of them declared war.
+
+[3] The purpose and effect of Wilson's patient foreign policy were
+briefly expressed by Joseph H. Choate, a Republican advocate of early
+entry into the war, in a speech in New York on April 25, 1917. Choate
+declared that a declaration of war after the _sinking of the Lusitania_
+would have resulted in a divided country and remarked: "But we now see
+what the President was waiting for and how wisely he waited. He was
+waiting to see how fast and how far the American people would keep pace
+with him and stand up for any action that he proposed."
+
+[4] An official of the War Department estimated that the lumber used in
+the sixteen cantonments if made into sidewalks would go four times
+around the world.
+
+[5] Roumania had entered the conflict in August, 1916, but had been
+immediately overrun, her capital Bucharest taken in December, and that
+country rendered no longer important before the entrance of America.
+
+[6] The earlier draft law resulted in about 11,000,000 registrants. The
+draft ages were 21-30 years. Under the later law the ages were 18-45.
+
+The so-called Training Detachments had already been established,
+providing for the training of mechanics, carpenters, electricians,
+telegraphers, and other necessary skilled artisans at a number of
+colleges and scientific institutions.
+
+Almost coincidently with the expansion of the army came an epidemic of
+the Spanish influenza. Hitherto the health of the army had been
+extraordinarily good, but the epidemic was so widespread and so
+malignant in its attack that during eight weeks there were more than
+twice as many deaths as in the entire army for the year preceding.
+
+[7] By November 11, 26,059 prisoners and 847 guns had been captured and
+at one point near Sedan the American advance had covered twenty-five
+miles. 1,200,000 American troops had been engaged and the weight of the
+ammunition fired was greater than that used by the Union armies during
+the entire Civil War. In November the American army held twenty-two per
+cent. of the western front. The losses of the A.E.F. during the entire
+period of its activities up to November 18, 1918, were by death 53,160;
+the wounded numbered 179,625.
+
+[8] An armistice had been signed with Turkey on October 31, and with
+Austria on November 4.
+
+[9] Something little short of a revolution in American international
+relations was taking place when the President of the United States
+received in Paris lists of callers such as that mentioned in the
+newspapers of May 17, 1919:
+
+    Prince Charron of the Siamese delegation; Dr. Markoff, of the
+    Carpatho-Russian Committee; M. Ollivier, President of the French
+    National Union of Railwayman; M. Jacob, a representative of the
+    Celtic Circle of Paris; Messrs. Bureo and Jacob of the Uruguyan
+    delegation; Turkhan Pasha, the Albanian leader; Enrique Villegas,
+    former Foreign Minister of Chile; Foreign Minister Benez and M.
+    Kramer, of the Czecho-slovak delegation, to discuss the question
+    of Silesia and Teschen; Deputy Damour, concerning the American
+    commemorative statue to be erected in the Gironde River; a
+    delegation from the Parliament of Kuban, Northern Caucasus; the
+    Archbishop of Trebizond, Joseph Reinach, the French historian, and
+    Governor Richard L. Manning of South Carolina.
+
+[10] The Secretary of War estimated the total of all these groups at
+13,650.000
+
+[11] The Eighteenth Amendment is as follows: Section 1. After one
+year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or
+transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof
+into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all
+territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes
+is hereby prohibited.
+
+Section 2. The Congress and the several states shall have concurrent
+power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
+
+Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been
+ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the
+several states, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from
+the date of the submission hereof to the states by the Congress.
+
+[12] As the Congress that which had been elected in 1918, the Senate was
+controlled by the Republicans.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The United States Since The Civil War, by
+Charles Ramsdell Lingley
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNITED STATES SINCE CIVIL WAR ***
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The United States Since The Civil War
+by Charles Ramsdell Lingley
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
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+Title: The United States Since The Civil War
+
+Author: Charles Ramsdell Lingley
+
+Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9868]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 25, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK U.S. SINCE THE CIVIL WAR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon, Beth Trapaga
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+THE UNITED STATES
+
+SINCE THE CIVIL WAR
+
+
+By
+
+CHARLES RAMSDELL LINGLEY
+Professor of History, Dartmouth College.
+
+
+TO MY WIFE
+
+
+1920.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+To write an account of the history of the United States since the
+Civil War without bias, without misstatements of fact and without the
+omission of matters that ought to be included, would be to perform a
+miracle. I have felt no wonder-working near me. I can claim only to
+have attempted to overcome the natural limitations of having been
+brought up in a particular region and with a traditional political,
+economic and social philosophy. I have tried to present as many sides
+of every question as the limitations of space permitted and to look
+sympathetically upon every section, every party and every individual,
+because the sympathetic critic seems to me most likely to discover the
+truth.
+
+It used to be believed that history could not be written until at
+least half a century had elapsed after the events which were to be
+chronicled. It is of course true that only after the lapse of time
+can students gain access to ample documentary material, rid themselves
+of partisan prejudice and attain the necessary perspective. Unhappily,
+however, the citizen who takes part in public affairs or who votes in
+a political campaign cannot wait for the labors of half a century. He
+must judge on the basis of whatever facts he can find near at hand.
+Next to a balanced intelligence, the greatest need of the citizen in
+the performance of his political duties is a substantial knowledge
+of the recent past of public problems. It is impossible to give a
+sensible opinion upon the transportation problem, the relation between
+government and industry, international relations, current politics, the
+leaders in public affairs, and other peculiarly American interests
+without some understanding of the United States since the Civil War. I
+have tried in a small way to make some of this information conveniently
+available without attempting to beguile myself or others into the
+belief that I have written with the accuracy that will characterize
+later work.
+
+Some day somebody will delineate the _spiritual_ history of America
+since the Civil War--the compound of tradition, discontent,
+aspiration, idealism, materialism, selfishness, and hope that mark the
+floundering progress of these United States through the last half
+century. He will read widely, ponder deeply, and tune his spirit with
+care to the task which he undertakes. I have not attempted this phase
+of our history, yet I believe that no account is complete without it.
+
+I have drawn heavily on others who have written in this field--Andrews,
+Beard, Paxson and Peck, and especially on the volumes written for the
+American Nation series by Professors Dunning, Sparks, Dewey, Latane
+and Ogg. Haworth's _United States in Our Own Time, 1865-1920_, was
+unfortunately printed too late to give me the benefit of the author's
+well-known scholarship. Many friends have generously assisted me. My
+colleagues, Professors F.A. Updyke, C.A. Phillips, G.R. Wicker, H.D.
+Dozier, and Malcolm Keir have read the manuscript of individual
+chapters. Professor E.E. Day of Harvard University gave me his counsel
+on several economic topics. Professor George H. Haynes of the Worcester
+Polytechnic Institute, Professor B.B. Kendrick of Columbia University,
+Professor W.T. Root of the University of Wisconsin, and Professors L.B.
+Richardson and F.M. Anderson of Dartmouth College have read the entire
+manuscript. Officials at the Dartmouth College Library, the Columbia
+University Library, and the Library of Congress gave me especial
+facilities for work. Two college generations of students at Dartmouth
+have suffered me to try out on them the arrangement of the chapters as
+well as the contents of the text. Harper and Bros. allowed me to use a
+map appearing in Ogg, _National Progress_, and D. Appleton and Co. have
+permitted the use of maps appearing in Johnson and Van Metre,
+_Principles of Railroad Transportation_; A.J. Nystrom and Co. and the
+McKinley Publishing Co. have allowed me to draw new maps on outlines
+copyrighted by them. At all points I have had the counsel of my wife
+and of Professor Max Farrand of Yale University.
+
+CHARLES R. LINGLEY.
+Dartmouth College, June 14, 1920.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+    I RECONSTRUCTION AND ITS AFTERMATH
+   II IN PRESIDENT GRANT'S TIME
+  III ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS OF THE NEW ERA
+   IV POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND OF THE NEW ISSUES
+    V THE NEW ISSUES
+   VI THE ADMINISTRATION OF RUTHERFORD B. HAYES
+  VII THE POLITICS OF THE EARLY EIGHTIES
+ VIII THE OVERTURN OF 1884
+   IX TRANSPORTATION AND ITS CONTROL
+    X EXTREME REPUBLICANISM
+   XI INDUSTRY AND _LAISSEZ FAIRE_
+  XII DEMOCRATIC DEMORALIZATION
+ XIII THE TREND OF DIPLOMACY
+  XIV THE RISE OF THE WAGE EARNER
+   XV MONETARY AND FINANCIAL PROBLEMS
+  XVI 1896
+ XVII REPUBLICAN DOMINATION AND WAR WITH SPAIN
+XVIII IMPERIALISM
+  XIX THE BEGINNING OF A NEW CENTURY
+   XX THEODORE ROOSEVELT
+  XXI POLITICS, 1908-1912
+ XXII ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL TENDENCIES SINCE 1896
+XXIII LATER INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
+ XXIV WOODROW WILSON
+  XXV THE UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD WAR
+
+INDEX
+
+
+
+
+MAPS AND DIAGRAMS
+
+The growth of the United States from 1776 to 1867
+
+Popular vote in presidential elections, 1868 to 1896
+
+Economic interests, 1890
+
+Relative prices, 1865 to 1890
+
+The New West
+
+Railroad mileage, 1860 to 1910, in thousands of miles
+
+Map of the United States showing railroads in 1870
+
+Map of the United States showing railroads in 1890 (The maps showing
+the railroads are from Johnson and Van Metre, Principles of Railroad
+Transportation, by courtesy of the publishers, D. Appleton & Co.)
+
+Financial operations, 1875 to 1897, in millions of dollars
+
+Total silver coinage, 1878 to 1894, in millions of dollars
+
+Net gold in the treasury, by months, January, 1893, to February,
+1896, in millions of dollars
+
+The presidential election of 1896
+
+The Philippines
+
+The Spanish-American War in the West Indies
+
+Campaign about Santiago
+
+The chief foreign elements in the population of the United States
+
+The cost of food, 1900 to 1912
+
+Morgan-Hill railroads as listed shortly after 1900
+
+Daily newspaper circulation, 1918
+
+Election of 1904 by counties
+
+Caribbean interests of the United States
+
+Election of 1916 by counties
+
+The Western Front
+
+Strength of the American Expeditionary Force, July 1, 1917, to
+November 1, 1918
+
+The United States--1920
+
+The cost of food, January, 1913, to January, 1920
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+RECONSTRUCTION AND ITS AFTERMATH
+
+Abraham Lincoln in the presidential chair was regarded by many of the
+politicians of his party as an "unutterable calamity"; and while the
+news of Lincoln's assassination was received with expressions of genuine
+grief, the accession of Vice-President Andrew Johnson was looked upon as
+a "Godsend to the country." As the Civil War came to a close, Lincoln
+opposed severe punishments for the leaders of the Confederacy; he urged
+respect for the rights of the southern people; he desired to recognize
+the existence of a Union element in the South, to restore the states to
+their usual relations with as little ill-feeling as possible, and in the
+restoration process to interfere but little with the normal powers of
+the states. Johnson, on the contrary, "breathed fire and hemp."
+"Treason," he asserted over and again, "should be made odious, and
+traitors must be punished and impoverished. Their great plantations must
+be seized, and divided into small farms and sold to honest, industrious
+men." For a time it seemed that the curtain would go down on the tragedy
+of Civil War only to rise immediately on the execution of the
+Confederate leaders and the confiscation of their property. A large and
+active group of Washington politicians believed in the necessity of a
+stern accounting with the "rebels." Lincoln's gentleness seemed to these
+bitter northerners like a calamity; Johnson's vindictiveness like a
+Godsend to the country. In the conflict between the policy of clemency
+and the policy of severity is to be found the beginning of the period of
+reconstruction.
+
+Andrew Johnson was a compact, sturdy figure, his eyes black, his
+complexion swarthy. In politics he had always been a Democrat. So
+diverse were his characteristics that one is tempted to ascribe two
+personalities to him. He was a tenacious man, possessed of a rude
+intellectual force, a rough-and-ready stump speaker, intensely loyal,
+industrious, sincere, self-reliant. His courage was put to the test
+again and again, and nobody ever said that it failed. His loyalty held
+him in the Union in 1861, although he was a senator from Tennessee and
+his state as well as his southern colleagues were withdrawing. His
+public and private integrity withstood a hostile investigation that
+included the testimony of all strata of society, from cabinet officers
+to felons in prison. Later, at the most critical moment of his whole
+career, when he had hardly a friend on whom to lean, he was unflurried,
+dignified, undismayed.
+
+Although Johnson was born in North Carolina, the greater part of his
+life was spent in eastern Tennessee. His education was of the slightest.
+His wife taught him to write, and while he plied his tailor's trade she
+read books to him that appealed to his eager intellect. When scarcely of
+voting age he became mayor of the town in which he lived and by sheer
+force of character made his way up into the state legislature, the
+federal House of Representatives and the Senate. President Lincoln made
+him military governor of Tennessee in 1862. In 1864 many Democrats and
+most Republicans joined to form a Union party, and in order to emphasize
+its non-sectional and non-partisan character they nominated Andrew
+Johnson as Lincoln's running mate. And now this unschooled, poor-white,
+slave-holding, Jeffersonian, states-rights Democrat had become President
+of the United States.
+
+It was scarcely to be expected that a man who had fought his way to the
+fore in eastern Tennessee during those controversial years would possess
+the characteristics of a diplomat. Even his friends found him
+uncommunicative, too often defiant and violent in controversy,
+irritating in manners, indiscreet, and lacking flexibility in the
+management of men. The messages which he wrote as President were
+dignified and judicious, and his addresses were not lacking in power,
+but he was prone to indulge in unseemly repartee with his hearers when
+speaking on the stump. He exchanged epithets with bystanders who were
+all too ready to spur him on with their "Give it to 'em, Andy!" and
+"Bully for you, Andy!" giving the presidency the "ill-savor of a corner
+grocery" and filling his supporters with amazement and chagrin. The
+North soon looked upon him as a vulgar boor and remembered that he had
+been intoxicated when inaugurated as Vice-President. Unhappily, too, he
+was distrustful by nature, giving his confidence reluctantly and with
+reserve, so that he was almost without friends or spokesmen in either
+house of Congress. His policies have commended themselves, on the whole,
+even after the scrutiny of half a century. The extent to which he was
+able to put them into effect is part of the history of reconstruction.
+
+The close of the Civil War found the nation as well as the several
+sections of the country facing a variety of complicated and pressing
+social, economic and political problems. Vast armies had to be
+demobilized and re-absorbed into the economic life of the nation.
+Production of the material of war had to give way to the production of
+machinery, the building of railroads and the tilling of the soil. The
+South faced economic demoralization. The federal government had to
+determine the basis on which the lately rebellious states should again
+become normal units in the nation, and the civil, social and economic
+status of the negro had to be readjusted in the light of the outcome of
+the war. Most of these problems, moreover, had to be solved through
+political agencies, such as party conventions and legislatures, with all
+the limitations of partisanship that these terms convey. And they had
+obviously to be solved through human beings possessed of all the
+prejudices and passions that the war had aroused: through Andrew Johnson
+with his force and tactlessness; through able, domineering and
+vindictive Thaddeus Stevens; through narrow and idealistic Charles
+Sumner and demagogic Benjamin F. Butler; as well as through finer
+spirits like William Pitt Fessenden and Lyman Trumbull.
+
+In their attitude toward the South, the people of the North, as well as
+the politicians, fell into two groups. The smaller or radical party
+desired a stern reckoning with all "rebels" and the imprisonment and
+execution of the leaders.[1] They hoped, also, to effect an immediate
+extension to the negroes of the right to vote. It was this faction that
+welcomed the accession of Johnson to the Presidency. The other group was
+much the larger and was inclined toward gentler measures and toward
+leaving the question of suffrage largely for the future. Lincoln and his
+Secretary of State, Seward, were representative of this party. The
+attitude of the South toward the North was more difficult to determine.
+To be sure the rebellious states were beaten, and recognized the fact.
+There was general admission that slavery was at an end. But careful
+observers differed as to whether the South accepted its defeat in good
+faith and would treat the blacks justly, or whether it was sullen,
+unrepentant and ready to adopt any measures short of actual slavery to
+repress the negro.
+
+In theory, the union of the states was still intact. The South had
+attempted to secede and had failed. Practically, however, the southern
+states were out of connection with the remainder of the nation and some
+method must be found of reconstructing the broken federation. President
+Lincoln had already outlined a plan in his proclamation of December 8,
+1863. Excluding the leaders of the Confederacy, he offered pardon to all
+others who had participated in the rebellion, if they would take an oath
+of loyalty to the Union and agree to accept the laws and proclamations
+concerning slavery. As soon as the number of citizens thus pardoned in
+each state reached ten per cent. of the number of votes cast in that
+state at the election of 1860, they might establish a government which
+he would recognize. It was his expectation that a loyal body of
+reconstructed voters would collect around this nucleus, so that in no
+great while the entire South would be restored to normal relations. At
+the same time he called attention to the fact that under the
+Constitution the admission into Congress of senators and representatives
+sent by these governments must rest exclusively with the houses of
+Congress themselves. In pursuance of his policy he had already appointed
+military governors in states where the federal army had secured a
+foothold, and they directed the re-establishment of civil government.
+The radicals opposed the plan because it left much power, including the
+question of negro suffrage, in the hands of the states. A contest
+between Congress and the executive was clearly imminent when the
+assassin's bullet removed the patient and conciliatory Lincoln.
+
+Lincoln's determination to leave control over their restoration as far
+as possible in the hands of the states was in line with Johnson's
+Democratic, states-rights theories. Moreover, the new executive retained
+his predecessor's cabinet, including Seward, whose influence was
+promptly thrown on the side of moderation. To the consternation of the
+radicals the President issued a proclamation announcing a reconstruction
+policy which substantially followed that of Lincoln. Like his
+predecessor he intended to confine the voting power to the whites,
+leaving to the states themselves the question whether the ballot should
+be extended to any of the blacks. Wherever Lincoln had not already
+acted, he appointed military governors who directed the establishment of
+state governments, the revival of the functions of county and municipal
+officials, the repeal of the acts of secession, the repudiation of the
+war debts, and the election of new state legislatures, governors,
+senators and representatives. The Thirteenth Amendment to the
+Constitution, abolishing slavery, was ratified by the new legislatures
+and declared in effect December 18, 1865.
+
+During the last half of the year, the President's policy met with wide
+approval among the people of the North, where both Republicans and
+Democrats expressed satisfaction with his conciliatory attitude. The
+South was not unpleased, as was indicated by the speed with which men
+presented themselves for pardon and assisted in setting up new state
+governments. Nevertheless there were disquieting possibilities of
+dissension. Northern radicals could be counted upon to oppose so
+moderate a policy. There was a reaction, too, against the great power
+which the executive arm of the government had exercised in war time.
+Congress felt that it had been thrust aside, its functions reduced and
+its prestige diminished. It could be looked to for an assertion of its
+desire to dominate reconstruction. Finally when ex-confederates began to
+be elected to office, many a northerner shook his head and wondered
+whether the South was attempting to get into the saddle once more.
+
+When Congress convened in December, 1865, its members held a wide
+variety of opinions in regard to the best method of restoring the
+confederate states to the Union. On one point, however, there was some
+agreement--that Congress ought to withhold approval of executive
+reconstruction until it could decide upon a program of its own. Led by
+Thaddeus Stevens, the radical leader of the House, a joint congressional
+committee of fifteen was appointed to report whether any of the southern
+state governments were entitled to representation in Congress. For the
+present, all of them, even the President's own state, were to be denied
+representation. With Stevens as chairman of the House Committee on
+Reconstruction and Johnson in the President's chair, a battle was
+inevitable, in which quarter would be neither asked nor given.
+
+Unhappily for themselves, the southern states played unwittingly into
+the hands of Stevens and his radical colleagues. The outcome of the war
+had placed upon the freedmen responsibilities which they could not be
+expected to carry. To many of them emancipation meant merely cessation
+from work. Vagabondage was common. Rumor was widespread that the
+government was going to give each negro forty acres of land and a mule,
+and the blacks loafed about, awaiting the division. The strict
+regulations which had surrounded the former slave were discarded and it
+was necessary to accustom him to a new regime. "The race was free, but
+without status, without leaders, without property, and without
+education." Fully alive to the dangers of giving unrestricted freedom
+to so large a body of ignorant negroes, the southern whites passed the
+"black codes," which placed numerous limitations on the civil liberty
+of "persons of color." In some cases they were forbidden to carry arms,
+to act as witnesses in court except in cases involving their own race,
+and to serve on juries or in the militia. Vagrancy laws enabled the
+magistrates to set unemployed blacks at work under arrangements that
+amounted almost to peonage. It is now evident that the South was
+actuated by what it considered the necessities of its situation and
+not merely by a spirit of defiance. Yet the fear on the part of the
+North that slavery was being restored under a disguise was not
+unnatural. Radical northern newspapers and leading extremists in Congress
+exaggerated the importance of the codes until they seemed like a
+systematic attempt to evade the results of the war. As Republican
+leaders in Congress saw the satisfaction created in the South by the
+President's policy, and discovered that northern Democrats were rallying
+to his support, the jealousies of partisanship caused them still further
+to increase their grip on the processes of reconstruction. A disquieting
+by-product of the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, also began
+to appear. Hitherto only three-fifths of the negroes had been counted in
+apportioning representation in the House of Representatives. As soon as
+the slaves became free, however, they were counted as if they were
+whites, and thereby the strength of the South in Congress would be
+increased. It was hardly to be expected that the North would view such a
+development with satisfaction.
+
+The first action of the leaders in Congress was the introduction of a
+bill to continue and extend the powers of the Freedmen's Bureau, a
+federal organization which supervised charitable relief given the
+negroes, protected them in making contracts for labor and assumed a sort
+of guardianship over the race in making its transition out of slavery.
+The new measure was intended to continue this federal tutelage of the
+blacks. The President's veto of the bill, February 19, 1866, served to
+widen the breach between him and Congress and thereby postponed still
+further the admission of the representatives of the southern state
+governments. Three days later Johnson addressed a crowd which collected
+before the White House. In the course of his speech he lost control of
+himself to such an extent as to indulge in undignified remarks and
+personalities, and even to charge leaders in Congress with seeking to
+destroy the fundamental principles of American government. Thoughtful
+men everywhere were dismayed. In the meantime a Civil Rights bill was
+pending in Congress, the purpose of which was to declare negroes to be
+citizens of the United States and to give them rights equal to those
+accorded other citizens, notwithstanding local or state laws and codes.
+The President objected to the bill as an unconstitutional invasion of
+the rights of the states, but it was promptly passed over the veto.
+Scarcely any members of Congress now supported him except the Democrats.
+The conservative or conciliatory Republicans were lost to him for good.
+Throughout the North it was felt that protection must be accorded the
+freedmen against the black codes, and when the President opposed it he
+lost ground outside of Congress as well as in it. "From that time
+Johnson was beaten."
+
+Stevens in the House and Sumner and others in the Senate were now in a
+position to press successfully a stern, congressional reconstruction
+policy to replace that of the executive. The first item in the radical
+program was the Fourteenth Amendment, which passed Congress in June,
+1866, although it did not become of force until 1868. It contained four
+sections: (1) making citizens of all persons born or naturalized in the
+United States and forbidding states to abridge their rights; (2)
+providing for the reduction of the representation in Congress of any
+state that denied the vote to any citizens except those guilty of
+crimes; (3) disabling confederate leaders from holding political office
+except with the permission of Congress; and (4) prohibiting the payment
+of confederate debts. The first section was, of course, designed to put
+the civil rights of the negro into the Constitution where they would be
+safe from hostile legislation. The second sought to get negro suffrage
+into the South by indirection at a time when a positive suffrage
+amendment could not be passed. The third was to take the pardoning
+power out of executive hands.
+
+At this point there came a halt in the controversy until the country
+could be heard from in the congressional elections of 1866. Both sides
+made unusual efforts to organize political sentiment. Both attempted to
+demonstrate their thoroughly national character by holding conventions
+attended by southern as well as northern delegates. Each angled for the
+soldier vote by encouraging conferences of veterans. Late in July
+occurred an incident which the radicals were able to use to advantage.
+A crowd of negroes attending a convention in New Orleans in behalf of
+suffrage for their race became engaged in a fight with white
+anti-suffragists and many of the blacks were killed. The riot was
+commonly referred to in the North as a "massacre," the moral of which
+was that the negroes must be protected against the unrepentant rebels.
+But it was Johnson himself who furnished greatest aid to his
+adversaries. Having been invited to speak in Chicago, he determined
+upon an electioneering trip, "swinging around the circle," he called
+it. Again he was guilty of gross indiscretions. He made personal
+allusions, held angry colloquies with the crowd and at one place met
+such opposition that he had to retire unheard. It mattered little that
+the greater part of his speeches were sound and substantial. His lapses
+were held up to public scorn and he returned to Washington amid the
+hoots of his enemies. It was commonly believed that he had been
+intoxicated. Probably no orator, _The Nation_ sarcastically remarked,
+ever accomplished so much by a fortnight's speaking. There could be
+little doubt as to the outcome of the elections. The Republicans
+carried almost every northern state and obtained a two-thirds majority
+in each house of Congress, with which to override vetoes.
+
+As if impelled by some perverse fate the southern whites during the fall
+and winter of 1866-67 did the thing for which the bitterest enemy of the
+South might have wished. Except in Tennessee, the legislature of every
+confederate state refused with almost complete unanimity to ratify the
+Fourteenth Amendment. Natural as the act was, it gave the North
+apparently overwhelming proof that the former "rebels" were still
+defiant. Encouraged by the results of the election and aroused by the
+attitude of the South toward the Amendment, Congress proceeded to
+encroach upon prerogatives that had hitherto been considered purely
+executive, and also to pass a most extreme plan of reconstruction.
+
+The first of these measures, the Tenure of Office Act, was passed over a
+veto on March 2, 1867. By it the President was forbidden to remove civil
+officers except with the consent of the Senate. Even the members of the
+Cabinet could not be dismissed without the permission of the upper
+house, a provision inserted for the protection of Edwin M. Stanton, the
+Secretary of War. Stanton was in sympathy with the radical leaders in
+Congress and it was essential to them that he be kept in this post of
+advantage. General Grant, who had charge of the military establishment,
+was made almost independent of the President by a law drafted secretly
+by Stanton. On the same day, and over a veto also, was passed the
+Reconstruction Act, the most important piece of legislation during the
+decade after the war. It represented the desires of Thaddeus Stevens and
+was passed mainly because of his masterful leadership. At the outset the
+new Act declared the existing southern state governments to be illegal
+and inadequate, and divided the South into five military districts. Over
+each was to be a commanding general who should preserve order, and
+continue civil officers and civil courts, or replace them with military
+tribunals as he wished. Under his direction each state was to frame and
+adopt a new constitution which must provide for negro suffrage. When
+Congress should approve the constitution and when a legislature elected
+under its provisions should adopt the Fourteenth Amendment, the state
+might be readmitted to the Union.
+
+The Reconstruction Act was remarkable in several features. The provision
+imposing negro suffrage was carried through the Senate with difficulty
+and only as the result of the tireless activity of Charles Sumner.
+Sumner and other radicals were determined that the blacks should be
+enfranchised in order that they might protect themselves from hostile
+local legislation and also in order that they might form part of a
+southern Republican party. Even more noteworthy was the military
+character of the Act. The President had already exercised his
+prerogative of declaring the country at peace on August 20, 1866, more
+than six months before the Act was passed. In the decision in the
+Milligan case, which preceded the Act by nearly three months, the
+Supreme Court had decided that military tribunals were illegal except
+where war made the operation of civil courts impossible. Military
+reconstruction was illogical, not to say unlawful, therefore, but
+Congress was more interested in a method that promised the speedy
+accomplishment of its purposes than it was in the opinions of the
+executive and judicial departments.
+
+Despite his dissent from its provisions, the President at once set
+military reconstruction in operation. When he mitigated its harshness,
+however, where latitude was allowed him, Congress passed additional
+acts, over the veto, of course, extending and defining the powers of
+the commanding generals. Armed with complete authority, the generals
+proceeded to remove many of the ordinary civil officers and to replace
+them with their own appointees, to compel order by means of the
+soldiery, to set aside court decrees and even to close the courts and
+to enact legislation. In the meanwhile a total of 703,000 black and
+627,000 white voters were registered, delegates to constitutional
+conventions were elected, constitutions were drawn up and adopted which
+permitted negro suffrage, and state officers and legislators elected.
+In conformity with the provisions of the Act, the newly chosen
+legislatures ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution,
+sent representatives and senators to Washington, where they were
+admitted to Congress, and by 1871 the last confederate state was
+reconstructed.
+
+The commanding generals were honest and efficient, in the main, even if
+their stern rule was distasteful to the South, but the regime of the
+newly elected state officers and legislators was a period of dishonesty
+and incapacity. Most of the experienced and influential whites had been
+excluded from participation in politics through the operation of the
+presidential proclamations and the reconstruction acts. In all the
+legislatures there were large numbers of blacks--sometimes, indeed, they
+were in the majority. Two parties appeared. The radical or Republican
+group included the negroes, a few southern whites, commonly called
+"scalawags," and various northerners known as "carpet-baggers." These
+last were in some cases mere adventurers and in others men of ability
+who were attracted to the South for one reason or another, and took
+a prominent part in political affairs. The old-time whites held both
+kinds in equal detestation. The other party was called conservative or
+Democratic, and was composed of the great mass of the whites. Many of
+them had been Whigs before the war, but in the face of negro-Republican
+domination, nearly all threw in their lot with the conservatives.
+
+Not all the activities of the legislatures were bad. Provisions were
+made for education, for example, that were in line with the needs of
+the states. Nevertheless, their conduct in the main was such as to
+drive the South almost into revolt. In the South Carolina legislature
+only twenty-two members out of 155 could read and write. The negroes
+were in the majority and although they paid only $143 in taxes
+altogether, they helped add $20,000,000 to the state debt in four
+years. In Arkansas the running expenses of the state increased 1500
+per cent.; in Louisiana the public debt mounted from $14,000,000 to
+$48,000,000 between 1868 and 1871. Only ignorance and dishonesty could
+explain such extravagance and waste. Submission, however, was not
+merely advisable; it presented the only prospect of peace. Open
+resentment was largely suppressed, but it was inevitable that the
+whites should become hostile to the blacks, and that they should
+dislike the Republican party for its ruthless imposition of a system
+which governed them without their consent and which placed them at the
+mercy of the incompetent and unscrupulous. A system which made a negro
+the successor of Jefferson Davis in the United States Senate could
+scarcely fail to throw the majority of southern whites into the ranks
+of the enemies of the Republican organization.[2]
+
+One step remained to ensure the continuance of negro suffrage--the
+adoption of a constitutional provision. In 1869 Congress referred to the
+states the Fifteenth Amendment, which was declared in force a year
+later. By its terms the United States and the states are forbidden to
+abridge the right of citizens to vote on account of race, color or
+previous condition of servitude.
+
+While radical reconstruction was being forced to its bitter conclusion,
+the opponents of the President were maturing plans for his impeachment
+and exclusion from office. By the terms of the Constitution, the chief
+executive may be impeached for "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes
+and Misdemeanors." Early in the struggle between President Johnson and
+Congress a few members of the House of Representatives urged an attempt
+to impeach him. Such extremists as James M. Ashley of Ohio, and Benjamin
+F. Butler of Massachusetts, believed that he had even been implicated in
+the plot to assassinate Lincoln. A thorough-going search through his
+private as well as his public career failed to produce any evidence that
+could be interpreted as sufficient to meet constitutional demands, and a
+motion to impeach was voted down in the House by a large majority. So
+indiscreet a man as the President, however, was likely at some time to
+furnish a reason for further effort. The occasion came in the removal of
+the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton.
+
+Stanton, although of a domineering and brusque personality, had ably
+administered the War Department under Lincoln and Johnson. During the
+controversy between the President and Congress, Stanton had remained in
+the Cabinet but was closely in touch with his chief's opponents and
+had even drafted one of the reconstruction acts. Johnson had tolerated
+the questionable conduct of his Secretary, despite the advice of many
+of his supporters, until August 5, 1867, when he requested Stanton's
+resignation. The latter took refuge behind the Tenure of Office Act,
+denying the right of the President to remove him, but yielding his
+office at Johnson's insistence. This episode had occurred during a
+recess of Congress and, in accord with the law, the removal of Stanton
+was reported when it convened in December. The Senate at once refused
+to concur and Stanton returned to his office. The President now found
+himself forced, by what he regarded as an unconstitutional law, into
+the unbearable position of including one of his enemies within his
+official family, and once more he ordered the Secretary to retire. But
+meanwhile the House of Representatives had been active and had on
+February 24, 1868, impeached the President for "high crimes and
+misdemeanors."
+
+The trial was conducted before the Senate, as the Constitution
+provides, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court acting as the
+presiding officer. The House chose a board of seven managers to conduct
+the prosecution, of whom Thaddeus Stevens and Benjamin F. Butler were
+best known. The President was defended by able counsel, including
+former Attorney-General Stanbery, Benjamin R. Curtis, who had earlier
+sat upon the Supreme Court, and William M. Evarts, an eminent lawyer
+and leader of the bar in New York. The charges, although eleven in
+number, centered about four accusations: (1) that the dismissal of
+Secretary Stanton was contrary to the Tenure of Office Act; (2) that
+the President had declared that part of a certain act of Congress was
+unconstitutional; (3) that he had attempted to bring Congress into
+disgrace in his speeches; and (4) that in general he had opposed the
+execution of several acts of Congress. The President's counsel asked
+for forty days in which to prepare their case. They were given ten,
+although members of the House had been preparing for more than a year
+to resort to impeachment. The trial lasted from early March to late
+May.
+
+As the trial wore on, it became increasingly evident that the House had
+but little substance on which to base an impeachment, and that the force
+back of it was intense hatred of the President. It was made clear to
+senators who were inclined to waver towards the side of acquittal that
+their political careers were at an end if they failed to vote guilty.
+The general conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church even appointed
+an hour of prayer that the Senate might be moved to convict. The lawyers
+for the defense so far outgeneraled the prosecutors that one who reads
+the records at the present day finds difficulty in thinking of them as
+more than the account of a pitiful farce. At length on May 16 the Senate
+was prepared to make its decision. The last charge was voted upon first.
+It was a very general accusation, drawn up by Stevens, and seemed most
+likely to secure the necessary two-thirds for conviction. Fifty-four
+members would vote. Twelve of them were Democrats and were known to be
+for acquittal. The majority of the Republicans were for conviction. A
+small group had given no indication of their position, and their votes
+would be the decisive ones. As the roll was called each senator replied
+"Guilty" or "Not guilty," while floor and galleries counted off the vote
+as the knitting women clicked off the day's toll of heads during the
+days when the guillotine made a reign of terror in France. The result
+was thirty-five votes for conviction and nineteen for acquittal. As
+thirty-six were necessary, Johnson had escaped. A recess of ten days was
+taken during which the prosecution sought some shred of evidence which
+might prove that some one of the nineteen had accepted a bribe for his
+vote, but to no avail. When the Senate convened again there was no
+change in the vote on the second and third articles, and the attempt to
+convict was abandoned.
+
+For the first time in many months Johnson enjoyed a respite from the
+attacks of his foes. Stanton relinquished his office, and the integrity
+of the executive power was preserved. The race of the dictator of the
+House had been run, for Stevens lived less than three months after the
+trial.
+
+The continuous controversies of the Johnson administration almost
+completely pressed into the background two diplomatic accomplishments of
+no little importance. The more dramatic of these related to the French
+invasion of Mexico. During 1861, naval vessels of England, France and
+Spain had entered Mexican ports in order to compel the payment of debts
+said to be due those countries, but England and Spain had soon withdrawn
+and had left France to proceed alone. French troops thereupon had
+invaded the country, captured Mexico City and established an empire with
+Archduke Maximilian of Austria as its head, despite the protests and
+opposition of the Mexicans under their leader Juarez. The United States
+had expressed dissent and alarm, meanwhile, but because of the war was
+in no position to take action.
+
+As soon as civil strife was finished, however, Johnson and Seward took
+vigorous steps. An army under General Sheridan was sent to the border,
+and diplomatic pressure was exerted to convince France of the
+desirability of withdrawal. The occupation of Mexico was, apparently,
+not popular in France, and in the face of American opposition the French
+government sought a means of dropping the project. Accordingly the
+invading forces were withdrawn early in 1867, leaving the hapless
+Maximilian to the Mexicans, by whom he was subsequently seized and
+executed.
+
+While the Mexican difficulty was being brought to a successful outcome,
+the government of Russia offered to sell to the United States her
+immense Alaskan possessions west and northwest of Canada. Secretary
+Seward was enthusiastically disposed to accept the offer and a treaty
+was accordingly drawn up on March 30, 1867, providing for the
+acquisition of the territory for $7,200,000. The Senate, however, was
+far less inclined to seize the opportunity. Little was known about
+Alaska, and the cost seemed almost prohibitive in view of the financial
+strains caused by the war. Nevertheless the inclination to acquire
+territory was strong and there was a widespread desire to accede to the
+wishes of Russia who was understood to have been well-disposed toward
+the United States during the war. Under the operation of these forces
+the Senate changed its attitude and ratified the treaty on April 9,
+1867. By this act the United States came into possession of an area
+measuring nearly 600,000 square miles, and stores of fish, furs, timber,
+coal and precious metals whose size is even yet little understood.
+
+It was not long before it became apparent that radical reconstruction
+had been founded too little upon the hard facts of social and political
+conditions in the South, and too much upon benevolent but mistaken
+theories, and upon prejudices, partisanship and emotion. It was
+inevitable that there should be an aftermath.
+
+At the close of reconstruction in 1871, the southern negro was a citizen
+of civil and political importance. As a voter, he was on an equality
+with the whites; he belonged to the Republican party and his party was a
+powerful factor in the politics of the South; his position was secured,
+or at least seemed to be secured, by amendments to the federal
+Constitution. Legally and constitutionally his position appeared to be
+impregnable. In the minds of the southern white, however, the amendments
+vied with military reconstruction in their injustice and unwisdom. To
+his mind they constituted an attempt to abolish the belief of the white
+man in the essential inferiority of the black, to make the pyramid of
+government stand on its apex, and to place the very issues of existence
+within the power of the congenitally unfit. To the discontent aroused by
+war were added political and racial antagonism, which blazed at times
+into fury. The southern whites began to invent methods for overcoming
+the power of the freedmen in politics and for insuring themselves
+against possible danger of violence at the hands of the blacks.
+
+The most famous device was the Ku Klux Klan or the Invisible Empire, a
+somewhat loosely organized secret society which originated in Tennessee
+during the turmoil immediately after the close of the war. In theory and
+practice its operations were simple and effective. Its chief officials
+were the Grand Wizard, the Grand Dragon, the Grand Titan. Local branches
+were Dens, each headed by a Grand Cyclops. The Den worked usually at
+night, when the members assembled clad in long white robes and white
+masks or hoods, discussed cases which needed attention, and then rode
+forth on horses whose bodies were covered and whose feet were muffled.
+The exploits of the Klan expanded, in the exaggerated stories common
+among the negroes, into the most amazing achievements. The members were
+thought to be able to take themselves to pieces, drink entire pailfuls
+of water, and devour "fried nigger meat." Usually the person about to be
+"visited" received a notice that the dreaded Klan was upon him. He was
+warned to cease his political activities or perhaps to leave the
+neighborhood. If the threat proved ineffective, whipping or some worse
+punishment was likely to follow.
+
+In 1872 Congress unintentionally aided in the process of overcoming
+negro domination by the passage of the Amnesty Act, which restored to
+all but a few hundreds of the former Confederates the political
+privileges which had been taken from them by the Fourteenth Amendment.
+Under the latter the great majority of former southern leaders had been
+deprived of the right to hold office. On the restoration of this right
+such men as Alexander H. Stephens, former Vice-President of the
+Confederate States, and Wade Hampton, one of the most influential South
+Carolinians, could again take an active part in politics. With their
+return, the cause of white supremacy received a powerful impetus.
+
+In taking this step, however, Congress did not intend to allow the legal
+and constitutional rights of the blacks to be waived without a contest.
+Reports reached the North concerning the activities of the southern
+whites--reports which in no way minimized the amount of intimidation and
+violence involved--and in response to this information Congress passed
+the enforcement laws of 1870-1871, generally known as the "Force
+Acts."[3] These laws laid heavy penalties upon individuals who should
+prevent citizens from exercising their constitutional political
+powers--primarily the right to vote. As offences under these acts were
+within the jurisdiction of the federal courts and as the federal
+officials manifested an inclination to carry out the law, the number of
+indictments was considerable. Convictions, however, were infrequent. The
+famous Ku Klux Act of 1871 amplified the law of 1870 and was aimed at
+combinations or conspiracies of persons who resorted to intimidation. It
+authorized the President to suspend the privilege of the writ of _habeas
+corpus_ and made it his duty to employ armed force to suppress
+opposition.
+
+Additional sting was given the enforcement laws by provision for the
+superintendence of federal elections, under specified conditions, by
+federal officials called "supervisors of election." The supervisors were
+given large powers over the registration of voters and the casting and
+counting of ballots, so as to ensure a fair vote and an honest count.
+Since here, again, federal troops stood behind the law, it was manifest
+that the central government would show some degree of determination in
+its handling of the southern situation. Nevertheless, the result was
+merely to delay the gradual elimination of the blacks from political
+activity, not to prevent it. In practice the Republican state
+governments in the South were continued in the seats of authority only
+through the presence of the federal soldiery. In one way or another the
+whites gained the upper hand, so that by 1877 only South Carolina and
+Louisiana had failed to achieve self-government unhampered by federal
+force.
+
+In the meantime the enforcement acts were being slowly weakened by the
+Supreme Court in several decisions bearing upon the Fourteenth
+Amendment. The significant portion of Section I of the Amendment is as
+follows:
+
+    No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge
+    the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;
+    nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
+    property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person
+    within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
+
+In several cases involving the enforcement acts, the Court found
+portions of the laws in conflict with the Constitution and finally, in
+1883, the decision in United States _v._ Harris completed their
+destruction. Here the court met a complaint that a group of white men
+had taken some negroes away from the officers of the law and ill-treated
+them. Such conduct seemed to be contrary to that part of the Ku Klux Act
+which forbade combinations designed to deprive citizens of their legal
+rights. The Court, however, called attention to the important words, "No
+_State_ shall make or enforce," and was of opinion that the
+constitutional power of Congress extends only to cases where _States_
+have acted in such a manner as to deprive citizens of their rights. If
+_individuals_, on the contrary, conspire to take away these rights,
+relief must be sought at the hands of the state government. As the great
+purpose of the Ku Klux Act had been to combat precisely such individual
+combinations, it appeared that the Court had, at a blow, demolished the
+law. Not long afterwards the Court declared unconstitutional the Civil
+Rights Act of 1875, which had been designed to insure equal rights to
+negroes in hotels, conveyances and theatres. Here again the Court was of
+opinion that the Fourteenth Amendment grants no power to the United
+States but forbids certain activities by the states.[4]
+
+Stuffing the ballot box was common in South Carolina and other states.
+In one election in this state the number of votes cast was almost double
+the number the names on the polling list. In some places the imposition
+of a poll tax peacefully eliminated the impecunious freedman. In
+Mississippi the state legislature laid out the "shoestring" election
+district, 300 miles long and about 20 miles wide, which included many of
+the sections where the negroes were most numerous, in order that their
+votes might have as little effect as possible. By hook or by crook,
+then, in simple and devious ways, the dangers of negro domination were
+averted. Nevertheless the provisions of the law for federal supervision
+of elections remained, becoming a bone of contention during a later
+administration.
+
+About 1890 there began a new era in the elimination of the negro from
+politics in the South. The people of that section disliked the methods
+which they felt the necessity of using, and searched about for a less
+crude device. Furthermore the rise of a new political movement in some
+parts of the South in the late eighties and early nineties was making
+divisions among the Democrats and was encouraging attempts by the two
+factions to control the negro vote. Suddenly, a relatively small number
+of negro voters became a powerful and purchasable make-weight. Both
+sides, perhaps, were a bit disturbed at this development. At any rate,
+additional impetus was given to the movement for the suppression of the
+negro. Eventually plans were originated, some of which were clearly
+constitutional and all of which carried a certain appearance of
+legality.
+
+The first steps were taken by Mississippi in 1890. The new state
+constitution of that year required as prerequisite to the voting
+privilege, the payment of all taxes which were legally demanded of the
+citizen during the two preceding years--a provision to which no
+constitutional exception could be taken, and which effectively debarred
+large numbers of colored voters. Further, it provided that after January
+1, 1892, every voter must be able to read any section of the state
+constitution or be able to give an interpretation of it _when read to
+him_. As the election officials who would judge the ability of the
+applicant properly to interpret the constitution would certainly be
+whites, it was clear that the ignorant black would have scant chance of
+passing the educational test. Several other states followed in the wake
+of Mississippi, until in 1898 Louisiana discovered a new barrier through
+which only whites might make their way to the voting lists. This was the
+famous "grandfather clause." In brief, it allowed citizens to vote who
+had that right before January 1, 1867, together with the descendants of
+such citizens, regardless of their educational and property
+qualifications. As no negroes had voted in the state before that date,
+they were effectively debarred. Under the influence of such pressure,
+the negro vote promptly dwindled away to negligible proportions. In
+Louisiana, to cite one case, there were 127,263 registered colored
+voters in 1896, and 5,354 in 1900. Between these two years the new state
+constitution had been passed. In 1915 the Supreme Court finally declared
+a grandfather clause unconstitutional on the ground that its only
+possible intention was to evade that provision of the Fifteenth
+Amendment which forbids the states to abridge, on account of color, the
+rights of citizens of the United States to vote.
+
+The history of the effects of the war and of reconstruction on the
+political status of the negro has been concisely summarized as falling
+into three periods. At the close of the war: (1) the negroes were
+more powerful in politics than their numbers, intelligence and
+property seemed to justify; (2) the Republican party was a power in
+the South; and (3) the negroes enjoyed political rights on a legal and
+constitutional equality with the whites. By 1877 the first of these
+generalizations was no longer a fact; by 1890 the Republican party had
+ceased to be of importance in the South; and by the opening of the
+twentieth century, the negro as a possible voter was not on a legal
+and constitutional equality with the white.
+
+In the sphere of government the war and reconstruction were of lasting
+importance. Preeminently it was definitely established that the federal
+government is supreme over the states. Although the Constitution had
+seemed to many to establish that supremacy in no uncertain terms, it can
+not be doubted that only as a result of the war and reconstruction did
+the theory receive a degree of popular assent that approached unanimity.
+Temporarily, at least, reconstruction added greatly to the prestige and
+self-confidence of Congress. During the war the powers of the President
+had necessarily expanded. The reaction, although hastened by the
+character and disposition of President Johnson, was inevitable. The
+depression of the executive elevated the legislature and not until the
+beginning of the twentieth century did the scales swing back again
+toward their former position.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+General. The best general account of the period 1865-1917 is to be found
+in the following volumes of _The American Nation: A History_: W.A.
+Dunning, _Reconstruction Political and Economic, 1865-1877_ (1907); E.E.
+Sparks, _National Development, 1877-1885_ (1907); D.R. Dewey, _National
+Problems, 1885-1897_ (1907); J.H. Latane, _America as a World Power,
+1897-1907_ (1907); F.A. Ogg, _National Progress, 1907-1917_ (1918). The
+volumes vary in excellence and interest, but set a high standard,
+especially in their recognition of the importance of economic facts, and
+contain excellent bibliographical material. The following single volumes
+are useful: E.B. Andrews, _United States in Our Own Time, 1870-1903_
+(1903); C.A. Beard, _Contemporary American History_ (1914); P.L.
+Haworth, _Reconstruction and Union, 1865-1912_ (1912); P.L. Haworth,
+_United States in Our Own Time, 1865-1920_; E.P. Oberholtzer, _History
+of the United States since the Civil War_ (to be in several volumes, of
+which one appeared in 1917, covering 1865-1868); F.L. Paxson, _The New
+Nation_ (1915); H.T. Peck, _Twenty Years of the Republic, 1885-1905_
+(1907), readable and especially valuable in its interpretation of the
+period which it covers; J.F. Rhodes, _History of the United States from
+Hayes to McKinley, 1877-1896_ (1919), lacks understanding of the period
+covered. J.S. Bassett, _Short History of the United States_ (1913),
+has excellent chapters on the years 1865-1912; F.J. Turner in the
+_Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (11th ed.), article "United States, History
+1865-1910," is brief but inclusive; the later chapters of Max Farrand,
+_Development of the United States_ (1918), present a new point of view.
+_The Chronicles of America Series_ (1919 and later), edited by Allen
+Johnson, contains valuable volumes on especial topics. For party
+platforms and election statistics consult Edward Stanwood, _A History
+of the Presidency_ (2 vols., 2nd ed., 1916).
+
+Reconstruction. The most valuable single volume on the reconstruction
+period is the volume by Dunning already referred to; W.L. Fleming,
+_Sequel of Appomattox_ (1919), is also excellent; J.F. Rhodes, _History
+of the United States since the Compromise of 1850_, vols. VI, VII
+(1906), is the best detailed account; James Schouler, _History of the
+United States_, vol. VII (1913), presents a new view of President
+Johnson. Valuable biographies are J.A. Woodburn, _The Life of Thaddeus
+Stevens_ (1913); G.H. Haynes, _Charles Sumner_ (1909); Horace White,
+_The Life of Lyman Trumbull_ (1913). On impeachment, D.W. Dewitt, _The
+Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson_ (1903), is best. W.A. Dunning,
+_Essays on Civil War and Reconstruction_ (ed. 1910), is strong on the
+constitutional changes. Studies on reconstruction in the several states
+have been published by W.W. Davis (Florida), (1913); W.L. Fleming
+(Alabama), (1905); J.W. Garner (Mississippi), (1901); J.G. deR.
+Hamilton (North Carolina), (1914); C.W. Ramsdell (Texas), (1910); and
+others. For documentary material, W.L. Fleming, _Documentary History of
+Reconstruction_ (2 vols., 1906-7), is essential. Edward Channing, A.B.
+Hart and F.J. Turner, _Guide to the Study and Reading of American
+History_ (1912), provides full references to a wide variety of works
+covering 1865-1911. Consult also Appleton's _Annual Cyclopaedia_,
+_1861-1902_. On foreign relations J.B. Moore, _Digest of International
+Law_, 8 vols., (1906).
+
+Periodical literature. The most useful periodicals are:
+
+_American Economic Review_ (1911-); _American Historical Review_
+(1895-); _American Political Science Review_ (1907-); _Atlantic
+Monthly_ (1857-); _Century Magazine_ (1870-); _Harper's Weekly_
+(1857-1916); _Harvard Law Review_; _History Teachers' Magazine_,
+continued as _Historical Outlook_ (1909-); _Journal of Political
+Economy_ (1892-); _Nation_ (1865-); _North American Review_ (1815-);
+_Political Science Quarterly_ (1886-); _Quarterly Journal of Economics_
+(1886-); _Scribner's Magazine_ (1887-); _Yale Review_ (1892-1911, _new
+series_, 1912-).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States, was held
+in prison until 1867 and then released. He died in 1889. Suggestions
+that General Lee, the most prominent military leader, be arrested and
+tried met with such opposition from General Grant, the Union leader,
+that the project was dropped. Lee died in 1870.
+
+[2] A number of these states later repudiated their debts.
+
+[3] The threats used to keep the negroes away from the polls are
+typified in the following, which was published in Mississippi:
+
+    "The Terry Terribles will be here Monday to see there is a fair
+    election."
+
+    "The Byram Bulldozers will be here Monday to see there is a fair
+    election.
+
+    "The Edwards Dragoons will be here Monday to see there is a fair
+    election.
+
+    "Who cares if the McGill men don't like it?
+
+    "The whole State of Mississippi is interested in the election.
+
+    "It _shall_ be a Democratic victory."
+
+[4] In regard to segregation of the races in railroad coaches, the
+Court decided, 1910, that constitutional rights are not interfered with
+when separate accommodations are provided, if the accommodations be
+equally good. Chiles _v._ Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Co., 218 U.S.,
+71.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+IN PRESIDENT GRANT'S TIME
+
+Aside from President Lincoln, the most prominent personality on the
+northern side during the latter part of the Civil War was General
+Ulysses S. Grant. His successes in the Mississippi Valley in the
+early days of the war, when success was none too common, his capture
+of Vicksburg at the turning point of the conflict, and his dogged
+drive toward Richmond had established his military reputation. When
+the drive toward Richmond resulted at last in the capture of Lee's
+army and its surrender at Appomattox, the victorious North turned
+with gratitude to Grant and made him a popular idol, while the
+politicians began to question whether his popularity might not be put
+to account in the field of politics.
+
+Grant himself had never paid any attention to matters of government.
+In only one presidential election had he so much as voted for a
+candidate, and then it was for a Democrat, James Buchanan. In 1860 he
+was prevented from voting for Senator Stephen A. Douglas and against
+Abraham Lincoln only by the fact that he had not fulfilled the
+residence requirement for suffrage in the town where he was living.
+Nevertheless in his capacity as general of the army his headquarters
+after the war were in Washington and his duties brought him into
+contact with the politicians and eventually entangled him in the
+controversy between the President and Congress. Circumstances at
+first threw him into close association with Johnson, but at the time
+of the Stanton episode late in 1867 a misunderstanding arose between
+them which developed into a question of veracity, and then into open
+hostility. The opponents of the President took up the General's case
+with alacrity and from then on the popular hero was looked upon as
+the inevitable choice for the next Republican nomination.
+
+The convention of the National Union Republican Party, as it was
+called at that time, was held in Chicago, May 20, 1868, during the
+interval between the votes on the eleventh and second charges of the
+impeachment of President Johnson. General Grant was unanimously
+nominated for the presidency and Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the
+House of Representatives, for the second place on the ticket. The
+platform portrayed the benefits of radical reconstruction and
+defended negro suffrage in the South. In the North at that time the
+black was commonly denied the vote--the Fifteenth Amendment having
+not yet been ratified--and the convention accordingly declared that
+the question of suffrage in all the "loyal" states properly belonged
+in the states themselves. Other planks asserted that the public debt
+ought to be paid in full, that pensions for the veterans were an
+obligation and that immigration ought to be encouraged. The
+administration of President Johnson was denounced and the thirty-five
+senators who voted for his conviction in the impeachment trial were
+commended.
+
+The Democrats met at Tammany Hall in New York on July 4. Their
+platform approved the pension laws, advocated the sale of public land
+to actual occupants, praised the administration of President Johnson,
+arraigned the radicals and declared the reconstruction acts
+"unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void." If the radical party
+should win in the election, the Democrats asserted, the result would
+be "a subjected and conquered people, amid the ruins of liberty and
+the scattered fragments of the Constitution." The regulation of the
+suffrage, one plank declared, had always been in the hands of the
+individual states. The most prominent place in the platform, however,
+was given to the question of the public debt. Part of the bonds
+issued during the war had, by acts of Congress, been made payable
+in "dollars," a word which might mean either paper dollars or gold
+dollars. Paper, however, was much less valuable than gold, times were
+hard, and many people held the opinion that the debt could properly
+be paid in paper. Such was the "Ohio idea," which was made part of
+the Democratic platform.
+
+The choice of a candidate required twenty-two ballots. Early trials
+indicated the strength of George H. Pendleton, popularly known as
+"Gentleman George" and the chief exponent of the "Ohio idea." Johnson
+also had support. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, having failed to
+obtain the Republican nomination, allowed it to be known that he was
+willing to become the Democratic candidate. At length, on the
+twenty-second ballot, a few votes were cast for Governor Horatio
+Seymour of New York, the chairman of the convention. The move met
+with enthusiastic approval, despite Seymour's insistence that he
+would not be a candidate, and he was unanimously chosen.
+
+[Illustration:
+Popular vote in presidential elections, 1868-1896]
+
+The developments of the campaign depended largely upon occurrences in
+the South. Military reconstruction had not been wholly completed in
+Virginia, Mississippi, Texas and Georgia. The last of these states
+had once been readmitted to the Union, but had immediately expelled
+the negro members of its legislature, and was thereupon placed again
+under military rule. The Ku Klux Klan was meanwhile in general
+operation throughout the South and its activities, both real and
+imaginary, received wide advertisement in the North. Public interest,
+therefore, in the underlying issues of the campaign centered upon the
+attitude of the candidates toward the southern question. General
+Grant was understood to be with the radicals and Seymour with the
+conservatives. The result of the election was the choice of the
+Republican leader by an apparently large majority. He carried
+twenty-six out of thirty-four states, with 214 out of 294 electoral
+votes, but he received a popular majority of only 300,000. Examination
+of the returns indicated a strong conservative minority in many of the
+solid Republican states. The strength of the radicals in the South,
+moreover, was due, in the main, to negro-carpetbag domination, and when
+these states should become conservative, as they were sure to do, the
+political parties would be almost evenly divided.[1]
+
+The man who was now entering upon his first experience as the holder
+of an elective office had risen from obscurity to public favor in the
+space of a few years. Although a graduate of West Point, with eleven
+years of military experience afterward, his career before 1861 had
+been hardly more than a failure. He had left the army in 1854 rather
+than stand trial on a charge of drunkenness; had grubbed a scanty
+living out of "Hard Scrabble," a farm in Missouri; had tried his hand
+at real estate, acted as clerk in a custom-house and worked in a
+leather store at $800 a year. Then came the war, and in less than
+three years Grant had received the title of Lieutenant-General, which
+only Washington had borne before him, and had become General-in-Chief
+of all the armies of the United States. Always an uncommunicative
+man, he kept his own counsel during the interval between his election
+and his inauguration. He saw few politicians, asked no advice about
+his cabinet, sought no assistance in preparing his inaugural address
+and made no suggestions to the leaders of his party concerning
+legislation that he would like to see passed. His first act, the
+appointment of his cabinet, caused a gasp of surprise and dismay.
+Most of the men named were but little known and some of them were not
+aware that they were being chosen until the list was made public. The
+Secretary of State, Elihu Washburne, was a close personal friend, and
+was appointed merely that he might hold the position long enough to
+enjoy the title and then retire. He was succeeded by Hamilton Fish,
+of New York, who proved to be a wise choice. The Secretary of the
+Treasury was A.T. Stewart, a rich merchant of New York, but he had to
+withdraw on account of a law forbidding any person "interested in
+carrying on the business of trade or commerce" to hold the office.
+The Secretary of the Navy, A.E. Borie, was a rich invalid of
+Philadelphia, who had almost no qualifications for his office and
+resigned at once. Better appointments were former Governor J.D. Cox,
+of Ohio, as Secretary of the Interior, and Judge E.R. Hoar, of
+Massachusetts, as Attorney-General.
+
+When the Congress elected with Grant assembled in 1869 its first act
+was a measure providing for the payment of the public debt in coin.
+Part of the Tenure of Office Act was repealed, the President having
+indicated his opposition to it. On the southern question General
+Grant had earlier inclined toward moderation, but radical counsels
+and the logic of events led him to join Congress in the passage of
+the enforcement act and the Ku Klux Act, both of which have already
+been mentioned.
+
+It was during this, the first year of Grant's administration, that
+there occurred the famous gold conspiracy of 1869. Jay Gould and
+James Fisk, Jr., two of the most unscrupulous stock gamblers of the
+time, determined to corner the supply of gold and then run its market
+price up to a high level, in order to further certain interests which
+they had recently purchased. The likelihood that the conspirators
+could carry out the plan depended largely on the Secretary of the
+Treasury, George S. Boutwell, who was accustomed to sell several
+millions of dollars' worth of gold each month. If the sales could be
+stopped Gould and Fisk might be successful. Accordingly, they got on
+friendly terms with the President through cultivating the acquaintance
+of his brother-in-law, were seen publicly with him at the theatre and
+other places, and subsequently he wrote to the Secretary expressing
+his opinion that the sales had better stop. Gould apparently was
+informed of this decision by the brother-in-law, even before the
+message reached the Secretary, and immediately bought up so much gold
+as to run the price to an unparalleled figure. This was on "Black
+Friday," September 24. The Secretary became alarmed, rumors were abroad
+that the administration was implicated in the conspiracy, and at noon,
+after consultation with the President, he decided to place four
+millions in gold on the market. At once the price dropped, brokers went
+bankrupt, and Gould and Fisk had to take refuge behind armed guards to
+save their lives. The President had not been a party to the plans of
+the speculators, but his blindness to their real purposes and his
+association with them during the period when their scheme was being
+perfected made him a target for all manner of accusations.
+
+Further astonishment was caused by the attitude of the President toward
+two of the three really able men in his cabinet. In June, 1870, he
+suddenly called for the resignation of Judge Hoar. It appeared that he
+was seeking votes in the Senate for a treaty in which he was interested
+and that certain southern members demanded the post of attorney-general
+for a southern man in return for their support. Secretary Cox's
+resignation came soon afterward. He had taken his department out of
+politics, had furthered the cause of civil service reform and had
+protected his employees from political party assessments. These acts
+brought him into collision with the politicians, who had the ear of the
+President, and Cox had to retire. Both Hoar and Cox were succeeded by
+mediocre men.
+
+The treaty which caused the removal of Secretary Hoar was one that the
+President had arranged providing for the annexation of San Domingo. The
+Senate was opposed to ratification, but General Grant was accustomed
+to overcoming difficulties and he urged his case with all the power at
+his command. One result was an unseemly wrangle between the President
+and Senator Charles Sumner over the latter's refusal to support
+ratification. General Grant, in resentment, procured the withdrawal
+of the Senator's friend, John Lothrop Motley from England, whither he
+had been sent as minister, and later the exclusion of Sumner from the
+chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations, a post in which he
+had displayed great ability for ten years. Eventually the President had
+to give way on San Domingo, as the Senate did not agree with him in his
+estimate of its probable value.
+
+In its conduct of our relations with England, on the other hand, the
+administration met with success and received popular approval. Ever
+since the war the people of the North had desired an opportunity to
+make Great Britain suffer for her attitude during that struggle.
+Senator Sumner struck a popular chord when he suggested that England
+should pay heavy damages on the ground that her encouragement of the
+South had prolonged the war. Specifically, however, the United States
+demanded reparation for destruction committed by the _Alabama_ and
+other vessels that had been built in English ports. In 1870 Europe
+was in a state of apprehension on account of the Franco-Prussian War,
+and Secretary Fish seized the opportunity to press our claims upon
+England. The latter, meanwhile, had abated somewhat her earlier
+attitude of unwillingness to arbitrate, and Fish placed little
+emphasis on Senator Sumner's suggestions of a claim for indirect
+damages. The Treaty of Washington, signed and ratified in May, 1871,
+provided for the arbitration of the _Alabama_ claims under such rules
+that a decision favorable to the American side of the case was made
+exceedingly probable. Each of five governments appointed a
+representative--the United States, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland
+and Brazil. The meeting took place in Geneva and resulted favorably
+to the American demands. England was declared to have failed to
+preserve the proper attitude for a neutral during the war and was
+ordered in 1872 to make compensation in the amount of $15,500,000.
+
+The United States had need of any feeling of national pride that
+might come as the result of the Geneva award, to offset the shame of
+domestic revelations, for one of the characteristics of the decade
+after the war was the wide-spread corruption in political and
+commercial life. One of the most flagrant examples was the Tweed Ring
+in New York. The government of that city was in the hands of a band
+of highwaymen, of whom William M. Tweed, the leader of Tammany Hall,
+was chief. Through the purchase of votes and the skilful distribution
+of the proceeds of their control, they managed to keep in power
+despite a growing suspicion that something was wrong. A favorite
+method of defrauding the city was to raise an account. One who had a
+bill against the city for $5,000 would be asked to present one for
+$55,000. When he did so, he would receive his $5,000 and the
+remainder would be divided among the members of the Ring. The
+plasterer, for example, who worked on the County Court House
+presented bills for nearly $3,000,000 in nine months. The New York
+_Times_ and the cartoons of Thomas Nast in _Harper's Weekly_ were the
+chief agents in arousing the people of the city to their situation.
+The former obtained and published proofs of the rascality of the
+Ring, mass meetings were held and an election in November, 1871,
+overturned Tweed and his associates. Some of them fled from the
+country, while Tweed himself died in jail.
+
+More important both because of its effect on national politics and
+because of its influence on railway legislation for many years
+afterward was the Credit Mobilier scandal. The Credit Mobilier was a
+construction company composed of a selected group of stockholders of
+the Union Pacific Railroad, the transcontinental line which was being
+built between 1865 and 1869. In their capacity of railroad
+stockholders they awarded themselves as stockholders of the
+construction company the contract to build and equip a large part of
+the railway. The terms which they gave themselves were so generous as
+to insure a handsome profit. Chief among the members of the Credit
+Mobilier was Oakes Ames, a member of Congress from Massachusetts.
+Late in 1867 Ames became fearful of railroad legislation that was
+being introduced in Washington and he therefore decided to take steps
+to protect the enterprise. He was given 343 shares of Credit Mobilier
+stock, which he placed among members of Congress where, as he said,
+they would "do most good." Rumors concerning the nature of the
+transaction resulted finally in accusations in the New York _Sun_
+during 1872, which involved the names of many prominent politicians.
+Congressional committees were at once appointed to investigate the
+charges, and their reports caused genuine sensations. Ames was found
+guilty of selling stock at lower than face value in order to
+influence votes in Congress and was censured by the House of
+Representatives. The Vice-President, Schuyler Colfax, and several
+others were so entangled in the affair as to lose their reputations
+and retire from public life for good. Still others such as James A.
+Garfield were suspected of complicity and were placed for many years
+on the defensive.
+
+Fear was wide-spread that political life in Washington was riddled
+with corruption. Corporations which were large and wealthy for that
+day were already getting a controlling grip on the legislatures of
+the states, and if the Credit Mobilier scandal were typical, had
+begun to reach out to Congress. Had the charges been made a little
+earlier they might have influenced the election of 1872, which turned
+largely on certain omissions and failings of the administration, and
+especially of General Grant himself.
+
+There is something intensely pathetic in General Grant as President
+of the United States--this short, slouchy, taciturn, unostentatious
+man who was more at ease with men who talked horses than with men who
+talked government or literature; this President who was unacquainted
+with either the theory or the practice of politics, who consulted
+nobody in choosing his cabinet or writing his inaugural address, who
+had scarcely visited a state capital except to capture it and had
+been elected to the executive chair in times that were to try men's
+souls. An indolent man, he called himself, but the world knew that he
+was tireless and irresistible on the field when necessity demanded,
+persistent, imperturbable, simple and direct in his language, and
+upright in his character. The tragedy of President Grant's career was
+his choice of friends and advisors. In Congress he followed the
+counsels of second-rate men who gave him second-rate advice; outside
+he associated too frequently with questionable characters who
+cleverly used him as a mask for schemes that were an insult to his
+integrity, but which his lack of experience and his utter inability
+to judge character kept hidden from his view. Honorable himself and
+loyal to a fault to his friends, he believed in the honesty of men
+who betrayed him, long after the rest of the world had discovered
+what they were. He could accept costly gifts from admirers and
+appoint these same men to offices, without dreaming that their
+generosity had sprung from any motive except gratitude for his
+services during the war.[2]
+
+It was inevitable, in view of these facts, that the presidential
+campaign of 1872 should be essentially an anti-Grant movement, but
+its particular characteristics had their origin before the General's
+first election. In 1865 a constitutional convention in Missouri had
+deprived southern sympathizers of the right to vote and hold office.
+A wing of the Republican party, led by Colonel B. Gratz Brown, had
+begun a counter-movement, intended to remove the restrictions on the
+southerners, and also to reform other abuses in the state. Colonel
+Brown had early received the assistance of General Carl Schurz, a man
+of ability with the temperament of a reformer. The Brown-Schurz
+faction had quickly increased in numbers, had become known as the
+Liberal Republican party and had attracted such interest throughout
+the country that a national conference was called for May, 1872, at
+Cincinnati. In adopting a conciliatory southern policy, the Liberal
+Republicans became opposed to the President, who had by this time
+become thoroughly committed to the radical program. Other critics of
+the administration, mainly Republicans, became interested in the
+Liberal revolt--those who deprecated the President's choice of
+associates and advisors, the civil service reformers who were aroused
+by the dismissal of Secretaries Hoar and Cox, and the tariff
+reformers who had vainly attempted to arouse enthusiasm for their
+plans.
+
+On account of the varied character of the elements which composed it
+and the independent spirit of its members, the Cincinnati assembly
+resembled a mass meeting rather than a well-organized political
+conference. It numbered among its members, nevertheless, many men of
+influence and repute. Some of the most powerful newspaper editors of
+the country, also, were friendly to its purpose, so that it seemed
+likely to be a decisive factor in the coming campaign. In most
+respects the platform reflected the anti-Grant character of the
+convention. It condemned the administration for keeping unworthy men
+in power, favored the removal of all disabilities imposed on
+southerners because of the rebellion, objected to interference by the
+federal government in local affairs--a reference to the use of troops
+to enforce the radical reconstruction policy--and advocated civil
+service reform. The convention found difficulty in stating its
+attitude toward the tariff question. It was deemed necessary to get
+the support of Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York _Tribune_,
+the most powerful northern newspaper of Civil War times, but Greeley
+was an avowed protectionist. The platform, therefore, evaded the
+issue by referring it to the people in their congressional districts,
+and to Congress. But the rock on which the movement met shipwreck was
+the nomination of a candidate. Many able men were available--Charles
+Francis Adams, who had been minister to England, Senator Lyman
+Trumbull, B. Gratz Brown and Judge David Davis of the Supreme Court.
+Any one of them would have made a strong candidate. The convention,
+however, passed over all of them and nominated Greeley, long known as
+being against tariff reform, against civil service reform and hostile
+to the Democrats, whose support must be obtained in order to achieve
+success. Although a journalist of great influence and capacity,
+Greeley was an erratic individual, whose appearance and manner were
+the joy of the cartoonist.
+
+The Republican convention met on June 5, and unanimously re-nominated
+Grant. The platform recited the achievements of the party since 1861,
+urged the reform of the civil service, advocated import duties and
+approved of the enforcement acts and amnesty.
+
+To the Democrats the greatest likelihood of success seemed to lie in
+the adoption of the Liberal Republican nominee and platform. Such a
+course, to be sure, would commit them to a candidate who had
+excoriated their party for years in his newspaper, and to the three
+war amendments to the Constitution, which the Liberal Republicans had
+accepted. Yet it promised the South relief from military enforcement
+of obnoxious laws, and that was worth much. Both Greeley and his
+platform were accordingly accepted.
+
+The enthusiasm for the Liberal movement which was observable at the
+opening of the campaign rapidly dwindled as the significance of the
+nomination became more clear. Greeley was open to attack from too
+many quarters. The cartoons of Nast in _Harper's Weekly_, especially,
+held him up to merciless ridicule. In the end he was defeated by
+750,000 votes in a total of six and a half million, a disaster which,
+together with the death of his wife and the overwork of the campaign
+resulted in his death shortly after the election. As for the
+Republicans they elected not only their candidate but also a
+sufficient majority in Congress to carry out any program that the
+party might desire.
+
+On March 3, 1873, as Grant's first term was drawing to a close,
+Congress passed a measure increasing the salary of public officials
+from the President to the members of the House of Representatives.
+The increase for Congressmen was made retroactive, so that each of
+them would receive $5,000 for the two years just past. To a country
+whose fears and suspicions had been aroused by the Credit Mobilier
+scandal, the "salary grab" and the "back pay steal" were fresh
+indications that corruption was entrenched in Washington. Senators
+and Representatives began at once to hear from their constituencies.
+Many of them returned the increase to the treasury and when the next
+session opened, the law was repealed except so far as it applied to
+the president and the justices of the Supreme Court.
+
+The congressional elections of 1874 indicated the extent of the
+popular distrust of the administration. In New York, where Samuel J.
+Tilden was chosen governor, and in such Republican strongholds as
+Massachusetts and Pennsylvania the Democrats were successful. In the
+House of Representatives the Republican two-thirds majority was wiped
+out and the Democrats given complete control. Even the redoubtable
+Benjamin F. Butler lost his seat.
+
+Further apprehensions were aroused by rumors concerning the
+operations of a "Whiskey Ring." For some years it had been suspected
+that a ring of revenue officials with accomplices in Washington were
+in collusion with the distillers to defraud the government of the
+lawful tax on whiskey. Part of the illegal gains were said to have
+gone into the campaign fund for Grant's re-election, although he was
+ignorant of the source of the revenue. Benjamin H. Bristow, who
+became Secretary of the Treasury in 1874, began the attempt to stop
+the frauds and capture the guilty parties. This was no simple task,
+because information of impending action was surreptitiously sent out
+by officials in Washington. Finally Secretary Bristow got the
+information which he sought, and then moved to capture the criminals.
+One of the most prominent members of the Ring was an internal revenue
+official in St. Louis who, it was recollected, had entertained
+President Grant, had presented him with a pair of horses and a wagon,
+and had given the General's private secretary a diamond shirt-stud
+valued at $2,400. Public opinion was yet further shocked, however,
+when the trail of indictments led to the President's private
+secretary, General Babcock. On first receiving the news of Bristow's
+discoveries, Grant had written "Let no guilty man escape"; but later
+he became secretly and then openly hostile to the investigation.
+During the trial of Babcock, the President asked to be a witness in
+his behalf. A verdict of acquittal was given, but afterwards the two
+men had a private conference, and when "Grant came out, his face was
+set in silence." Babcock never returned to the White House as
+Secretary, but was given the post of Superintendent of Public
+Buildings and Grounds. Several of the members of the Ring were
+imprisoned but were later pardoned by the President. In the meanwhile
+Grant seems to have been brought to believe that Bristow was
+persecuting Babcock with a view to getting the favor of the reform
+element in the party and eventually the presidential nomination.
+Relations between the two became strained and Bristow resigned.
+
+The last year of Grant's second administration was blackened by the
+case of W.W. Belknap, who was then Secretary of War. Investigation by
+a House committee uncovered the fact that since 1870 an employee in
+the Indian service had paid $12,000 and later $6,000 a year for the
+privilege of retaining his office. The money had been paid at first
+to Mrs. Belknap, who had made the arrangement, and after her death to
+the Secretary himself. The House unanimously voted to impeach him,
+but on the day when the vote was taken he resigned and the President
+accepted the resignation. Only the fact that he was out of office
+prevented the Senate from declaring him guilty, and critics of the
+administration noted that the President had saved another friend from
+deserved punishment.
+
+It would be easy to over-estimate the responsibility of General Grant
+for the political corruption of his administrations. For the most
+part the wrong-doing of the time began before his first election.
+Democrats as well as Republicans participated in many of the
+scandals. Politicians in the cities, the states and the nation seemed
+to be determined to have a share in the enormous wealth that was
+being created in America, and they got it by means that varied from
+the merely unethical and indiscreet, to the openly corrupt. As for
+the President, his own defence, given in his last message to
+Congress, may be taken as the best one: "Failures have been errors of
+judgment, not of intent."
+
+Under the circumstances, however, it was natural that the
+presidential campaign of 1876 should turn upon the failings of the
+administration. Popular interest in the southern issue was on the
+wane. Early in the election year, nevertheless, James G. Blaine,
+Republican leader in the House, made a forceful attack on Jefferson
+Davis, as the wilful author of the "gigantic murders and crimes at
+Andersonville," the southern prison in which federal captives had
+been held. Instantly the sectional hatred flared up and Blaine,
+already a well-known leader, became a prominent candidate for the
+nomination. Republican reformers generally favored Bristow. A
+third-term boom for Grant was effectively crushed by an adverse
+resolution in the House.
+
+The Republican nominating convention met on June 14. The virtues of
+Blaine were set forth in a famous speech by Robert G. Ingersoll in
+which he referred to the attack on Davis: "Like an armed warrior,
+like a plumed knight James G. Blaine marched down the halls of the
+American Congress and threw his shining lance full and fair against
+the brazen forehead of every traitor to his country." The "plumed
+knight," however, was open to attack concerning a scandal during the
+Grant regime, and the convention turned to Governor Rutherford B.
+Hayes, of Ohio, a man of quiet ability who had been unconnected with
+Washington politics, was relatively unknown and, therefore, not
+handicapped by the antagonisms of previous opponents. The platform
+emphasized the services of the party during the war, touched lightly
+on the events of the preceding eight years, advocated payment of the
+public debt, and favored import duties and the reform of the civil
+service.
+
+The Democrats met on June 27. There was little opposition to the
+nomination of Governor Samuel J. Tilden, of New York, a wealthy
+lawyer who had made a record as a reformer in opposition to "Boss"
+Tweed and a corrupt canal ring. The platform was distinctly a reform
+document. It demanded reform in the governments of states and nation,
+in the currency system, the tariff, the scale of public expense, and
+the civil service. An eloquent paragraph exhibited those corruptions
+of the administration which had caused such general dismay.
+
+There was little in the campaign that was distinctive, and on
+November 8, the morning after the election, it seemed clear that
+Tilden had been successful. He had carried the doubtful states of
+Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Indiana. When the figures were
+all gathered, it was found that his popular vote exceeded that of his
+rival by more than 250,000. But there were disputes in three states,
+Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina. Hayes would be elected only if
+the electoral votes of all these states could be obtained for him.
+If, however, Tilden received even one electoral vote from any of the
+states, the victory would be his. Hayes was conceded 166 electoral
+votes; Tilden 184. Nineteen were in dispute. The Republican leaders
+at once claimed the nineteen disputed votes, and asserted that their
+candidate was elected. The Democrats had no doubt of the victory of
+Tilden.[3] The capitals of the three doubtful states now became the
+centers of observation. Troops had long been stationed in South
+Carolina and Louisiana, and others were promptly sent to Florida.
+Prominent politicians from both parties also flocked thither, in
+order to uphold the party interests.
+
+In South Carolina it became evident that a majority of the popular
+vote was for Hayes, although both the Democratic and the Republican
+electors sent in returns to Washington. In Florida there was a board
+of canvassers which had power to exclude false or fraudulent votes.
+It was composed of two Republicans and one Democrat. When all ballots
+had been sent in, the Democrats claimed a majority of ninety; the
+Republicans a majority of forty-five. The board went over the returns
+and by a partisan vote threw out enough to make the Republican
+majority 924. Republican electoral votes were thereupon sent to
+Washington, but so also were Democratic votes. The situation in
+Louisiana was still more complicated. Political corruption and
+intimidation had been commonplaces in that state. On the face of the
+returns, Tilden's electors had received majorities varying from 6,000
+to 9,000. As in Florida there was a board of canvassers which was
+here composed of four Republicans, three of whom were men of low
+character. The vote of the state was offered to the Democrats, once
+for $1,000,000 and once for $200,000, but the offer was not taken.
+The board then threw out enough ballots to choose all the Hayes
+electors. As in the other cases, Democratic electors also sent
+ballots to Washington.
+
+There was no federal agency with power to determine which sets of
+electors were to be counted, and the fact that the federal Senate was
+Republican and the House Democratic seemed to preclude the
+possibility of legislation on the subject. No such critical situation
+had ever resulted from an election, and a means of settlement must
+quickly be discovered, for only three months would elapse after the
+electoral votes were sent to Washington, before the term of General
+Grant would expire. The means devised was the Electoral Commission.
+This body was to be composed of five senators, five representatives,
+and five justices of the Supreme Court. The Senate and the House were
+each to choose their five members, and four members of the Court were
+designated by the Act which established the Commission, with power to
+choose a fifth. It was understood that seven would be Republicans,
+seven Democrats and that the fifteenth member would be Justice David
+Davis, an Independent, who would be selected by his four colleagues.
+On him in all probability, the burden of the decision would fall. On
+the day when the Senate agreed to the plan, however, the Democrats
+and Independents in the Illinois legislature chose Justice Davis as
+United States Senator and under these circumstances he refused to
+serve on the Commission. It was too late to withdraw, and since all
+the remaining justices from whom a commissioner must be chosen were
+Republicans, the Democrats were compelled to accept a body on which
+they were outnumbered eight to seven.
+
+The Electoral Commission sat all through the month of February, 1877.
+Its decisions were uniformly in favor of Hayes electors by a vote of
+eight to seven, always along party lines, and on March 2, it was
+formally announced that Hayes had been elected. The disappointment of
+the Democrats was bitter and lasting, for their candidate had
+received over a quarter of a million popular votes more than his
+opponent, and yet had been declared defeated. For a time there was
+some fear of civil war. Tilden, however, accepted the decision of the
+Commission in good faith, and forbade his friends and his party to
+resist. Moreover, close friends of the Republican candidate assured
+southern Democratic politicians that Hayes if elected would adopt a
+conciliatory policy toward the South, and would allow the southern
+states to govern themselves unhampered by federal interference.
+Peaceful counsels prevailed, therefore, and the closing days of
+President Grant's administration were undisturbed by threats of
+strife.
+
+The question whether Hayes was fairly elected is a fascinating one.
+There is no doubt that there was fraud and intimidation on both
+sides, in the disputed states. In Louisiana, for example, the
+Democrats prevented many negroes from voting by outrageous
+intimidation, while the Republicans had many negroes fraudulently
+registered. Little is known, also, of the activities of the "visiting
+statesmen," as those politicians were called who went to the South to
+care for their party interests. It is known that they were well
+provided with money and that the boards of canvassers contained many
+unscrupulous men. Nor is it likely that politicians who lived in the
+days of the Credit Mobilier and the Whiskey King would falter at a
+bargain which would affect the election of a president. Republicans
+looked upon the Democrats as being so wicked that they were justified
+in "fighting the devil with fire." Democrats looked upon the election
+as so clearly theirs that no objection ought to be made to their
+taking what belonged to them. It seems certain, however, that Hayes
+had no hand in any bargains made by his supporters. As for Tilden,
+his wealth was such that he could have purchased votes if he had
+desired to do so, and the fact that all the votes went to his rival
+indicates that he did not yield to the temptation. Moreover, one of
+his closest associates, Henry Watterson, the journalist, tells of one
+occasion when the presidency was offered to Tilden and refused by
+him. Perhaps a definitive statement of the rights and wrongs of this
+famous election will never be made; for one after another the men
+most intimately associated with it have died leaving some account of
+their activities, but none of them has told much more than was
+already known.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+Dunning, Rhodes and Schouler, together with most of the works
+referred to at the close of Chapter 1, continue to be useful. L.A.
+Coolidge, _Ulysses S. Grant_ (1917), is not as partisan as most of
+the biographies of the time and is valuable despite a lack of a
+thorough understanding of the period. The following are valuable for
+especial topics: H. Adams, _Historical Essays_ (1891); C.F. Adams,
+Jr., and H. Adams, _Chapters of Erie_ (1886), (gold conspiracy); C.F.
+Adams, Jr., _Charles Francis Adams_ (Treaty of Washington); C.F.
+Adams, Jr., "The Treaty of Washington" in _Lee at Appomattox, and
+Other Papers_ (1902); James Bryce, _American Commonwealth_ (vol. II,
+various editions since 1888, contains famous chapter on the Tammany
+Tweed ring); A.B. Paine, _Thomas Nast, His Period and His Pictures_
+(1904), (Tweed ring). P.L. Haworth, _Hayes-Tilden Disputed
+Presidential Election of 1876_ (1906), is a thorough study; on this
+election, see also John Bigelow, _The Life of S.J. Tilden_ (2 vols.,
+1895), and C.R. Williams, _Life of Rutherford B. Hayes_ (2 vols.,
+1914).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The closing months of Johnson's administration found him almost in
+a state of isolation. The incoming President refused to have any
+social relations with him, or even to ride with him from the White
+House to the Capitol on inauguration day. After the installation of
+his successor, Johnson returned to Tennessee but was later chosen to
+the Senate, where he served but a short time before his death.
+
+[2] In 1884, a year before his death, the dishonesty of a trusted
+friend left him bankrupt, while a painful and malignant disease began
+slowly to eat away his life. Nevertheless, with characteristic courage
+he set himself to the task of dictating his _Memoirs_, or more often
+penciling sentences when he was unable to speak, in order that he
+might repay his debts with the proceeds.
+
+[3] There was also a technical question concerning one elector in
+Oregon, which was easily settled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS OF THE NEW ERA
+
+With the close of Grant's administration, the main immediate problems
+connected with political reconstruction came to an end. During the war,
+however, important economic and social developments had been taking
+place throughout the United States which were destined to take on
+greater and greater significance. The reconstruction problem looked
+backward to the war; the new developments looked forward to a new
+America. Reconstruction affected fewer and fewer people as time went
+on; the later changes ultimately transformed the daily life of every
+individual in the nation. Not only did they determine the means by
+which he earned his livelihood, but the comforts which he enjoyed, the
+conditions of rural or urban life which surrounded him, the ease with
+which he visited other portions of the country or obtained information
+concerning them, the number and variety of the foreign products that
+could be brought to him, the political problems upon which he thought
+and voted, and the attitude of the government toward his class in
+society. Most of these changes were distinguishable during the
+twenty-five years following the war and could be stated in brief and
+definite terms.
+
+From the standpoint of population, the growth of the country before
+1890, although not so rapid as it had been before the war, was both
+constant and important. Between 1870 and 1890 the numbers of people
+increased from nearly thirty-nine millions to nearly sixty-three
+millions, the rate each decade being not far from twenty-five per cent.
+Six states added more than a million each to their population--New York
+and Pennsylvania in the Northeast; Ohio, Illinois and Kansas in the
+Middle West; and Texas in the South. No fewer than seventeen others
+expanded by half a million or more--ten of the seventeen being in the
+valley drained by the Mississippi River system.
+
+Detailed study of particular sections of the country discloses a
+continuous shifting of population which indicates changes in the
+economic life of the people. In northern New England, the numbers
+increased slowly. Both Maine and New Hampshire lost from 1860 to 1870;
+nearly half of Maine's counties and nearly two-thirds of Vermont's lost
+population between 1880 and 1890; the people were abandoning the rural
+districts to flock to the cities or migrate to the West. Shipbuilding
+fell off in Maine; the dairy interests languished in Vermont, less
+wheat was being planted and the farmers, no longer growing wool, were
+selling their flocks. Most of the growth was to be found in the
+industrial counties. The traditional New England thrift, however, was
+not lost with the migration of the people, for savings bank deposits
+were increasing, and the state of Vermont was free from debt in 1880,
+and all its counties in 1890. The South, between 1870 and 1890,
+increased in numbers a little less rapidly than the country as a whole.
+On the Atlantic Coast the greatest relative expansion was in Florida;
+in the western South, in Texas. The increase was almost wholly native,
+as immigration did not flow into that section.
+
+The great expansion of the Middle West, from Ohio to Kansas, was based
+upon the public land policy of the federal government. Substantially
+all this region had once been in the possession of the United States,
+which had early adopted the system of laying out townships six miles
+on a side, with subdivisions one mile square, (containing 640 acres),
+called sections. An important feature of the policy had been the
+encouragement of education and of transportation through the gift
+of large grants of the public land. Moreover, settlement had been
+stimulated by the disposal of land to purchasers at extremely liberal
+figures. In 1862 the famous Homestead Act had inaugurated a still
+more generous policy. Under this law the citizen might settle upon a
+quarter-section and receive a title after five years of actual
+occupation, with no charge other than a slight fee. Millions of acres
+were taken up in this way both by natives and by immigrants. 1,300,000
+people poured into Illinois between 1870 and 1890; over 1,000,000 into
+Kansas, and nearly that number into Nebraska; in the Dakotas a young
+man of college age in 1890 might have remembered almost the entire
+significant portion of the history of his state and have been one of
+the oldest inhabitants. The frontier of settlement advanced from the
+western edge of Missouri into mid-Kansas, and almost met the growing
+population of the Far West, whose economic possibilities had already
+attracted attention.
+
+The discovery of gold-dust in a mill-race in California had drawn the
+"Forty-niners" to
+
+    ... lands of gold
+    That lay toward the sun.
+
+For a few years fabulous sums of the precious metal had been extracted
+from the ground by the hordes of treasure-seekers who had come from
+all over the world by boat, pack-animal or "prairie schooner," around
+Cape Horn, across the Isthmus of Panama or over the western mountains.
+When the yield of the mines had slackened, some of the population had
+filtered off to newer fields, but more had settled down to exploit the
+agricultural and lumber resources of California. In Nevada a rich vein
+of silver called the "Comstock Lode" had been discovered; in 1873 a
+group operating the "Virginia Consolidated" mine struck the great
+"bonanza," and the output reached unheard of proportions. The success
+of the mines, however, was essential to Nevada, which had few other
+resources to develop, and when the yield slowed down the population
+growth of the state noticeably slackened. In Colorado during the late
+fifties some prospectors had struck gold, and another rush had made
+"Pike's Peak or Bust" its slogan. Some had returned, "Busted by
+Thunder," but others had better fortune, discovered gold, silver or
+lead, and helped lay the foundations of Denver and Leadville. In Idaho
+and Montana, in Wyoming and South Dakota and other states, prospectors
+found gold, silver, copper and lead, and thus attracted much of the
+population that later settled down to occupations which were less
+feverish and more reliable than mining. In general, the advance of
+population into the Middle West was more or less regular, as wave on
+wave made its way into the Mississippi Basin; in the Far West,
+however, population extended in long arms up the fertile valleys of
+Washington, Oregon and California, or was found in scattered islands
+where mineral wealth had been discovered in the Rocky Mountain region.
+
+From the standpoint of absolute growth, the expansion of most of the
+far western states was not imposing, but the relative increase was
+suggestive of the future. Colorado nearly quadrupled in a decade,
+(1870-1880), and Washington equalled the record in the following ten
+years. California grew faster from 1870 to 1890 than it had done in
+the gold days, indicating that its development was based on something
+more lasting than a fickle vein of ore. Meanwhile politicians were
+fanning the desire of the growing territories to become states, and in
+1889 Montana and Washington were admitted, and in the following year
+Idaho and Wyoming. Of these, Washington alone had a population
+equivalent to the federal ratio for representation in the House.[1]
+
+Utah was kept outside for a few years longer, until the Mormon Church
+gave satisfactory indication that anti-polygamy laws were being
+enforced.
+
+The migration westward, which has been a constant factor in American
+development since early times, continued unabated after the Civil War;
+indeed the restless spirit aroused by the four years of conflict
+undoubtedly tended to increase this steady shift toward the West. By
+1890 approximately a fifth of the native Americans were to be found in
+states other than those in which they had been born. 95,000 natives of
+Maine, for example, were to be found in Massachusetts; 17,000 were in
+California; and considerable numbers in every state between the two.
+The North Carolinians were equally well distributed. 43,000 were in
+South Carolina, 18,000 in Texas, and 5,500 in Washington. Every state
+had contributed to populate every other, although in general the
+migration tended to take place on east and west lines, and
+predominantly westward.
+
+Within the westward-moving tide of population were swirling
+eddies--cities--which tended to attract to themselves larger and larger
+proportions of the surrounding people. In 1870 two men in every ten
+lived in cities whose population was 8,000 or more; by 1890 another man
+in every ten had forsaken rural life. Large cities like Boston and New
+York sucked in surrounding districts, and so constituted metropolitan
+centers with problems new to American life. Such cities as Birmingham,
+Kansas City, and Seattle were just appearing in 1880, but their growth
+was very rapid; Los Angeles increased ten fold and Minneapolis
+thirteen, between 1870 and 1890; Denver, having received ten newcomers
+between 1860 and 1870, added 102,000 in the following twenty years.
+In the country as a whole the concentration in cities was most marked
+in the area north of the Potomac and Ohio rivers and east of the
+Mississippi; the South remained rural, as before the war. With the
+growth of urban population came questions of lighting and water supply,
+street railway transportation and municipal government, industry,
+education, health and morals.[2]
+
+Immigration, another constant factor in American development,
+underwent important changes during the twenty-five years from 1865
+to 1890. Greater in prosperous years and smaller during years of
+depression, the inward tide reached its climax in 1882, when 789,000
+aliens reached the new world. That year, in several respects, was a
+turning point in the history of immigration into the United States.
+It was in this year that the Chinese were excluded; that immigration
+from Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia became of sufficient size to be
+impressive; and that the first inclusive federal immigration act was
+passed. The immigration law of 1882 defined, in general, the policy
+which the nation has pursued ever since. It placed a tax of fifty
+cents on all incomers to be paid by the ship companies; it forbade the
+landing of objectionable persons, such as convicts and lunatics; and
+it placed on the owners of vessels the expense of returning immigrants
+not permitted to land. All these provisions were amended or developed
+in later laws, like that of 1885 forbidding persons or corporations to
+prepay the transportation of laborers or to encourage immigration
+under contract to perform work. The greater part of the foreign
+population settled in the manufacturing and urban North. Put into
+simplest terms, the census of 1890 showed that of every hundred aliens
+who had come to the United States between 1870 and 1890, thirty-seven
+were to be found in the states from Maine to Pennsylvania, four from
+Delaware to Texas, forty-seven from Ohio to Kansas and twelve in the
+Far West (for the most part Chinese).
+
+Of the great economic interests of the United States, the most
+widespread was agriculture. In the Northeast, to be sure, the amount
+of improved farm land had been growing steadily less since 1850 and
+the people had been turning their energies into other activities. In
+the South, on the other hand, agriculture formed the main economic
+resource and the twenty-five years following the war were, for the
+most part, consumed in recovering from that struggle. Although
+conditions varied from place to place, the situation in many portions
+of the South was little short of pitiable. Not only were factories,
+public buildings and railroads, houses and barns, tools and seeds
+destroyed, capital and credit gone, mining at a standstill and banks
+ruined, but bands of thieves infested many districts, federal officers
+were frequently dishonest and defrauded the people, and the entire
+labor system was wiped out at a stroke. The negroes had not been ideal
+workmen as slaves; now, as freedmen, they found difficulty in
+adjusting themselves to the economic obligations of their new status,
+and evinced a tendency to rove about restlessly, instead of settling
+down to the stern task of helping to rebuild the shattered South.
+
+It was manifest that the first problem was to revive the agricultural
+activities of the old days, and that the main resource must be cotton,
+the demand for which in the markets of the North and of Europe was
+such as to make it the best "money crop." A labor system was
+introduced known as share-farming or cropping. Under this system the
+plantation owner who had more property than he could cultivate under
+the new conditions let parts of his land to tenants, supplying them
+with buildings, tools, seed and perhaps credit at the village store
+for the supplies necessary for the year. The tenant, who had neither
+money nor credit with which to buy land, furnished the labor, and at
+the harvest each received a specified share of the product, commonly a
+half. The system had its disadvantages; it kept the farmer always in
+debt, and since the only valuable security which the plantation owner
+had was the crop--the land being almost unsalable--he insisted on
+the cultivation of cotton, which was a safe crop, and avoided
+experimentation and diversification. On the other hand, the system
+enabled the land owner to take advantage of the labor supply and to
+supervise the untutored negro,--and it kept the South alive. In
+addition to the large plantations, cultivated by several tenant
+farmers, the number of small farms tilled by independent owners or
+renters increased. Due to this tendency and to the opening of many
+small holdings in the Southwest, the size of the average farm
+diminished, so that the small farmer began to replace the plantation
+owner as the typical southerner.
+
+Owing to the insistence of land owners upon cotton culture, the South
+first caught up with its _ante-bellum_ production in the cultivation
+of this staple, for shortly before 1880 the crop exceeded that of
+1860. The production of tobacco, the second great southern crop,
+sharply shifted after the war from the Atlantic Coast states, except
+North Carolina, to the Mississippi region, especially to Kentucky.
+Maryland, indeed, never again produced much more than half as great a
+crop as she did in 1860, while Virginia did not equal her former
+record until the opening of the twentieth century, although the South
+as a whole recovered in the late eighties. Rice culture, likewise, did
+not recover readily for South Carolina alone produced almost as much
+in 1860 as the entire South in 1890, and not until the development of
+production in Louisiana after 1890 did the crop assume its former
+importance. The production of sugar in Louisiana in 1890 was but
+little greater than it had been in 1860, and in the production of
+cereals the South did not keep pace with the upper Mississippi Valley
+before 1890. On the other hand the rapid growth of Texas was one of
+the outstanding features of southern development during the period,
+for that state improved an amount of farm land between 1870 and 1890,
+roughly equivalent to the combined areas of New Hampshire, Vermont,
+and Massachusetts. There was observable, moreover, a certain
+hopefulness, a certain resiliency of purpose, a pride in the
+achievements of the past and in the possibilities of the future. In
+these respects the South was a new South by 1890.
+
+Greater than the South as a food-producing area, was the belt of
+states from Ohio and Michigan to Kansas and the Dakotas:
+
+    Where there's more of reaping and less of sowing,
+    That's where the West begins.
+
+The increased occupation of the public lands, the growth of population,
+improvements in transportation and the greater use of agricultural
+machinery, which could be employed to advantage on the large and
+relatively level farms, led to developments that were destined to have
+an important effect on the history of the nation. Agricultural
+machinery, such as the reaper, had been known long before the war, but
+the reduction of the labor supply from 1861 to 1865 had compelled
+farmers to replace men with machines. A reaper that merely cut the
+grain and tossed it aside, gave way at last to one which not only cut
+the grain, but gathered it into sheaves and bound the sheaves with
+twine. So great was the effect of the harvester upon western
+agriculture that William H. Seward declared that it "pushed the
+frontier westward at the rate of thirty miles a year."
+
+Due to the facts already mentioned, the number of mid-western farms
+increased nearly a million from 1870 to 1890, and the acreage in
+improved farm land grew by an amount equivalent to the combined areas
+of the British Isles, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark, with a
+generous margin to spare. The production of corn, wheat, oats and other
+cereals became so great as to demand an outlet to the East and to the
+markets of the world. Elevators for the storage of grain were
+constructed with a capacity of 300,000 to 1,000,000 bushels, and
+improvements were made in the methods of loading and unloading the
+product. Despite the growth of the agricultural interests of the Middle
+West, however, the farmer did not reach prosperity. For twenty years
+after 1873 prices fell steadily both in the United States and in other
+countries of the world, and the agricultural classes found themselves
+receiving a smaller and smaller return for their products. Unrest grew
+to distress, and distress to acute depression, while the demands of the
+farmers for relief frequently determined the trend of mid-western
+politics.[3]
+
+[Illustration:
+Relative Prices--1865-1890]
+
+Less general than agriculture, but more characteristic of the period
+after the war, was the development of manufacturing. The census of 1870
+was faulty and inadequate, but it was sufficiently accurate to indicate
+that the manufacturing region was preeminently that north of the
+Potomac-Ohio river line and east of the Mississippi. By 1890 it was
+apparent that the industrial interests were shifting slightly toward
+the West; nevertheless the leading states were those of southern New
+England, and New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In these states no
+fewer than four hundred and forty-seven industries employed more than a
+million dollars of capital each. The manufacturing of cotton, woolen
+and silk for the rest of the country was done here; foundry products,
+iron and steel manufactures, silver and brass goods, refined petroleum,
+boots and shoes, paper and books, with a host of other articles, were
+sent from this section to every part of the world. All along the line,
+from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania, capital engaged in manufacturing
+doubled between 1880 and 1890, and the number of employees greatly
+increased.
+
+Although the industrial life of the South belongs, for the most part,
+to the years since 1890, the coal and iron deposits of Alabama were
+known and utilized before that year, the number of cotton mill spindles
+in North Carolina tripled between 1880 and 1890, and cotton expositions
+were held in Atlanta in 1881 and New Orleans in 1884. It was in the
+eighties, also, that the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and the Norfolk
+and Western led to the exploitation of the coal deposits of Virginia
+and West Virginia, especially the famous Pocahontas field.
+
+Some aspects of the growth of manufacturing in the North are well
+illustrated in the development of the mineral resources around Lake
+Superior. The presence of copper and iron in this region had long been
+known, but they had not been utilized until a decade before the Civil
+War, and even then the output had been greatly restricted by
+insufficient transportation facilities. By the close of the war,
+however, a canal had been constructed which allowed the passage of
+barges from Lake Superior to Lake Huron, and railroads had been laid to
+a few important mining centers. The Marquette iron range in northern
+Michigan, the Gogebic in Wisconsin and Michigan, the Menominee near
+Marquette, the Vermilion Lake and Mesabec ore-beds near Duluth,--all
+these combined to yield millions of tons of ore, caused the development
+of numerous mining towns and laid the foundations of a gigantic
+expansion in the production of steel. As the iron and steel industry
+with its furnaces, machinery and skilled labor was already established
+at points in Illinois, Ohio and western Pennsylvania, it was cheaper to
+transport the ore to these places than to transfer the industry to the
+mines. Ore vessels were constructed capable of carrying mammoth
+cargoes; docks, railroads and canals were built; and the products of
+the mines taken to lake and inland cities. Improvements, meanwhile,
+were being continually made in the steel industry, such as the Bessemer
+process, by which the impurities were burned out of the iron ore, and
+exactly enough carbon introduced into the molten metal to transform it
+into steel.
+
+Although the steel industry was established in many places, its most
+dramatic growth occurred in those parts of eastern Ohio and western
+Pennsylvania that center about the city of Pittsburg. Placed
+strategically at the point where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers
+join to form the Ohio, in the midst of an area rich in coal, petroleum
+and natural gas, Pittsburg rapidly became the center of a region in
+which the development of manufacturing and the construction of
+railroads dwarfed other interests. A large portion of the ore mined in
+the Lake Superior fields was carried to the Pittsburg district to be
+transformed into steel products of all kinds. Moreover, the fortunes
+made by private individuals in the region, and the inflow of alien
+laborers to work in the factories and on the railroads raised weighty
+social and industrial problems.
+
+Manifestly the extension of agriculture and industry in so large a
+country as the United States was dependent upon the corresponding
+growth of the means of transportation, both by water and by rail. A
+detailed account of the expansion of the railway net, with the
+accompanying' implications in the fields of finance and politics, is a
+matter for later consideration. Certain of its general features may be
+mentioned, however, because they are intimately interwoven with the
+economic developments which have just been explained. The concentration
+of the population in the cities, of which New York and Chicago were
+outstanding examples, was one of these features. From the time of the
+first census, the city of New York continued to maintain its position
+as the most populous city of the nation. Between 1850 and 1890 it added
+a round million to its numbers, containing 1,515,000 persons at the
+later date. Moreover it was the center of a thriving and thickly
+settled region extending from New Haven on the one side to Philadelphia
+on the other--the most densely populated area in America. The
+uninterrupted expansion of the city indicated that the reasons for its
+growth were constant in their operation. And, in fact, the reasons were
+not difficult to find. It was blessed with one of the world's finest
+harbors and had access to the interior of the state by way of the
+Hudson and Mohawk rivers. These natural advantages had long since been
+recognized and had been increased by the construction of the Erie Canal
+in 1825 which, with the Great Lakes and the several canals connecting
+the Lakes with the Ohio Valley, had given New York an early hold and
+almost a monopoly on the trade between the upper Mississippi, the Lakes
+and the coast. The city, therefore, became an importing and exporting
+center; its shipping interests grew, immigration flowed in, and its
+manufacturing establishments soon outstripped those of any other
+industrial center; the great printing and publishing, banking and
+commercial firms were drawn irresistibly to the most populous city, and
+Wall Street became the synonym for the financial center of the nation.
+
+In 1840 Chicago had been an unimportant settlement of 4500 persons, but
+by the opening of the war it had grown to twenty-five times that size,
+and added 800,000 between 1870 and 1890. It had early become evident
+that the city was the natural outlet toward the East for the grain
+trade and the slaughtering and meatpacking industry of the upper
+Mississippi Valley. Before the late sixties, however, railway
+connection was defective, being composed of many short lines rather
+than of one continuous road, so that freight had to be loaded and
+unloaded many times during its passage to the seaboard. This situation,
+which had been merely inconvenient before the war, had become little
+short of intolerable during the struggle, because the closing of the
+Mississippi had cut off from the Middle West its water outlet toward
+the South and had diverted more freight to the railroads. After the
+war, Cornelius Vanderbilt, president of the Hudson River Railroad,
+combined a number of the shorter roads so as to give uninterrupted
+communication between Chicago and New York, to tap the trade of the
+Mississippi Valley, and to compete with water traffic by way of the
+Great Lakes and the Erie Canal. Other railroads saw the possibilities
+in the western trade, and the Baltimore and Ohio, the Grand Trunk, and
+the Erie followed the lead of Vanderbilt. A similar development,
+although on a smaller scale, accompanied the growth of other northern
+cities. The retroactive effects of the roads on the distribution of the
+population are too detailed for discussion, but a single example may
+typify many. In 1870 the Maine farmer supplied much of the meat
+consumed in Boston; by 1895, he was getting his own meat from the West.
+He must, therefore, adapt himself to the new conditions if he could,
+move to the manufacturing cities as so many of his neighbors did, or
+migrate to the West.
+
+Like the growth of New York and Chicago, the development of California
+had an important effect on the history of American railway
+transportation. Although it had been agitated for many years, the
+project for a railroad from the Mississippi to the Pacific Coast had
+not reached the construction stage until the congressional acts of 1862
+and 1864 provided for a line to be built from Omaha to San Francisco.
+The Union Pacific Railroad had been incorporated to build the eastern
+end, while the western end was to be constructed by the Central Pacific
+Railroad Company, a California corporation. The latter act, that of
+1864, had given the roads substantial financial assistance and half the
+public land on a strip forty miles wide along the line of the track.
+Many difficulties had stood in the way--lack of funds, problems of
+construction and inadequate labor supply. Eventually they had all been
+overcome by the energy and skill of such men as Stanford, Crocker and
+Huntington. Imported Chinese coolies had met the labor demand and
+construction was speeded up. Actual building had begun in 1863 and six
+years later the two roads met at Promontory Point near Ogden in Utah,
+where the last spike was driven, the engines
+
+    Facing on the single track,
+      Half a world behind each back.
+
+During the four years following the completion of the transcontinental
+line, 24,000 miles of new railroad were constructed, much of which was
+built into the wilderness ahead of settlement. So great an expansion,
+coming at a time when immense stretches of new land were being opened
+and industry being developed on a large scale, could hardly fail to
+result in over-speculation. The results appeared in 1873. Jay Cooke and
+Company, the most important financial concern in the country had been
+back of the Northern Pacific Railroad, marketing large quantities of
+its bonds and so providing capital for construction, the purchase of
+equipment, the payment of wages and so on. Obviously a large amount of
+money was thus being put into an enterprise from which returns would
+come only after a considerable period; and yet construction had to be
+continued, or what was already invested would be lost. What Cooke was
+doing for the Northern Pacific was being done for the Chesapeake and
+Ohio by Fisk and Hatch, and by other firms for speculative enterprises
+in every corner of the land.
+
+The process of putting capital into fixed form could hardly go on
+forever, and several events led to a final crash. In 1871 and 1872
+great fires in Chicago and Boston destroyed millions of dollars' worth
+of property. Early in 1873 the government investigation of the Credit
+Mobilier Company led to widespread distrust of the roads and made
+investors conservative about buying bonds. On September 18, 1873, Jay
+Cooke and Company found itself unable to continue business and closed
+its doors. The failure was a thunderbolt to the financial world.
+Indeed, so unbelievable was the news that an energetic policeman
+arrested a small newsboy who shouted his "Extra--All about the failure
+of Jay Cooke."
+
+If Jay Cooke and Company fell, the sky might fall. People rushed to
+withdraw their funds from the banks. Fisk and Hatch opened their doors
+for fifteen minutes and received calls for $1,500,000. They closed at
+once. The smaller financial institutions followed the bigger ones.
+Stocks fell, the Exchange was closed, there was a money famine.
+Industrial concerns, dependent on the banks, failed by scores.
+Industrial paralysis, with railroad receiverships, laborers out of
+employment, riots and their accompaniments, showed how deep-seated had
+been the trouble. Not until late in the decade did business recover its
+former prosperity.
+
+With the return of more stable conditions the construction of railroads
+continued unabated. The Northern Pacific ran near the Canadian line and
+connected the upper Mississippi Valley with the coast, carrying in its
+trail the manners and customs of the East. Two lines in the South were
+extended to the Pacific, so that by the middle eighties four great main
+avenues gave passage through a region over which, so recently, the
+miner and the trapper had forced a dangerous path.
+
+The fact that it was often necessary, in building the railroads across
+the plains, to detail half the working force to protect the remainder
+against the Indians, calls attention to one unmistakable result of the
+conquest of the Far West. The construction of the railroads spelled the
+doom of the wild Indian. Far back in 1834 the government had adopted
+the policy of setting aside large tracts of land west of the
+Mississippi for the use of the Indian tribes. Most of the savages had
+been stationed in an immense area between southern Minnesota and Texas,
+while other smaller reservations had been scattered over most of the
+states west of the river. On the whole, the government had dealt with
+the Indians in tribes, not as individuals. The rapid inflow of
+population to the fertile lands, together with the rush of prospectors
+to newly discovered supplies of gold and silver, caused increasing
+demands from the Indians for protection, and from the whites for the
+extinguishment of Indian land titles.
+
+The classical illustration of this tendency is found in the case of the
+Sioux Indians in South Dakota. The discovery of gold in the region of
+the Black Hills, on the Sioux reservation, aroused agitation for the
+removal of the tribe to make way for settlers and miners. But the
+execution of the scheme was not so simple as its conception. The
+removal of the Sioux necessitated the transfer of the Poncas, a
+peaceful tribe which lay immediately east. The latter, not unnaturally,
+objected, quarrels arose and eventually the Poncas were practically
+broken to pieces. The Sioux, not satisfied, attempted to regain the
+Black Hills, fought the famous Sioux War of 1876, led by Sitting Bull,
+but were crushed and forced to give up the unequal contest.
+
+It would not be worth while to enter into the details of the numerous
+Indian conflicts after the Civil War. It is enough to notice that
+stirring accounts of them may be read in the memoirs of such soldiers
+as Custer, Sheridan and Miles, and that they cost millions of dollars
+and hundreds of lives. Finally it became evident that the attempt to
+deal with the Indians in tribes was a failure and it was determined to
+break up the tribal holdings of land so as to give each individual a
+small piece for his private property, and to open the remainder to
+settlement by the whites. In pursuance of such a policy, the Dawes Act
+of 1887 provided for the allotment of a quarter-section to each head of
+a family, with the proviso that the owner should not sell the land
+within twenty-five years. This was intended to protect the Indian from
+shrewd "land-sharks." Citizenship was given with the ownership of the
+land, in the hope that a sort of assimilation might gradually take
+place, and earnest attempts were made to provide education for the
+red-man. Not all these hopes were realized, however, and the later
+Burke Act, 1906, attempted further protection.
+
+While the Indian was being restricted to a small part of the great
+region west of the Mississippi, there was being enacted on the plains
+one of the most picturesque of all American dramas. Beyond the settled
+parts of the states just west of the "Father of Waters," bounded north
+and south by Canada and the Rio Grande, and extending west to the Rocky
+Mountain foot-hills, lay a huge empire of rolling territory. It was
+grass-covered, but lacked sufficient rainfall to make it fertile, so
+that it was considered, as part of it had early been called, "the great
+American desert."
+
+Cattle turned loose long before by Spanish ranchers down in the
+Southwest had multiplied, spread out over the plains, and run
+wild--wild as Texas steers. A combination of circumstances disclosed
+the fact that these cattle could be improved by breeding, corraled and
+driven north over the "Long Trail," to be slaughtered in Omaha, Kansas
+City, St. Louis and Chicago for the people of eastern cities. The
+round-up, when the cattle were collected; the drive, under command of
+the boss and his cow-boys,
+
+    loose in the unfenced blue riding the sunset rounds;
+
+the great ranches in the North, where the herds were fattened for the
+market;--all this formed the background of an attractive romance.
+Obviously, however, the drive was dependent on great stretches of open
+country, with free grazing and free access to water, and it is also
+manifest that these conditions could not long endure in the face of
+constant westward migration. Homesteaders followed the railroads out
+across the plains, and the cheapening of wire fence led to the
+enclosure of great farms including the best grazing lands and the water
+supply. By 1890, therefore, the great drives were a tale that is told.
+The less romantic packing business remained, however; ranches supplied
+the cattle, the railroads transported them, and improvements in
+refrigerating and canning made possible another development in domestic
+and foreign trade.
+
+In addition to the expansion of the several economic interests of the
+various sections of the country, inventions and improvements were
+taking place which affected the general problems of production and
+distribution. Improvements in machinery saved forty to eighty per cent.
+of the time and labor demanded in the production of important
+manufactured goods. Cheapened steel affected all kinds of industry. The
+development of steam-power and the beginnings of the practical use of
+electricity for power and light multiplied the effectiveness of human
+hands or added to human comfort. Cheaper and quicker transportation
+almost revolutionized the distribution of economic goods. The increased
+use of the telegraph and cable shortened distances and brought together
+producers and consumers that had in earlier times been weeks of travel
+apart.
+
+The necessarily statistical character of an account of economic
+development should not obscure the meaning of its details. Increased
+population, with its horde of incoming aliens, created a demand for
+standing room, necessitated westward expansion, and made the West more
+than ever a new country with new problems. The growth of agriculture
+enlarged a class that had not hitherto been as influential as it was
+destined to be, and brought into politics the economic needs of the
+farmer. Manufacturing brought great wealth into the hands of a few,
+created an increasing demand for protective tariffs and gave rise to
+strikes and other industrial problems. The concentration of especial
+interests in especial sections made likely the emergence of sectional
+antagonisms. Back of tariff and finance, therefore, back of
+transportation and labor, of new political parties and revolts in the
+old ones, of the great strikes and the increasing importance of some of
+the sections, lay the economic foundations of the new era.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+No thorough study of the economic history of the United States after
+the Civil War has yet been made. E.L. Bogart, _Economic History of the
+United States_ (1907), and various later editions, is the best single
+volume; E.E. Sparks, _National Development_ (1907), is useful. On the
+South, consult articles by St. G.L. Sioussat, in _History Teachers'
+Magazine_ (Sept., Oct., 1916); P.A. Bruce, _Rise of the New South_
+(1905); J.C. Ballagh (ed.), _South in the Building of the Nation_
+(1909), vol. VI; M.B. Hammond, _Cotton Industry_ (1897). R.P. Porter,
+_West from the Census of 1880_ (1882), is a useful compendium. The
+Plains in the day of the cowboy are well described in Emerson Hough,
+_Passing of the Frontier_ (1918); Emerson Hough, _Story of the Cowboy_
+(1898); F.L. Paxson, _Last American Frontier_ (1910); and F.L. Paxson,
+"The Cow Country," in _American Historical Review_, Oct., 1916. N.A.
+Miles, _Serving the Republic_ (1911), contains reminiscences of Indian
+conflicts. On the Far West, in addition to Porter, Hough and Paxson,
+Katharine Coman, _Economic Beginnings of the Far West_ (2 vols., 1912);
+H.K. White, _Union Pacific Railway_ (1898); L.H. Haney, _Congressional
+History of Railways_ (2 vols., 1908-1910); S.E. White, _The
+Forty-Niners_ (1918).
+
+There is also an abundance of useful illustrative fiction, such as:
+Bret Harte, _Luck of Roaring Camp_, and other stories (Far West);
+Edward Eggleston, _Hoosier Schoolmaster_ (Indiana); W.D. Howells,
+_Rise of Silas Lapham_ (New England); G.W. Cable, _Old Creole Days_
+(New Orleans); C.E. Craddock, _In the Tennessee Mountains_; F.H.
+Smith, _Colonel Carter_ (Virginia); Hamlin Garland, _Main Travelled
+Roads_ and _Son of the Middle Border_ (Middle West); P.L. Ford, _Hon.
+Peter Sterling_ (New York); S.E. White, _Gold_ (California); and
+_Riverman_ (Lake Superior lumber); John Hay, _Breadwinners_ (industrial).
+
+For other references to economic aspects of the period, see chapters
+IX, XI, XIV.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The ratio was 151,912 but, by a provision of the Constitution,
+states are given a representative even if they do not contain the
+requisite number.
+
+[2] The most important advances in municipal street railway
+transportation were made between 1875 and 1890. In 1876 New York began
+the construction of an overhead or elevated railway on which trains
+were drawn by small locomotives. The first electric street railways
+were operated in Richmond, Va., and in Baltimore. Electric street
+lighting was introduced in San Francisco in 1879.
+
+[3] Hamlin Garland, _Main Travelled Roads_, portrays the hardships of
+western farm life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND OF THE NEW ISSUES
+
+Powerful as economic forces were from 1865 to 1890, they did not alone
+determine the direction of American progress during those years.
+Different individuals and different sections of the country reacted
+differently to the same economic facts; a formula that explained a
+phenomenon satisfactorily to one group, carried no conviction to
+another; political parties built up their platforms on economic
+self-interest, and yet they sometimes had their ideals; theories that
+seemed to explain economic development were found to be inadequate and
+were replaced by others; and practices that had earlier been regarded
+with indifference began to offend the public sense of good taste or
+morals or justice, and gave way to more enlightened standards. Some
+understanding is necessary, therefore, of the more common theories,
+ideals, creeds and practices, because they supplemented the economic
+foundations that underlay American progress for a quarter century after
+the war.
+
+Since the Republican party was almost continuously in power during this
+period, its composition, spirit and ideals were fundamental in
+political history. Throughout the North, and especially in the
+Northeast, the intellectual and prosperous classes, the capitalists and
+manufacturers, were more likely to be found in the Republican party
+than among the Democrats. In fact such party leaders as Senator George
+F. Hoar went so far as to assert that the organization comprised the
+manufacturers and skilled laborers of the East, the soldiers, the
+church members, the clergymen, the school-teachers, the reformers and
+the men who were doing the great work of temperance, education and
+philanthropy. The history of the party, also, was no small factor in
+its successes. Many northerners had cast their first ballot in the
+fifties, with all the zeal of crusaders; they looked back upon the
+beginnings of Republicanism as they might have remembered the origin of
+a sacred faith; they thought of their party as the body which had
+abolished slavery and restored the Union; and they treasured the names
+of its Lincoln, its Seward, its Sumner and Grant and Sherman. The
+Republican party, wrote Edward MacPherson in 1888, in a history of the
+organization, is
+
+    both in the purity of its doctrines, the beneficent sweep of its
+    measures, in its courage, its steadfastness, its fidelity, in its
+    achievements and in its example, the most resplendent political
+    organization the world has ever seen.
+
+Senator Hoar declared that no party in history, not even that which
+inaugurated the Constitution, had ever accomplished so much in so short
+a time. It had been formed, he said, to prevent the extension of
+slavery into the territories, but the "providence of God imposed upon
+it far larger duties." The Republican party gave "honest, wise, safe,
+liberal, progressive American counsel" and the Democrats "unwise,
+unsafe, illiberal, obstructive, un-American counsel." He remembered the
+Republican nominating convention of 1880 as a scene of "indescribable
+sublimity," comparable in "grandeur and impressiveness to the mighty
+torrent of Niagara."
+
+During the generation after the war the recollection of the struggle
+was fresh in men's minds and its influence was a force in party
+councils. The Democrats were looked upon as having sympathized with the
+"rebellion" and having been the party of disunion. In campaign after
+campaign the people were warned not to admit to power the party which
+had been "traitor" to the Union. Roscoe Conkling, the most influential
+politician in New York, declared in 1877 that the Democrats wished to
+regain power in order to use the funds in the United States Treasury to
+repay Confederate war debts and to provide pensions for southern
+soldiers. As late even as 1888 the nation was urged to recollect that
+the Democratic party had been the "mainstay and support of the
+Rebellion," while the Republicans were the "party that served the
+Nation."
+
+At a later time it was pointed out that the party had not been founded
+solely on idealism; that the adherence of Pennsylvania to the party,
+for example, was due at least in a measure to Republican advocacy of a
+protective tariff; that Salmon P. Chase and Edwin M. Stanton, two of
+the leading members of Lincoln's cabinet had been Democrats; and that
+Lincoln's second election and the successful outcome of the war had
+been due partly to the support of his political opponents. As time went
+on, also, some of the leaders of the Republican party declared that its
+original ideals had become obscured in more practical considerations.
+They felt that abuses had grown up which had been little noticed
+because of the necessity of keeping in power that party which they
+regarded as the only patriotic one. They asserted that many of the
+managers had become arrogant and corrupt. All this helped to explain
+the strength of such revolts as that of the Liberal Republican movement
+of 1872. Nevertheless, during the greater part of the twenty-five years
+after the war, hosts of Republicans cherished such a picture as that
+drawn by Senator Hoar and Edward MacPherson, and it was that picture
+which held them within the party and made patriotism and Republicanism
+synonymous terms.
+
+These Republicans, however, who took the more critical attitude toward
+their party formed the core of the "Mugwump" or Independent movement.
+Their philosophy was simple. They believed that there ought to be a
+political element which was not rigidly controlled by the discipline of
+party organization, which would act upon its own judgment for the
+public interest, and which should be a reminder to both parties that
+neither could venture upon mischievous policies without endangering its
+control over the machinery of government. Theoretically, at least, the
+Independent believed that it was more important that government be well
+administered than that it be administered by one set of men or another.
+The weakness of this group, aside from its small size, was its
+impatience and impracticability. By nature the Independent was an
+individualist, forming his own opinion and holding it with tenacity. In
+such a body there could not be long-continued cooperation or singleness
+of purpose; each new problem caused new decisions resulting in the
+break-up of the group and the formation of new alignments. The
+Independent group, therefore, varied in strength from campaign to
+campaign. To the typical party worker, who looked upon politics as a
+warfare for the spoils of office, the Independent was variously
+denounced as a deserter, a traitor, an apostate and a guerilla
+deploying between the lines and foraging now on one side and now on the
+other. To the party wheel-horse, independent voting seemed
+impracticable, and the atmosphere of reform too "highly scented."
+
+The Democrats, laboring under the disadvantage of a reputation for
+disloyalty during the war, and kept out of power for most of the time
+during the period, were forced into a defensive position where they
+could complain or criticize, but not present a program of constructive
+achievement. They denounced the election of 1876 as a great "fraud";
+they looked upon the Republicans as the organ of those who demanded
+class advantages; they condemned the party as wasteful, corrupt and
+extravagant in administration, careless of the distress of the masses,
+and desirous of increasing the authority of the federal government at
+the expense of the powers of the states. Their own mission they felt to
+be the constant assertion of the opposite principles of government and
+administration. They felt that they in particular represented
+government by the people for the equal good of all classes. In
+conformity to what they believed to be the principles of Jefferson and
+Jackson they professed faith in the capacity of the plain people. They
+advocated frugality and economy in government expenditure and looked
+with alarm on any extension of federal power that invaded the
+traditional domain of local activity.
+
+The intensification of party spirit and party loyalty, which was so
+typical of the times, "delivered the citizen more effectually, bound
+hand and foot, into the power of the party embodied in its
+Organization." The organization, meanwhile, was being improved and
+strengthened. Its permanent National Committee which had existed from
+_ante-bellum_ days, was supplemented in both parties immediately after
+the war by the congressional committee, whose mission it was to carry
+the elections for the House of Representatives. Increased attention was
+paid to state and local organizations. Party conventions in states and
+counties chose delegates to national conventions and nominated
+candidates for office. State, county and town committees raised money,
+employed speakers, distributed literature, formed torch-light companies
+to march in party processions and, most important of all, got out the
+voters on election day. By such means the National Committee was
+enabled to keep in close touch with the rank and file of the party, and
+so complete did the organization become that it deserved and won the
+name, "the machine."
+
+The master-spirit of the machine was usually the "Boss," a professional
+politician who generally did not himself hold elective office or show
+concern in constructive programs of legislation or in the public
+welfare. Instead, his interests lay in winning elections; dividing the
+offices among the party workers; distributing profitable contracts for
+public work; procuring the passage of legislation desired by industrial
+or railroad companies, or blocking measures objected to by them. A
+vivid picture of the activities of the boss in New York, drawn by Elihu
+Root, will serve to portray conditions in many states and cities from
+1865 to 1890:
+
+    From the days of Fenton, and Conkling, and Arthur, and Cornell,
+    and Platt, from the days of David B. Hill, down to the present
+    time, the government of the state has presented two different lines
+    of activity, one of the constitutional and statutory officers of
+    the state, and the other of the party leaders,--they call them
+    party bosses. They call the system--I do not coin the phrase, I
+    adopt it because it carries its own meaning--the system they call
+    "invisible government." For I do not remember how many years, Mr.
+    Conkling was the supreme ruler in this state; the governor did not
+    count, the legislatures did not count; comptrollers and secretaries
+    of state and what not, did not count. It was what Mr. Conkling
+    said; and in a great outburst of public rage he was pulled down.
+
+    Then Mr. Platt ruled the state; for nigh upon twenty years he ruled
+    it. It was not the governor; it was not the legislature; it was not
+    any elected officers; it was Mr. Platt. And the capitol was not
+    here (in Albany); it was at 49 Broadway; with Mr. Platt and his
+    lieutenants. It makes no difference what name you give, whether you
+    call it Fenton or Conkling or Cornell or Arthur or Platt, or by the
+    names of men now living. The ruler of the state during the greater
+    part of the forty years of my acquaintance with the state
+    government has not been any man authorized by the constitution or
+    by the law.[1]
+
+Under such conditions, corruption was naturally a commonplace in
+politics. In the campaigns, the party managers were too often men to
+whom "nothing was dreadful but defeat." At every Presidential election,
+immense sums of money were poured into the most important doubtful
+states--Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Indiana. Twenty to
+seventy-five dollars was said to have been the price of a vote in
+Indiana in 1880; and ten to fifteen per cent. of the vote in
+Connecticut was thought to be purchasable. In New York ballot-box
+stuffing and repeating were the rule in sections of the city. Employers
+exerted a less crude but equally efficacious pressure upon their
+employees to vote "right." Municipal government also was often
+characterized by that extreme of corruption which called out the scorn
+of writers on public affairs. The New York _Times_ complained in 1877
+that the government of the city was no more a popular government than
+Turkish rule in Bulgaria, and that if the Tammany leaders did not
+collect revenue with the horse-whip and sabre, it was because the forms
+of law afforded a means that was pleasanter, easier and quite as
+effective.
+
+Federal officials, it must be admitted, did not set a high standard for
+local officers to follow. During Grant's administration five judges of
+a United States Court were driven from office by threats of
+impeachment; members of the Committee on Military Affairs in the House
+of Representatives sold their privilege of selecting young men to be
+educated at West Point; and candidates for even the highest offices in
+the gift of the nation were sometimes men whose political past would
+not bear the light of day. More difficult to overcome was the lack of a
+decent sense of propriety among many public officers. Members of the
+Senate practiced before the Supreme Court, the justices of which they
+had an important share in appointing; senators and representatives
+traded in the securities of railroads which were seeking favors at the
+hands of Congress; and even in the most critical circles, corrupt
+practices were condoned on the ground that all the most reputable
+people were more or less engaged in similar activities. Most difficult
+of all to understand was the unfaltering support accorded by men of the
+utmost integrity to party leaders whose evil character was known on all
+sides. Men who would not themselves be guilty of dishonest acts and who
+vehemently condemned such deeds among their political opponents, failed
+to make any energetic protest within their own ranks for fear that they
+might bring about a party split and thus give the "enemy" a victory.
+
+The political practices which prevailed after 1865 for at least a
+quarter of a century were notoriously bad. Yet the student of the
+period must be sensitive to higher aspirations and better practices
+among many of the politicians, and among the rank and file of the
+people. George F. Hoar, John Sherman, Rutherford B. Hayes, Grover
+Cleveland and many others were incorruptible. The exposure of
+scandalous actions on the part of certain high officials blasted their
+careers, indicating that the body of the people would not condone
+dishonesty, and the parties found it advisable to accept the
+resignations of some of their more notorious campaign managers.
+Moreover, the American people of all classes were a political people,
+with a capacity for political organization and activity, and with a
+passion for change. The cruder forms of corruption were successfully
+combated, and the popular, as well as the official sense of good taste
+and propriety gradually reached higher levels.
+
+Another fundamental political consideration after the Civil War was the
+gradual reduction of the power of the executive department. During the
+war the authority exercised by President Lincoln had risen to great
+heights, partly because of his personal characteristics and partly
+because the exigencies of the times demanded quick executive action.
+After the conflict was past, however, the legislative body naturally
+reasserted itself. Moreover, the quarrel between President Johnson and
+Congress, as has been shown, took the form of a contest for control
+over appointments to office and especially over appointments to the
+cabinet. The resulting impeachment, although it did not result in
+conviction, brought about a distinct shrinkage in executive prestige.
+Grant was so inexperienced in politics and so naive in his judgments of
+his associates that he fell completely into the power of the machine
+and failed to revive the former importance and independence of his
+office.
+
+The ascendancy which thus slipped out of the hands of the executive was
+seized by the Senate, where it remained for a long period, despite
+efforts on the part of the president and the House of Representatives
+to prevent it. So remarkable and continuous a domination is not to be
+explained by a single formula. The long term of the members of the
+Senate, the traditional high reputation of the body and the undoubted
+ability of many of its members assisted in upholding its prestige. Its
+small size as compared with the House of Representatives gave it
+greater flexibility. Furthermore, certain Senate practices were
+instrumental in giving that body its primacy. Under the provisions of
+the Constitution the Senate has power to ratify or reject the
+nominations of the executive to many important positions within his
+gift, and by the close of reconstruction it had acquired a firm control
+over such appointments. "Senatorial courtesy" bade every member,
+regardless of party, to concur with the decision of the senators from
+any state with regard to the appointments in which they were
+interested. When, therefore, the executive wished to change conditions
+in a given office he must have the acquiescence of the senators from
+the state in which the change was to occur. If he did not, the entire
+body would rally to the support of their colleagues and refuse to
+confirm the objectionable nominations. With such a weapon the Senate
+was usually able to force the executive into submission, or at least to
+make reforms extremely difficult. In Senator Hoar's suggestive words,
+senators went to the White House to give advice, not to receive it.
+
+In connection with revenue legislation the Senate seized the leadership
+by means of an evasion of the Constitution. According to the terms of
+that document, all bills for raising revenue must originate in the
+House of Representatives, but the Senate may propose amendments.
+Relying upon this power the Senate constantly revised measures to the
+extent of changing their character completely and even of grafting part
+or all of one proposal upon the title of another. In one case, early in
+the period, the Senate "amended" a House bill of four lines which
+repealed the tariff on tea and coffee; the "amendment" consisted of
+twenty pages, containing a general revision of customs duties and
+internal revenue taxes. At a later time the Senate Finance Committee
+drew up a tariff bill even before Congress had assembled.
+
+The primacy of the Senate quickly led to recognition of the value of
+seats in it. Influential state politicians sought election in order to
+control the patronage. Competent judges in the early nineties declared,
+for example, that the senators from New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland
+were all of this type. Another considerable fraction was composed of
+powerful business men, directors in large corporations, who found it to
+their advantage to be in this most influential law-making body and who
+were known as oil or silver or lumber senators. So was laid the
+foundation of the complaint that the Senate was a millionaires' club.
+And so, too, it came about that much of state politics revolved about
+the choice of members for the upper house, for senators were elected by
+the state legislatures until long after 1890. The power of the House of
+Representatives, in contrast with the Senate, was relatively small
+except during the single session 1889-1891, when Thomas B. Reed was in
+control, although individual members sometimes wielded considerable
+influence.
+
+Somewhat comparable to the shift in the center of power from one
+federal authority to another, was the change which took place in the
+relative strength of the state and national governments. This transfer
+was most clearly seen in the decisions of the Supreme Court in cases
+involving the Fourteenth Amendment.
+
+Previous to 1868, when the Amendment became part of the Constitution,
+comparatively little state legislation relating to private property had
+been reviewed by the Court. Ever since the establishment of the federal
+government, cases involving the constitutionality of state legislation
+had been appealed to United States Courts when they had been objected
+to as running counter to the clauses of the Constitution forbidding
+states to enact bills of attainder, _ex post facto_ laws, or laws
+impairing the obligation of contracts. Their number, however, had been
+relatively small, and normally the acts of state legislatures had not
+been reviewed by federal courts; or in other words the tendency had
+been to preserve the individuality and strength of the several states.
+After the war, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments placed
+additional prohibitions on the states, and the decisions of the Supreme
+Court determined the meaning and extent of the added provisions. The
+interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment was especially important.
+Most significant was the interpretation of Section 1, which reads as
+follows:
+
+    All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject
+    to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States
+    and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or
+    enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities
+    of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any
+    person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
+    nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection
+    of the laws.
+
+So vague and inclusive were these phrases that many important questions
+immediately sprang from them. What were the privileges and immunities
+of the citizen? Did those of the citizen of the United States differ
+from those of the citizen of a state? Was a corporation a person? What
+was liberty? What was due process of law? Hitherto the protection of
+life, liberty and property had rested, in the main, upon the individual
+states, and cases involving these subjects had been decided by state
+courts. Were the state courts to be superseded, in relation to these
+vital subjects, by the United States Supreme Court?
+
+It has already been shown that the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment
+was the protection of the recently freed negro. The Thirteenth
+Amendment had forbidden slavery, but the southern states had passed
+apprentice and vagrancy laws which reduced the negro to a condition
+closely resembling slavery in certain of its aspects. The Fourteenth
+Amendment was designed to remedy such a condition by forbidding the
+states to abridge the privileges of citizens, or to deprive persons of
+life, liberty or property. Were the very vague phrases of the Amendment
+merely in keeping with the vagueness of many of the other grants of
+power in the Constitution, or were they designedly expressed in such a
+way as to accomplish something more than the protection of the
+freedman?
+
+The first decision of the Supreme Court involving the Amendment was
+that given in the Slaughter House Cases in 1873, which did not concern
+the negro in any way. In 1869 the legislature of Louisiana had given a
+corporation in that state the exclusive right to slaughter cattle
+within a large area, and had forbidden other persons to construct
+slaughter-houses within the limits of this region, but the corporation
+was to allow any other persons to use its buildings and equipment,
+charging fixed fees for the privilege. Cases were brought before the
+courts to determine whether the law violated that part of the
+Fourteenth Amendment which forbids a state to pass laws abridging the
+privileges of citizens and taking away their property without due
+process of law. By a vote of five to four the Court upheld the
+constitutionality of the statute.
+
+The majority held that the purpose of the Amendment was primarily the
+protection of the negro. This purpose, the Court thought, lay at the
+foundation of all three of the war amendments and without it no one of
+them would ever have been suggested. The majority did not believe that
+the Congress which passed the amendments or the state legislatures
+which ratified them intended to transfer the protection of the great
+body of civil rights from the states to the federal government. Neither
+did they think that due process of law had been interfered with by the
+Louisiana legislation. In reply to the objection that the
+slaughter-house law violated the clause, "nor shall any State deny to
+any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,"
+the majority declared:
+
+    We doubt very much whether any action of a State not directed by
+    way of discrimination against the negroes as a class, or on account
+    of their race, will ever be held to come within the purview of this
+    provision.
+
+In brief, then, the majority was inclined to preserve the balance
+between the states and the national government very much as it had
+been. It believed that the amendments should be applied mainly if not
+wholly to the fortunes of the freedman and that judicial review of such
+legislation as that in Louisiana concerning the slaughter of cattle
+should end in the state courts.
+
+For a time the interpretation of the Court remained that given by the
+majority in this decision. When western state legislatures passed laws
+regulating the rates which railroads and certain other corporations
+might legally charge for their services, the Court at first showed an
+inclination to allow the states a free hand. Regulation of this sort,
+it was held, did not deprive the citizen or the corporation of property
+without due process of law.
+
+There were indications, nevertheless, that the opinion of the Court was
+undergoing a change as time elapsed. An interesting prelude to the
+change was an argument by Roscoe Conkling in San Mateo County _v._
+Southern Pacific Railroad Company in 1882. Conkling was acting as
+attorney for the railroad and was attempting to show that the roads
+were protected, by the Fourteenth Amendment, from state laws which
+taxed their property unduly. Conkling argued that the Amendment had not
+been designed merely for the protection of the freedman, and in order
+to substantiate his contention, he produced a manuscript copy of the
+journal of the Congressional committee that had drawn up the proposals
+which later became the Fourteenth Amendment. He had himself been a
+member of the committee. The journal, it should be noticed, had never
+hitherto been utilized in public.
+
+Conkling stated that at the time when the Amendment was being drafted,
+individuals and companies were appealing for congressional protection
+against state taxation laws, and that it had been the purpose of the
+committee to frame an amendment which should protect whites as well as
+blacks and operate in behalf of corporations as well as individuals. In
+other words, Conkling was making the interesting contention that his
+committee had had a far wider and deeper purpose in mind in phrasing
+the Amendment than had been commonly understood and that the demand for
+the protection of the negro from harsh southern legislation had been
+utilized to answer the request of business for federal assistance. The
+safety of the negro was put to the fore; the purpose of the committee
+to strengthen the legal position of the corporations was kept behind
+the doors of the committee-room; and the phrases of the Amendment had
+been designedly made general in order to accomplish both purposes. The
+sequel appeared four years later, in 1886, when the case Santa Clara
+County _v._ Southern Pacific Railroad brought the question before the
+Court. At this time Mr. Chief Justice Waite announced the opinion of
+himself and his colleagues that a corporation was a "person" within the
+meaning of the Amendment and thus entitled to its protection.
+
+Later decisions, such as that of 1889 in Chicago, Milwaukee and St.
+Paul Railway Company _v._ Minnesota, left no doubt of the fact that the
+Court had come to look upon the Fourteenth Amendment as much more than
+a protective device for the negro. The full meaning of the change,
+however, did not appear until after 1890, and is a matter for later
+consideration. In brief, then, before 1890, the Supreme Court was
+content in the main to avoid the review of state legislation concerning
+the ownership and control of private property, a practice which lodged
+great powers in the state courts and legislatures. By that year,
+however, it was manifest that the Court had undergone a complete change
+and that it had adopted a theory which would greatly enlarge the
+functions of the federal courts, at the expense of the states. The
+medium through which the change came was the Fourteenth Amendment.
+
+The demand on the part of business men for protection from state
+legislation, which Roscoe Conkling described in the San Mateo case,
+arose from their belief in the economic doctrine of _laissez faire_.
+Believers in this theory looked upon legislation which regulated
+business as a species of meddling or interference. The individual, they
+thought, should be allowed to do very much as he pleased, entering into
+whatever business he wished, and buying and selling where and how and
+at what prices suited his interests, stimulated and controlled by
+competition, but without direction or restriction by the government. It
+was believed that the amazing success of the American business pioneer
+was proof of the wisdom of the _laissez faire_ philosophy. The economic
+giant and hero was the self-made man.
+
+Economic abuses, according to the _laissez faire_ philosophy, would
+normally be corrected by economic law, chiefly through competition. If,
+for illustration, any industry demanded greater returns for its
+products than proved to be just in the long run, unattached capital
+would be attracted into that line of production, competition would
+ensue, prices would be again lowered and justice would result. Every
+business man would exert himself to discover that employment which
+would bring greatest return for the capital which he had at his
+command. He would therefore choose such an industry and so direct it as
+to make his product of the greatest value possible. Hence although he
+sought his own interests, he would in fact promote the interest of the
+public.
+
+Indeed the philosopher of _laissez faire_ was sincerely convinced that
+his system ultimately benefited society as a whole. Andrew Carnegie, an
+iron and steel manufacturer, presented this thesis in an article in the
+_North American Review_ in 1889. The reign of individualism, he held,
+was the order of the day, was inevitable and desirable. Under it the
+poorer classes were better off than they had ever been in the world's
+history. "We start then," he said, "with a condition of affairs under
+which the best interests of the race are promoted, but which inevitably
+gives wealth to the few. Thus far, accepting conditions as they exist,
+the situation can be surveyed and pronounced good." Let the man of
+ability, he advised, accumulate a large fortune and then discharge his
+duty to the public through philanthropic enterprises, such as the
+foundation of libraries. Society would be more highly benefited in this
+way than by allowing the millions to circulate in small sums through
+the hands of the masses. Statistical studies of the distribution of
+wealth seemed to justify Carnegie's judgment that the existing tendency
+was for wealth to settle into the hands of the few. In 1893 it was
+estimated that three one-hundredths of one per cent. of the people
+owned twenty per cent. of the nation's wealth.
+
+Although the _laissez faire_ theory was dominant later even than 1890,
+it was apparent before that time that its sway was being challenged.
+The adherents of _laissez faire_ themselves did not desire to have the
+doctrine applied fully and evenly. They demanded government protection
+for their enterprises through the medium of high protective import
+tariffs, and they sought subsidies and grants of public land for the
+railroads. Naturally it was not long before the classes whose desires
+conflicted with the manufacturing and railroad interests began in their
+turn to seek aid from the government. The people of the Middle West,
+for example, were not content to allow the railroad companies to
+control their affairs and establish their rates without let or
+hindrance from the state legislatures. The factory system in the
+Northeast, likewise, raised questions which were directed toward the
+foundations of _laissez faire_. Under the factory regime employers
+found it advantageous to open their doors to women and children and to
+keep them at machines for long, hard days which unfitted the women for
+domestic duties and for raising families, and which stunted the
+children in body and mind. Out of these circumstances arose a demand
+for restrictions on the freedom of employers to fix the conditions
+under which their employees worked.
+
+Opposition to an industrial system based upon _laissez faire_ would
+have been even greater during the seventies and eighties if it had not
+been for two sources of national wealth--the public lands and the
+supplies of lumber, ore, coal and similar gifts of nature. When the
+supply of land in the West was substantially unlimited, a sufficient
+part of the population could relieve its economic distresses by
+migrating, as multitudes did. Such huge stores of natural wealth were
+being discovered that there seemed to be no end to them. But in the
+late eighties when the best public lands were nearly exhausted and the
+need of more careful husbanding of the national resources became
+apparent to far-sighted men, advanced thinkers began to question the
+validity of an economic theory which allowed quite so much freedom to
+individuals. For the time, however, such questions did not arise in the
+minds of the masses.
+
+As the _laissez faire_ doctrine underlay the problem of the relation
+between government and industry, so the quantity theory of money was
+fundamental in the monetary question. According to the quantity theory,
+money is like any other commodity in that its value rises and falls
+with variations in the supply and demand for it. Suppose, for example,
+that a given community is entirely isolated from the rest of the world.
+It possesses precisely enough pieces of money to satisfy the needs of
+its people. Suddenly the number of pieces is doubled. The supply is
+twice as great as business requires. If no new elements enter into the
+situation, the value of each piece becomes half as great as before, its
+purchasing power is cut in two and prices double.[2]
+
+A bushel of potatoes that formerly sold for a dollar now sells at two
+dollars. A farmer who has mortgaged his farm for $1,000 and who relies
+upon his sales of potatoes to pay off his debt is highly benefited by
+the change, while the creditor is correspondingly harmed. The debtor is
+obliged to raise only half as many potatoes; the creditor receives
+money that buys half the commodities that could have been purchased
+with his money at the time of the loan.
+
+On the other hand, suppose the number of pieces of money is instantly
+halved and all other factors continue unchanged. There is now twice as
+great a demand for each piece, it becomes more desirable and will
+purchase more goods. Prices, that is to say, go down. Dollar potatoes
+now sell for fifty cents. The debtor farmer must grow twice as many
+potatoes as he had contemplated; the creditor finds that he receives
+money that has doubled in purchasing power.
+
+It has already been said that the quarter century after the war was, in
+the main, a period of falling prices. The farmer found the size of his
+mortgage, as measured in bushels of wheat and potatoes, growing
+steadily and relentlessly greater. The creditor received a return which
+purchased larger and larger quantities of commodities. The debtor class
+was mainly in the West; the creditors, mainly in the East. The
+westerners desired a larger quantity of money which would, as they
+believed, send prices upward; the East, depending upon similar
+reasoning, desired a contraction in supply. The former were called
+inflationists; the latter, contractionists. Much of the monetary
+history of the country after the Civil War was concerned with the
+attempt of the inflationists to expand the supply of currency, and the
+contractionists to prevent inflation.
+
+The intellectual background of the twenty-five years after the war, so
+far as it can be considered at this point, was to be found mainly in
+the development of education and the growth of the newspaper and
+periodical. Before the Civil War, except in the South, the old-time
+district school had given way, in most states, to graded elementary
+schools, supported by taxation. After the war the southern states made
+heroic efforts to revive education, in which they were aided by such
+northern benefactions as the Peabody Educational Fund of $2,000,000
+established in 1867. In the northern states the schools were greatly
+improved, free text-books became the rule, the free public high-schools
+replaced the former private academies, and normal schools for the
+training of teachers were established. The period was also marked by
+the foundation of scores of colleges and especially of the great state
+universities. The Morrill Act of July 2, 1862, had provided for a grant
+to each state of 30,000 acres of public land for every senator and
+representative in Congress to which the state was entitled. The land
+was to be used to promote education in the agricultural and mechanic
+arts, and in the natural sciences. The advantages of the law were
+quickly seen, and between 1865 and 1890 seventeen state universities
+were started, most of them in the Middle and Far West. Many of these
+underwent a phenomenal growth and had a great influence on the states
+in which they were established.
+
+The newspaper press was also undergoing a transformation in the quarter
+century after the war. The great expansion of the numbers and influence
+of American newspapers before and during that struggle had been due to
+the ability of individuals. James Gordon Bennett had founded the New
+York _Herald_, for example, in 1835, and from then on the _Herald_ had
+been "Bennett's paper." Similarly the _Tribune_ had represented Horace
+Greeley and the _Times_, Henry J. Raymond. The effect of the war was to
+develop technical resources in gathering news, to necessitate a larger
+scale of expenditure and a wider range of information, and to make a
+given issue the work of many men instead of one. Raymond died in 1869,
+Greeley and Bennett in 1872; and although the _Sun_ was the embodiment
+of Charles A. Dana until his death in 1897, the _Nation_ and the
+_Evening Post_ of Edwin L. Godkin until 1899, nevertheless the tendency
+was away from the newspaper which reflected an individual and toward
+that which represented a group; away from the editorial which expressed
+the views of a well-known writer, to the editorial page which combined
+the labors of many anonymous contributors. The financial basis of the
+newspaper also underwent a transition. As advertising became more and
+more general, the revenues of newspapers tended to depend more on the
+favor of the advertiser than upon the subscriber, giving the former a
+powerful although indirect influence on editorial policies.
+
+The influence of the press in politics was rapidly growing. A larger
+number of newspapers became sufficiently independent to attack abuses
+in both parties. The New York _Times_ and Thomas Nast's cartoons in
+_Harper's Weekly_ were most important factors in the overthrow of the
+Tweed Ring in New York City, and in the elections of 1884 and later,
+newspapers exerted an unusual power. Press associations in New York and
+the West led the way to the Associated Press, with its wide-spread
+cooperative resources for gathering news.
+
+As important as the character of the press, was the amount and
+distribution of its circulation. Between 1870 and 1890 the number of
+newspapers published and the aggregate circulation increased almost
+exactly threefold--about five times as fast as the population was
+growing. In the latter year the entire circulation for the country was
+over four and a half billion copies, of which about sixty per cent.
+were dailies. So great had been the growth of the press during the
+seventies that the census authorities in 1880 made a careful study of
+the statistical aspects of the subject. It appeared from this search
+that newspapers were published in 2,073 of the 2,605 counties in the
+Union. Without some such means of spreading information, it would have
+been impossible to conduct the great presidential campaigns, in which
+the entire country was educated in the tariff and other important
+issues.
+
+The expansion of the press is well exemplified by the use of the
+telegraph in the spread of information. When Lincoln was nominated for
+the presidency in 1860, a single telegraph operator was able to send
+out all the press matter supplied to him. In 1892 at the Democratic
+convention, the Western Union Telegraph Company had one hundred
+operators in the hall. Mechanical invention, meanwhile, was able to
+keep pace with the demand for news. The first Hoe press of 1847 had
+been so improved by 1871 that it printed ten to twelve thousand
+eight-page papers in an hour, and twenty-five years later the capacity
+had been increased between six and sevenfold.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+Nearly all material on party history is so partisan that it should be
+read with critical scepticism: Francis Curtis, _The Republican Party,
+1854-1904_ (2 vols., 1904); J.D. Long, _Republican Party_ (1888); for
+the Independent attitude, consult _Harper's Weekly_ during the campaign
+of 1884. As the Republicans were in power most of the time from
+1865-1913, there is more biographical and autobiographical material
+about Republicans than about Democratic leaders. Local studies of
+political conditions and the social structure of the parties are almost
+entirely lacking. On the personal side, the following are essential:
+G.F. Parker, _Writings and Speeches of Grover Cleveland_ (1892); T.E.
+Burton, _John Sherman_ (1906); J.B. Foraker, _Notes of a Busy Life_ (2
+vols., 1916), throws light on the ideals and practices of a politician;
+G.F. Hoar, _Autobiography of Seventy Years_ (2 vols., 1903), gives the
+New England Republican point of view; Rollo Ogden, _Life and Letters of
+E.L. Godkin_ (2 vols., 1907); G.F. Parker, _Recollections of Grover
+Cleveland_ (1909), is useful, but sketchy, there being as yet no
+thorough biography of Cleveland; T.C. Platt, _Autobiography_ (1910),
+interestingly portrays the philosophy of a machine politician, but
+should be read with care; John Sherman, _Recollections of Forty Years
+in House, Senate and Cabinet_ (2 vols., 1895); Edward Stanwood, _James
+G. Blaine_ (1905), is highly favorable to Blaine; W.M. Stewart,
+_Reminiscences_ (1908), is interesting, partisan and unreliable. For a
+general estimate of the autobiographical material of the period,
+consult _History Teachers' Magazine_ (later the _Historical Outlook_),
+"Recent American History Through the Actors' Eyes," March, 1916.
+
+Jesse Macy, _Party Organisation and Machinery_ (1904); M.G.
+Ostrogorski, _Democracy and Political Parties_ (2 vols., 1902), gives a
+keen and pessimistic account of American political practices in vol.
+II; J.A. Woodburn, _Political Parties and Party Problems in the United
+States_ (1903, and later editions) gives a succinct account in good
+temper.
+
+For the Fourteenth Amendment: C.G. Haines, _American Doctrine of
+Judicial Supremacy_ (1914); C.W. Collins, _The Fourteenth Amendment and
+the States_ (1912), is a careful study, which is critical of the
+prevailing later interpretation of the Amendment. The Slaughter House
+case, giving the earlier interpretation is in J.W. Wallace, _Cases
+argued and adjudged in the Supreme Court_ (Supreme Court Reports), XVI,
+36.
+
+L.H. Haney, _History of Economic Thought_ (1911), on _laissez faire_;
+J.L. Laughlin, _Principles of Money_ (1903); and Irving Fisher, _Why is
+the Dollar Shrinking_ (1914), present two sides of the quantity theory
+of money.
+
+Most useful on the development of education are F.P. Graves, _A History
+of Education in Modern Times_ (1913); and E.G. Dexter, _History of
+Education in the United States_ (1904).
+
+The growth of newspapers is described in _The Bookman_, XIV, 567-584,
+XV, 26-44; see also Rollo Ogden, _Life and Letters of Godkin_, already
+mentioned; G.H. Payne, _History of Journalism in the United States_
+(1920); J.M. Lee, _History of American Journalism_ (1917). The effects
+of education and the press on American social, economic and political
+life have not been subjected to thorough study.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] _Addresses on Government and Citizenship_, 202.
+
+[2] In practice, new elements do enter into the situation so that the
+theory requires much qualification. Cf. Taussig, _Principles of
+Economics_ (1915), I, ch. 18.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+THE NEW ISSUES
+
+Out of the economic and political circumstances which have just been
+described, there were emerging between 1865 and 1875 a wide variety of
+national problems. Such questions were those concerning the proper
+relation between the government and the railroads and industrial
+enterprises; the welfare of the agricultural and wage-earning classes;
+the assimilation of the hordes of immigrants; the conservation of the
+resources of the nation in lumber, minerals and oil; the tariff, the
+financial obligations of the government, the reform of the civil
+service, and a host of lesser matters. The animosities aroused by the
+war, however, and the insistent nature of the reconstruction question
+almost completely distracted attention from most of these problems.
+Only upon the tariff, finance and the civil service did the public
+interest focus long enough to effect results.
+
+The tariff problem has periodically been settled and unsettled since
+the establishment of the federal government. Just previous to the war
+a low protective tariff had been adopted, but the outbreak of the
+conflict had necessitated a larger income; and the passage of an
+internal revenue act, together with a higher protective tariff, had
+been the chief means adopted to meet the demand. By 1864 the country
+had found itself in need of still greater revenues, and again the
+internal and tariff taxes had been increased. These acts were in force
+at the close of the war. The internal revenue act levied taxes upon
+products, trades, and professions, upon liquors and tobacco, upon
+manufactures, auctions, slaughtered cattle, railroads, advertisements
+and a large number of smaller sources of income.
+
+The circumstances that had surrounded the framing and passage of the
+tariff act of 1864 had been somewhat peculiar. The need of the nation
+for revenue had been supreme and there had been no desire to stint
+the administration if funds could bring the struggle to a successful
+conclusion. Congress had been willing to levy almost any rates that
+anybody desired. The combination of a willingness among the legislators
+to raise rates to any height necessary for obtaining revenue, and a
+conviction on their part that high rates were for the good of the
+country brought about a situation eminently satisfactory to the
+protectionist element. There had been no time to spend in long
+discussions of the wisdom of the act and no desire to do so; and
+moreover the act had been looked upon as merely a temporary expedient.
+It is not possible to describe accurately the personal influences which
+surrounded the passage of the law. It is possible, however, to note
+that many industries had highly prospered under the war revenue
+legislation. Sugar refining had increased; whiskey distilling had fared
+well under the operation of the internal revenue laws; the demands of
+the army had given stimulus to the woolen mills, which had worked to
+capacity night and day; and the manufacture and use of sewing machines,
+agricultural implements and the like had been part of the industrial
+expansion of the times. Large fortunes had been made in the production
+of rifles, woolen clothing, cotton cloth and other commodities,
+especially when government contracts could be obtained. Naturally the
+tax-levying activities of Congress had tended to draw the business
+interests together to oppose or influence particular rates. The
+brewers, the cap and hat manufacturers, and others had objected to the
+taxes on their products; the National Association of Wool Manufacturers
+and the American Iron and Steel Association had been formed partly with
+the idea of influencing congressional tariff action.
+
+After the close of the war, the tariff, among other things, seemed to
+many to require an overhauling. Justin S. Morrill, a member of the
+House Committee on Ways and Means, and one of the framers of the act of
+1864, argued in favor of the protective system although he warned his
+colleagues:
+
+    At the same time it is a mistake of the friends of a sound tariff to
+    insist upon the extreme rates imposed during the war, if less will
+    raise the necessary revenue.... Whatever percentage of duties were
+    imposed upon foreign goods to cover internal taxes upon home
+    manufactures, should not now be claimed as the lawful prize of
+    protection where such taxes have been repealed.... The small
+    increase of the tariff for this reason on iron, salt, woolen, and
+    cottons can not be maintained except on the principle of obtaining a
+    proper amount of revenue.
+
+Sentiment was strong against the tariff in the agricultural parts of
+the West and especially in those sections not committed to
+wool-growing. Great personal influence was exerted on the side of
+"tariff-reform" by David A. Wells, a painstaking and able student of
+economic conditions who was appointed special commissioner of the
+revenue in 1866. As a result of his investigations he became converted
+from a believer in protection to the leader of the opposition, and his
+reports had a considerable influence in the formation of opinion in
+favor of revision. The American Free Trade League was formed and
+included such influential figures as Carl Schurz, Jacob D. Cox, Horace
+White, Edward Atkinson, E.L. Godkin, editor of _The Nation_, and many
+others. William B. Allison and James A. Garfield, both prominent
+Republican members of the House, were in favor of downward revision.
+
+In 1867 a bill providing for many reductions passed the Senate as an
+amendment to a House bill which proposed to raise rates. Far more than
+a majority in the House were ready to accept the Senate measure, but
+according to the rules it was necessary to obtain a two-thirds vote in
+order to get the amended bill before the House for action. This it was
+impossible to do. Nevertheless, the wool growers and manufacturers were
+able "through their large influence, persistent pressure and adroit
+management" to procure an act in the same session which increased the
+duties on wool and woolens far above the war rate. In 1869 the duties
+on copper were raised, as were those on steel rails, marble, flax and
+some other commodities in 1870.
+
+The growth of the Liberal Republican movement in 1872, with its
+advocacy of downward revision, frightened somewhat the protectionist
+leaders of the Republican organization. It was believed that a slight
+concession might prevent a more radical action, and just before the
+campaign a ten per cent reduction was brought about. In 1873 the
+industrial depression so lowered the revenues as to present a plausible
+opportunity for restoring duties to their former level in 1875, where
+they remained for nearly a decade.
+
+The lack of effective action on the part of the tariff reformers of
+both parties was due to a variety of causes. In the years immediately
+following the war, the Republicans in Congress were more interested in
+their quarrel with President Johnson than in tariff reform.
+Furthermore, the unpopular internal revenues were being quickly reduced
+between 1867 and 1872, and it was argued that a simultaneous reduction
+of import taxes would decrease the revenue too greatly. Moreover there
+was no solidarity among the Democrats, the South was discredited, and
+at first not fully represented. Wells was driven out of office in 1870,
+the Liberal Republican movement was a failure, the protected
+manufacturers knew precisely what they wanted, they knew how to achieve
+results and some of them were willing to employ methods that the
+reformers were above using. As time went on and the country was, in the
+main, rather prosperous, many people and especially the business men
+made up their minds that the war tariffs were a positive benefit to the
+country. For these reasons a war policy which had generally been
+considered a temporary expedient became a permanent political issue and
+a national problem.
+
+The positions of the two political parties on the tariff were not sharply
+defined during the ten years immediately following the war. The Democrats
+seemed naturally destined for the role of revisionists because of their
+party traditions, their support in the South--ordinarily a strong,
+low-tariff section--and because they were out of power when high tariffs
+were enacted. Yet the party was far from united on the subject. Some
+prominent leaders were frankly protectionists, such as Samuel J. Randall
+of Pennsylvania, who was Speaker of the House for two terms and part of
+another. The party platform ordinarily was silent or non-committal. In
+1868, for example, the Democratic tariff plank was wide and generous
+enough for a complete platform. The party stood for
+
+    a tariff for revenue upon foreign imports, and such equal taxation
+    under the internal revenue laws as will afford incidental
+    protection to domestic manufacturers, and as will, without
+    impairing the revenue, impose the least burden upon, and best
+    promote and encourage, the great industrial interests of the
+    country.
+
+In 1872 the "straight" Democrats, that is those who refused to support
+Greeley, were for a "judicious" revenue tariff; but in 1876 the party
+denounced the existing system as "a masterpiece of injustice, inequality
+and false pretence." Democratic state platforms were even less firm; in
+fact, the eastern states seemed committed to protection. In Congress,
+however, most of the opposition to the passage of tariff acts was
+supplied by the Democrats.
+
+The attitude of the Republicans was more important, because theirs was
+the party in power. There was, as has been shown, a strong tariff-reform
+element, and in some of the conventions care seems to have been taken
+to avoid any definite statement of principles--doubtless on account of
+the well-known differences in the party--and for many years there was
+no clearly defined statement of the attitude of the organization. Yet
+it must be emphasized that Republicans were usually protectionists in
+the practical business of voting in Congress. Skillful Republican leaders
+gave way a little in the face of opposition but regained the lost ground
+and a little more, after the opposition retreated. Since the war-tariffs
+had been passed under Republican rule, it was easy to clothe them with
+the sanctity of party accomplishments.
+
+Fully as technical as the tariff problem, and presenting a wider range
+for the legislative activities of Congress, was the financial situation
+in which the country found itself in 1865. The total expenditures from
+June 30, 1861 to June 30, 1865 had been somewhat more than three and
+one-third billions of dollars, an amount almost double the aggregate
+disbursements from 1789 to 1861. Officers accustomed to a modest budget
+and used to working with machinery and precedents which were adapted to
+the day of small things, had been suddenly called upon to work under
+revolutionized conditions. Prom the point of view of expense, merely,
+one year's operations during the war had been equivalent to thirty-six
+times the average outlay of the years hitherto. As has been shown, the
+major part of the income necessary for meeting the increased expenses
+had been obtained by means of the tariff and internal revenue taxes.
+
+The tariff worked to the advantage of many people, and its retention
+was insistently demanded by them; the internal revenue taxes were
+disliked, and few things were more popular after the war than their
+reduction. In 1866 an act was passed which lowered the internal revenue
+by an amount estimated at forty-five to sixty millions of dollars. In
+succeeding years further reductions were made, so that by 1870 the
+scale was low enough to withstand attacks until 1883.
+
+The national debt was the source of more complicated questions. It was
+composed, on June 30, 1866, of a variety of loans carrying five
+different rates of interest and maturing in nineteen different periods
+of time. Parts of it had been borrowed in times of distress at high
+rates; but after the struggle was successfully ended, the credit of the
+government was good, and enough money could be obtained at low interest
+charges to cancel the old debt and establish a new one with the interest
+account correspondingly reduced. Hugh McCulloch and John Sherman as
+secretaries of the treasury were most influential in accomplishing this
+transition, and by 1879 the process was completed and a yearly saving of
+fourteen million dollars effected.
+
+Differences of opinion concerning the kind of money with which the
+principal of the debt should be paid brought this matter into the
+field of politics. When the earliest loans had been contracted, no
+stipulation had been made in regard to the medium of payment. Later
+loans had been made redeemable in "coin," without specifying either
+gold or silver; while still later bonds had been sold under condition
+that the interest be paid in coin, although nothing had been said about
+the principal. There was considerable demand for redemption of the
+bonds in paper money, except where there was agreement to the contrary,
+although the previous custom of the government had been to pay in coin.
+The proposal to repay the debt in paper currency, the "Ohio idea,"
+gained considerable ground in the Middle West, as has already been
+explained. In the campaign of 1868 the Democratic platform advocated
+the Ohio plan. Some of the Republicans, like Thaddeus Stevens, agreed
+with this policy; some of the Democrats opposed it--Horatio Seymour,
+the presidential candidate, among them. Nevertheless the Democratic
+platform committed the party to payments in greenbacks unless express
+contract prevented, while the Republicans denounced this policy as
+"repudiation" and promised the payment of the debt in "good faith"
+according to the "spirit" and "letter" of the laws. The credit of the
+government was highly benefited by the payment of the debt in gold, yet
+the bonds had been purchased during the war with depreciated paper, and
+gold redemption greatly enriched the purchasers at the expense of the
+remainder of the population. It is hardly surprising that the debtor
+classes were not enthusiastic over this outcome. The Republicans on
+being successful in the election and coming into power, carried out
+their campaign promises and pledged the faith of the country to the
+payment of the debt in coin or its equivalent.
+
+The income tax was a method of raising revenue which did not produce
+any considerable returns until after the war was over. Acts passed
+during the war had levied a tax on all incomes over six hundred dollars
+and had introduced progressively increasing rates on higher amounts.
+Incomes above $5,000, for example, were taxed ten per cent. The
+greatest number of people were reached and the largest returns obtained
+in 1866 when nearly half a million persons paid an aggregate of about
+seventy-three million dollars. The entire system was abolished in 1872.
+
+Aside from the tariff, the "legal-tender" notes gave rise to the
+greatest number of political and constitutional tangles. By acts of
+February 25, 1862 and later, Congress had provided for the issue of four
+hundred and fifty million dollars of United States paper notes, which
+were commonly known as greenbacks or legal-tenders. The latter name
+came from the fact that, under the law, the United States notes were
+legal tender for all debts, public or private, except customs duties
+and interest on the public debt. In other words, the law compelled
+creditors to receive the greenbacks in payment of all debts, with the
+two exceptions mentioned. Three main questions arose in connection with
+these issues of paper: whether Congress had power under the
+Constitution to make them legal tender; whether their volume should be
+allowed to remain at war magnitude, be somewhat contracted or entirely
+done away with; and whether the government should resume specie
+payments--that is, exchange gold for paper on the demand of holders of
+the latter.
+
+The first of these questions was twice decided in the Supreme Court. In
+1870, in Hepburn _v._ Griswold, the point at issue was whether the
+greenbacks could lawfully be offered to satisfy a debt contracted
+before the legal-tender act had been passed. As it happened, Salmon P.
+Chase, who had been Secretary of the Treasury during the war, was now
+Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and delivered its opinion. By a vote
+of four to three it decided that the greenbacks were not legal tender
+for contracts made previous to the passage of the law. At the time when
+the case was decided, however, there were two vacancies on the bench
+which were immediately filled, and shortly thereafter two new cases
+involving the legal-tender act were brought before the Court (Knox _v._
+Lee, and Parker _v._ Davis). The decision, which was announced in 1871,
+over-ruled the judgment in Hepburn _v._ Griswold and held by a vote of
+five to four that the legal-tender act was constitutional as applied to
+contracts made either before or after its passage.
+
+The second question relating to the greenbacks was that in regard to
+their volume. At first Congress adopted the policy of contraction and
+when greenbacks came into the treasury they were destroyed. As continued
+contraction tended to make the volume of currency smaller and to make
+money harder to get, and therefore, to raise its value, the debtor
+classes began to object. As early as 1865 there was strong sentiment
+against contraction and in favor of paying the public debt in paper.
+Economic distress in the West furthered the movement and some of the
+Republican leaders were doubtful of the wisdom of reducing the outstanding
+stock of paper. Contraction was stopped, therefore, in 1868, and only
+President Grant's veto in 1874 prevented an increase in the amount.
+Eventually, in 1878, the amount then in circulation--$346,681,000--was
+fixed by a law forbidding further contraction.[1]
+
+The western farmers, meanwhile, were feeling the pinch of falling
+prices. Believing that their ills were due to the scarcity of money,
+they opposed the policy of contraction and even launched the Greenback
+party to carry out their principles. In 1876 it polled 80,000 votes,
+and in 1878 at the time of the congressional elections over 1,000,000,
+but thereafter its strength rapidly declined. Neither the East nor the
+West understood the motives of the other in this controversy. Eastern
+congressmen considered western insistence upon a large volume of
+currency as a dishonest movement to reduce bond values by legislation.
+Such an action, they asserted, would do away with the national
+integrity. The people of the West thought of the eastern bondholders as
+"fat bullionists" who dined at costly restaurants on terrapin and
+Burgundy and paid for their luxuries with bonds whose values were
+raised by a contracted currency.
+
+The third question relating to the greenbacks was that of the
+resumption of specie payments. At the close of the war practically all
+the money in circulation was paper, which passed at a depreciated value
+because it was not redeemable in coin. The obvious thing was to resume
+the exchange of specie for paper and thus restore the latter to par
+value, but serious obstacles stood in the way. A money crisis in 1873
+aroused a clamor for larger supplies of paper; gold was hard to
+procure, as France and Germany were both accumulating a redemption fund
+and specie was actually flowing out of the country. Outside of the
+treasury there was little gold in the United States, the amount being
+less than one hundred million dollars as late as 1877. The friends of
+resumption could not be sure of the feasibility of their project, and
+the opponents were aggressive and numerous.
+
+In the elections of 1874 the Republicans were severely defeated, and it
+was seen that the Democrats would have a clear majority in the next
+House of Representatives. Hence the Republicans hurried through a
+resumption bill on January 14, 1875--a sort of deathbed act. It
+authorized the secretary of the treasury to raise gold for redemption
+purposes, and set January 1, 1879, as the date when resumption should
+take place. As in the case of the tariff, the political parties found
+difficulty in determining which side of the resumption question they
+desired to take. Although the Democratic platform of 1868 contained a
+greenback plank, yet some of its leaders opposed, and the state
+platforms of 1875 and 1876 demanded resumption. The national platform
+of the latter year both denounced the Republicans for not making
+progress toward resumption and demanded the repeal of the act of 1875,
+without disclosing whether the party was prepared to offer any
+improvements. In November, 1877, a bill practically repealing the
+resumption act passed the House--the western and southern Democrats
+furnishing most of the affirmative votes, assisted by twenty-seven
+Republicans. A resolution declaring it to be the opinion of Congress
+that United States bonds were payable in silver was introduced and
+advocated by many Republicans. On the other hand, eastern state
+Democratic and Republican platforms were much alike. Apparently,
+therefore, differences of opinion in regard to the greenbacks and
+resumption were caused as much by sectional as by party considerations.
+
+More lasting than finance as a political issue but less enduring than
+the tariff, was the reform of the civil service. In its widest sense,
+the term civil service included all non-military government officers
+from cabinet officials and supreme court judges to the humblest
+employee in the postal or naval service. The reform, however, was
+directed mainly toward the appointment and tenure of the lower
+officers. Before the Civil War the "spoils system" had been in full
+swing; appointments to positions had been frankly used as rewards for
+party activity; office-holders had been openly assessed a fraction of
+their salaries in order to fill the treasure chest at campaign times;
+rotation in office had been the rule. During the war, President Lincoln
+had found his ante-room filled with wrangling, importunate office-seekers
+who consumed time which he needed for the problems of the conflict. As
+he himself had expressed the situation, he was like a man who was
+letting offices in one end of his house while the other end was burning
+down. During the war, also, the patronage at the disposal of the
+government had vastly increased. Not only had the number of laborers,
+clerks and officials become greater, but numerous contracts had been
+let for the production of war materials, and manufacturers and merchants
+intrigued for a share of federal business. "Influence" and position had
+been more powerful than merit in procuring the favor of government
+officers.
+
+After the war many abuses that had earlier been overlooked began to
+attract the attention of a few thoughtful men. It was estimated that
+not more than one-half to three-fourths of the legitimate internal
+revenue was collected during Johnson's presidency, so corrupt and
+inefficient were the revenue collectors. Endless Indian troubles and
+countless losses of money resulted from the corruption of the federal
+Indian agents. Conditions were even worse during the Grant regime. The
+President's appointments were wretched; he placed his relatives in
+official positions; revenue frauds amounting to $75,000,000 were
+discovered during his second administration. In certain departments, it
+was customary, when vacancies occurred, to allow the salaries to
+"lapse"--that is, accumulate--so as to provide a fund to satisfy
+patronage seekers. In one case, thirty-five persons were put on the
+"lapse fund" for eight days at the end of a fiscal year, in order to
+"sop up" a little surplus which was in danger of being saved and
+returned to the treasury. One customs collector at the port of New York
+removed employees at an average rate of one every three days; another,
+three every four days; and another, three every five days, in order to
+provide places for party workers. One secretary in an important
+department of the government had seventeen clerks for whom he had no
+employment. The party assessments on officeholders became little short
+of outrageous. Two or three per cent. of the salary of the lower
+officers was called for, while the more important officials were
+expected to contribute much larger sums. In New York--for the system
+held in the states and cities--candidates for the mayoralty were
+reputed to pay $25,000 to $30,000; judges, $10,000 to $15,000; and
+representatives in Congress, $10,000. While these conditions were by no
+means wholly due to the spoils system, the method of appointment in the
+civil service made a bad matter worse.
+
+Conditions such as these could hardly fail to produce a reform
+movement. In fact, as far back as 1853 some elementary and ineffective
+legislation had attempted a partial remedy. The war gave added impetus
+to the movement and attention turned to the reform systems of Great
+Britain and other countries, where problems similar to ours had already
+been met and solved. The first American who really grasped civil
+service reform was Thomas A. Jenckes, a member of Congress from Rhode
+Island. He introduced reform bills in 1865 and later, based on studies
+of English practice and on correspondence with the leaders of reform
+there; but no legislation resulted. In brief, his plan provided for the
+appointment of employees in the public service on the basis of ability,
+determined by competitive examinations. After a time Jenckes and his
+associates achieved considerable success and finally interested
+President Grant in their project. In 1871 they got a rider attached to
+an appropriation bill which authorized the chief executive to prescribe
+rules for the admission of persons into the civil service and allowed
+him to appoint a commission to put the act into effect. George William
+Curtis, a well-known reformer, was made chairman, and rules were
+formulated which were applied to the departments at Washington and to
+federal offices in New York. Grant, although favorable to the reform,
+was not enthusiastic about it, and soon made an appointment which was
+so offensive that Curtis resigned. Congress, nothing loath, refused to
+continue the necessary appropriations and the reform project continued
+in a state of suspended animation until the inauguration of President
+Hayes.
+
+The human elements in the struggle for civil service reform, both
+during the decade after the war and for many years later, are necessary
+for an understanding of the course of the controversy and its outcome.
+These elements included the advocates of the patronage system, the
+reformers and the president.
+
+Sometimes the advocates of the patronage system viewed the reform with
+contempt. Roscoe Conkling, for example, expressed his sentiments in the
+remark, "When Dr. Johnson said that patriotism was the last refuge of
+the scoundrel he ignored the enormous possibilities of the word
+reform!" Sometimes they attempted to discredit the project by an
+exaggeration of its effects, as when John A. Logan declared that he saw
+in it a life-tenure and an aristocratic caste. "It will not be apparent
+how great is its enormity," he declared in Congress, "how vicious are
+its practices and how poisonous are its influences until we are too far
+encircled by its coils to shake them off." The strength of the
+exponents of the patronage system, however, lay not in their capacity
+for contempt and ridicule, but in a theory of government that was
+founded upon certain very definite human characteristics. The theory
+may be clearly seen in the _Autobiography_ of Thomas C. Platt, a
+colleague of Conkling in the Senate and for many years the boss of New
+York state. It may be expressed somewhat as follows.
+
+In the field of actual politics, parties are a necessity and
+organization is essential. It is the duty of the citizen, therefore, to
+support the party that stands for right policies and to adhere closely
+to its official organization. Loyalty should be rewarded by appointment
+to positions within the gift of the party; and disloyalty should be
+looked upon as political treason. One who votes for anybody except the
+organization candidate feels himself superior to his party, is
+faithless to the great ideal and is only a little less despicable than
+he who, having been elected to an office through the energy and
+devotion of the party workers, is then so ungrateful as to refuse to
+appoint the workers to positions within his gift. Positions constitute
+the cohesive force that holds the organization intact.
+
+The second of the human elements, the reform group, was led by such men
+as George William Curtis, Dorman B. Eaton and Carl Schurz, with the
+support of periodicals like _Harper's Weekly_ and _The Nation_. The
+career and character of Curtis is typical at once of the strength and
+the weakness of the group. As a young man Curtis had intended to enter
+a business career, but finding it unsuited to his tastes he had
+abandoned his ambition, spent some years in European travel and then
+devoted himself to literary work, first on _Harper's Magazine_ and
+afterwards, for many years, as editor of _Harper's Weekly_. He had
+early interested himself in politics, had been in the convention which
+nominated Lincoln, had taken part in numerous state and national
+political conferences and conventions, was president of the
+Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and chancellor of the University
+of the State of New York. For many years, during the period when civil
+service reform was making its fight for recognition, Curtis was the
+president and one of the moving spirits of the National Civil Service
+Reform League. In politics he was an independent Republican. Although
+of the intellectual class, like the other prominent leaders of the
+reform movement, he was a man of practical political ability, not a
+mere observer of politics, so that he and his associates made up in
+capacity and influence what they lacked in breadth of appeal. Some of
+the leaders were patient men who expected that results would come
+slowly and who were ready to accept half a loaf of reform rather than
+no loaf at all, but there were also such impatient critics as E.L.
+Godkin who put so much emphasis on the failures of the reformers as to
+overshadow their positive achievements. Moreover, there were the
+well-meaning but impracticable people who constituted what Theodore
+Roosevelt once called the "lunatic fringe" of reform movements.
+
+The attitude of the exponents of the patronage system toward the
+reformers was one of undisguised contempt. In a famous speech delivered
+at a New York state convention in Rochester in September, 1877,
+Conkling poured his scorn on the reform element in general and on
+Curtis in particular, as "man-milliners," "carpet-knights of politics,"
+"grasshoppers in the corner of a fence," and disciples of ladies'
+magazines with their "rancid, canting self-righteousness."
+
+The third personal element in the reform controversy was the chief
+executive. Beginning with Grant, if not with Lincoln, the presidents
+were favorable to the progress of reform, but they were surrounded by
+circumstances that made vigorous action a difficult matter. The task of
+distributing the patronage was a burden from which they would have been
+glad to be relieved, yet the demands of the party organization were
+insistent,--and to turn a constantly deaf ear to them would have been
+to court political disaster. The executive was always in the position
+of desiring to further an ideal and being obliged to face the hard
+facts of politics. The progress which he made, therefore, depended on
+how resolutely he could press forward his ideal in the face of
+continued opposition. A great difficulty lay in getting subordinates-in
+the cabinet, for example-who were in sympathy with progress, and
+sometimes even the vice-presidential nomination was given to the
+patronage element in the party in order to placate that faction, while
+the presidential nominee was disposed to reform.
+
+Public opinion was slow in forming and was lacking in the means of
+definite expression. For many years after the war there was widespread
+fear that the installation of a Democratic president would result in
+the wholesale debauch of the offices, and sober northerners believed,
+or thought they believed, that "rebels" would again be in power if a
+Democrat were elected. Under such conditions and because the offices
+were already filled with Republicans, the Republican North was willing
+to leave things as they were.
+
+The party pronouncements on civil service reform were as evasive as
+they were on finance and the tariff. To be surer the Liberal
+Republicans in 1872 sincerely desired reform and made it the subject of
+a definite plank in their platform, but the wing of the Democratic
+party that refused to ally with them was silent on the civil service,
+and the "straight" Republicans advocated reform in doubtful and
+unconvincing terms. In 1876 both party platforms were even more vague,
+although Hayes himself was openly committed to the improvement of the
+service.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The best work on the tariff is F.W. Taussig, _Tariff History of the
+United States_ (6th ed., 1914), a scholarly and non-partisan account,
+although giving slight attention to legislative history; Ida M.
+Tarbell, _Tariff in Our Times_ (1911), emphasizes the personal and
+social sides of tariff history and is hostile to protection; Edward
+Stanwood, _American Tariff Controversies_ (2 vols., 1903), devotes
+considerable attention to the historical setting and legislative
+history of tariff acts, and is distinctly friendly to protection.
+
+The most useful single volume on financial history is D.R. Dewey,
+_Financial History of the United States_ (5th ed., 1915), which is
+concise, accurate and equipped with full bibliographies; A.B. Hepburn,
+_History of Currency in the United States_ (1915), is by an expert;
+A.D. Noyes, _Forty Years of American Finance_ (1909), continues the
+same author's _Thirty Years_ and is reliable; T.B. Burton, _John
+Sherman_ (1906), is useful here. The legal-tender decisions are in J.W.
+Wallace, _Cases argued and adjudged in the Supreme Court_, VIII, 603,
+and XII, 457.
+
+The standard work on the civil service is C.R. Fish, _The Civil Service
+and the Patronage_ (1905); the reports of the Civil Service Commission,
+especially the Fourth Report, are essential; the articles by D.B. Eaton
+in J.J. Lalor, _Cyclopaedia of Political Science_ (3 vols., 1893), are
+justly well-known; G.W. Curtis, _Orations and Addresses_ (2 vols.,
+1894), and Edward Cary, _George William Curtis_ (1894), are excellent.
+The politician's side may be found in A.R. Conkling, _Life and Letters
+of Roscoe Conkling_ (1889), and T.C. Platt, _Autobiography_ (1910).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] This is the amount still outstanding.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+THE ADMINISTRATION OF RUTHERFORD B. HAYES
+
+The conditions which confronted President Hayes when the final decision
+of the Electoral Commission placed him in the executive chair did not
+make it probable that he could carry out a program of positive
+achievement. The withdrawal of troops from the South had been almost
+completed, but the process of reconstruction had been so dominated by
+suspicion, ignorance and vindictiveness that sectional hostility was
+still acute. As has been seen, the economic problems which faced the
+country were for the most part unsolved; on the subjects of tariff,
+finance and the civil service, neither party was prepared to present a
+united front; and the lack of foresight and statesmanlike leadership in
+the parties had given selfish interests an opportunity to seize control.
+Nor did the circumstances surrounding the election of Hayes tend to
+simplify his task, for the disappointment of the Democrats was extreme,
+and they found a natural difficulty in adjusting themselves to the
+decision against Tilden. Democratic newspapers dubbed Hayes "His
+Fraudulency" and "The Boss Thief," printed his picture with "Fraud"
+printed across his brow and referred to his election as the "steal" and
+a "political crime."
+
+The man who was to essay leadership under such conditions had back of
+him a useful even if not brilliant career. He had been born in Ohio in
+1822, had graduated from Kenyon College as valedictorian of his class,
+attended Harvard Law School and served on the Union side during the war,
+retiring with the rank of a brevet Major General. He had been twice
+elected to Congress, but had resigned after his second election to
+become governor of his native state, a position which he had filled for
+three terms.
+
+Hayes was a man of the substantial, conscientious and hard-working type.
+He was not brilliant or magnetic, he originated no innovations, burst
+into no flights of imaginative oratory. His state papers were planned
+with painstaking care--first, frequently, jotted down in his diary and
+then elaborated, revised, recopied and revised again. The vivid
+imagination and high-strung emotions that made Clay and Blaine great
+campaigners were lacking in Hayes. He was gentle, dignified, simple,
+systematic, thoughtful, serene, correct. In making his judgments on
+public questions he was sensitive to moral forces. The emancipation of
+the slaves was not merely wise and just to him--it was "Providential."
+He favored a single six-year term for the President because it would
+safeguard him from selfish scheming for another period of power. Partly
+because of the lack of dash and compelling force in Hayes, but more
+because of the low standards of political action which were common at
+the time, his scruples seemed puritanical and were held up to ridicule
+as the milk-and-water and "old-Woman" policies of "Granny Hayes." His
+public, as well as-his private life, was unimpeached in a time when
+lofty principles were not common and when scandal attached itself to
+public officers of every grade. To his probity and the "safe" character
+of his views, as well as to his record as governor of an important
+state, was due his elevation to the presidency.[1] In his habit of
+self-analysis, Hayes was reminiscent of John Quincy Adams. Like Adams he
+kept a diary from his early youth, the serious and mature entries in
+which cause the reader to wonder whether Hayes ever had a childhood.
+When he had just passed his twentieth birthday he confided to his diary
+that he found himself unsatisfied with his progress in Blackstone, that
+he must curb his "propensity" to read newspapers to the exclusion of
+more substantial matter, and in general that he was "greatly deficient
+in many particulars." Then and in later years he noted hostile
+criticisms of himself and combated them, recorded remarks that he had
+heard, propounded questions for future thought, expressed a modest
+ambition or admitted a curbed elation over success.
+
+In the field of politics Hayes was looked upon as a reliable party man,
+a reputation which was justified by his rigid adherence to his party and
+by his attitude toward the opposition. In both these respects he was the
+ordinary partisan. Nevertheless he thought out his views with unusual
+care, made them a matter of conscience and measured policies by ethical
+standards that were more exacting than the usual politician of the time
+was accustomed to exercise. The only remark of his that gained wide
+circulation reflects his type of partisanship: "he serves his party best
+who serves his country best." In these latter respects--his
+thoughtfulness, conscientiousness, exacting standards of conduct and
+less narrowly partisan spirit--he formed a contrast to the most
+influential leaders of his party organization. Altogether it seemed
+likely at the start that Hayes might have friction with the Republican
+chiefs.
+
+The opening of the administration found public interest centered on the
+inaugural address and the Cabinet.[2] The inaugural set forth with
+clearness and dignity the problems which the administration desired to
+solve: the removal of the barriers between the sections on the basis of
+the acceptance of the war amendments, southern self-government and the
+material development of the South; reform in the civil service,
+thorough, radical and complete; and the resumption of specie payments.
+To the choice of a cabinet, Hayes devoted much painstaking care. For
+Secretary of State, he nominated William M. Evarts of New York, an
+eminent lawyer who had aided Charles Francis Adams in his diplomatic
+battle with England during the Civil War and later in the Geneva
+Arbitration, had shown wit and finesse in the defence of Andrew Johnson
+in the impeachment trial, and had valiantly assisted the Republican
+cause before the Electoral Commission. In addition, Evarts was a man of
+the world who knew how to make the most of social occasions and was an
+orator of reputation. The Secretary of the Treasury was John Sherman of
+Ohio, who had been for years chairman of the finance committee of the
+Senate, and was an example of the more statesmanlike type of senator of
+war and reconstruction times.
+
+The nomination of Carl Schurz, as Secretary of the Interior, and David
+M. Key, as Postmaster-General, caused an uproar among the party leaders.
+Schurz was a cosmopolitan, a German-American, a scholar, orator, veteran
+of the Civil War, friend of Lincoln, and independent thinker. His
+devotion to the cause of civil service reform recommended him to the
+friendship of the President and to the enmity of the political leaders.
+The politicians scored Schurz as not a trustworthy Republican--he was
+independent by nature and had been a leader in the Liberal Republican
+movement; and they denounced him as an impractical man, whose head was
+full of transcendental theories--which was a method of saying that he
+was a civil service reformer. No little excitement was occasioned by the
+appointment of Key. The President had desired to appoint to the cabinet
+a southerner of influence, and had thought of Joseph E. Johnston as
+Secretary of War. The choice of General Johnston would have been an act
+of great magnanimity, but since General Sherman, to whom Johnston had
+surrendered only twelve years before, was commander of the army, it
+would have placed Sherman in the singular position of taking military
+orders from a former leading "rebel." When Hayes consulted his party
+associates, however, he found their feelings expressed in the
+exclamation of one of them: "Great God! Governor, I hope you are not
+thinking of doing anything of that kind!" He thereupon reluctantly gave
+way and turned to Key. The latter was less prominent than Johnston, but
+had been a Confederate leader, was a Democrat and a man of moderate
+counsels. The remaining members of the cabinet were men of much less
+moment, but altogether it is clear that few presidents have been
+surrounded by so able a group of advisers.[3]
+
+Seldom, also, has a president's announcement of his cabinet caused so
+much dissent among his own supporters. Senator Cameron, of Pennsylvania,
+had urged a cabinet appointment for his son, and on being refused became
+hostile to Hayes. Senator Blaine, of Maine, was piqued because Hayes
+refused to offer a place to a Maine man; the friends of General John A.
+Logan, of Illinois, were dissatisfied at the failure of Hayes to
+understand the qualifications of their favorite; Conkling disliked
+Evarts and besides desired a place for his associate Thomas C. Platt;
+and the latter considered the nomination of Evarts a "straight-arm" blow
+at the Republican organization. Departing, therefore, from the custom in
+such cases, the Senate withheld confirmation of the nominations for
+several days, during which it became apparent that the rest of the
+country had received the announcement of the cabinet with favor, and
+then the opposition disappeared. During the remainder of his presidency,
+however, Hayes fared badly in making his nominations to office, for
+fifty-one of them were rejected outright, a larger number than had ever
+before been disagreed to when the President and the Senate were of the
+same party. The frequency with which the nominations were rejected and
+the combative manner in which the contests were carried on by the Senate
+indicated that it was determined to regain and hold fast the influence
+in federal counsels that it had relinquished to the executive during the
+war.
+
+Aside from the nomination of members of the cabinet, the first important
+executive action that tested the attitude of the Senate toward the
+President was in relation to the southern problem. By March, 1877, all
+the former Confederate states except Louisiana and South Carolina had
+freed themselves from Republican rule by the methods already mentioned,
+and in these states the Republicans were kept in power only by the
+presence of troops. In Louisiana, both Packard, a Republican
+carpet-bagger, and Nicholls, a Louisiana Democrat, claimed to be the
+rightful governor. In South Carolina, the Republican contestant was
+Chamberlain, a native of Massachusetts; the Democrat was Wade Hampton, a
+typical old-time southerner. Hayes could withdraw the troops, in
+pursuance of his conciliatory policy, but if he did the Republican
+governments would certainly collapse because they were unsupported by
+public opinion. Furthermore, the returning board which had declared
+Hayes the choice of Louisiana in the presidential election had asserted
+that the Republican Packard was elected. Blaine, in the Senate,
+championed the doctrine that Hayes could not forsake the southern
+Republicans without invalidating his own title. Speaking in a confident
+and aggressive manner, he held that the honor, faith and credit of the
+party bound it to uphold the Republican claimants. Nevertheless, the
+President investigated conditions in both states, satisfied himself that
+public opinion was back of the Democratic governments and then recalled
+the troops, hardly more than a month after his inauguration. The
+Republican governments in the two states promptly gave way to the
+Democrats, and the storm was on in the Senate.[4]
+
+The Republican politicians believed that no good thing could come from
+the "rebels," that the President was abandoning the negro, and that he
+was surrendering the principles for which the party had contended.
+"Stalwarts," was the name applied by Blaine to these uncompromising
+party men who would not relinquish the grip of the organization on the
+southern states. Hayes was freely charged with having promised the
+removal of the military forces in return for the electoral votes of the
+two states concerned, and some color seemed to be lent to this
+accusation when he proceeded to reward the Louisiana and Florida
+returning boards with appointments to office. Even the New York _Times_,
+which usually supported Hayes with vigor, characterized the Louisiana
+settlement as "a surrender." William E. Chandler who had assisted Hayes
+as counsel in the disputed election attacked him in a pamphlet, "Can
+such Things be and overcome us like a Summer Cloud without our Special
+Wonder?" Most of the influential leaders in both houses of Congress
+scarcely disguised their hostility. Indeed the discontent went back into
+the states where, as in New Hampshire, a contest over the endorsement of
+Hayes was so bitter that the newspaper reporters had to be excluded from
+the state convention to prevent public reports of schism in the party.
+The Democrats could not come to his support since they were unable to
+forget the election of 1876 even in their satisfaction over the
+treatment accorded the South. In six weeks the President was without the
+backing of most of his party leaders. On the other hand, a few men of
+the type represented by Hoar and Sherman commended the President's
+policy. Independent publications such as _Harper's Weekly_ did likewise,
+and when the Republican convention of 1880 drew up the party platform
+the leaders made a virtue of necessity and adopted a plank
+enthusiastically supporting the Hayes administration.
+
+After he had finished with the southern problem, Hayes confided to his
+diary, "Now for civil service reform!" And for appointments in general
+he recorded several principles: no sweeping changes; recommendations by
+congressmen to be investigated--not merely accepted; and no relatives of
+himself or his wife to be appointed, however good their qualifications
+might be. In the meanwhile Secretary Schurz set to work to put the
+Department of the Interior on a merit basis. The principles that Hayes
+set up for himself and the steps that Schurz took were in conformity
+with the party platform of 1876 and with the President's inaugural
+address; nevertheless the party leaders were displeased, if not
+surprised, for platform promises were lightly regarded and inaugural
+addresses were sometimes not to be taken very seriously.
+
+The earliest acts of Hayes were not such as to facilitate the further
+progress of reform. The appointment of the members of the Louisiana
+Returning Board to federal offices gave color to charges that they were
+receiving their reward for assisting the President into his position.
+Furthermore, on June 22, 1877, he issued an executive order forbidding
+any United States officials to take part in the management of political
+organizations and declaring that political assessments on federal
+officers would not be allowed. So drastic an order brought amazement to
+the party leaders, who had not dreamed of anything so radical. Perhaps
+the order was too sudden and sweeping, considering the practices of the
+time. At any rate it was not enforced and the President seemed to have
+set a standard to which he had not the courage to adhere. Nevertheless,
+reform principles were successfully tested in the New York Post Office
+by Thomas L. James, a vigorous exponent of the merit system who had been
+appointed by President Grant and was now re-appointed and upheld by
+President Hayes.
+
+But the great battle for the new idea came in connection with the New
+York Custom House. Through the port of New York came two-thirds to
+three-fourths of the goods which were imported into this country, and
+the necessity for a businesslike conduct of the custom house seemed
+obvious. Yet there had for some time been complaints concerning the
+service, and Sherman appointed commissions, with the approval of the
+President, to investigate conditions in New York and elsewhere. The
+commission which studied the situation in New York reported that
+one-fifth of the persons employed there were superfluous, that
+inefficiency and neglect of duty were common, and that the positions at
+the disposal of the collector had for years been used for the reward of
+party activity. The commission recommended sweeping changes which
+Secretary Sherman and President Hayes approved. It then appeared that
+the New York officials were not favorable to the President's reform
+plans. Furthermore, Chester A. Arthur, the collector of the port, was a
+close friend of Roscoe Conkling, the head of the state machine; and A.B.
+Cornell, the naval officer, was chairman of the state and national
+Republican committees; It was evident that an attempt to change
+conditions in New York would precipitate a test of strength between the
+administration and the New York organization.
+
+As Arthur and Cornell would not further the desired reforms and would
+not resign, the President removed them. When he nominated their
+successors, however, the Senate, led by Conkling, refused to add its
+confirmation and there the matter rested for some months. Eventually the
+President's nominations were confirmed, an outcome which seems to have
+been brought about in part at least by letters from. Secretary Sherman
+to personal friends in the Senate in which he urgently pressed the case
+of the administration. The President's victory emphasized the
+disagreement of the powerful state organization with the reform idea,
+and while the reformers rejoiced that the warfare had been carried into
+the enemy's country, newspaper opinion varied between the view that the
+President was playing politics and that he was actuated by the highest
+motives only. Agitation for reform, meanwhile, continued to increase.
+The literary men among the reformers, aided by scores of lesser lights,
+conducted a campaign of education; the New York Civil Service Reform
+Association, founded in 1877, and the National Civil Service Reform
+League, in 1881, gave evidence of an effort towards the organization of
+reform sentiment.
+
+While the attention of the President and the politicians was directed
+toward the reform of the civil service, there occurred an event for
+which none of them was prepared. Early in the summer of 1877 train hands
+on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad struck because of a reduction in
+wages, the fourth cut that they had suffered in seven years. The strike
+spread with the speed of a prairie fire over most of the northern roads
+between New England and the Mississippi. At the height of the
+controversy at least 100,000 strikers and six or seven thousand miles of
+railway were involved, while at several points especially Martinsburg,
+West Virginia, and Pittsburg, rioting and destruction took place. A
+considerable number of people were killed or wounded, and the loss of
+property in Pittsburg alone was estimated at five to ten millions of
+dollars. Eventually, when the state militia failed to check the
+disorder, the President was called upon for federal troops and these
+proved effectual. That even so thoughtful and conscientious a man as
+Hayes was far from understanding the meaning of the strike was indicated
+in his message to Congress in which he merely expressed his
+gratification that the troops had been able to repress the disorder.
+Repression, that is to say, was the one resource that occurred to the
+mind of the chief executive and to the majority of the men of his day.
+That repression alone could not remedy evils permanently, that salutary
+force ought to be immediately supplemented by a study of the rights and
+wrongs of the two sides and by a dispassionate correction of
+abuses,--all this did not even remotely occur to the thoughts of the
+political leaders of the time.
+
+The breach in the ranks of the Republicans which was made by the events
+of the early days of the Hayes administration was closed in the face of
+an attack by the common enemy--the Democrats. The latter, being in
+control of the House, appointed the "Potter Committee" to investigate
+the title of Hayes to the Presidency, hoping to discredit him and
+thereby turn the tables in the election of 1880. The committee examined
+witnesses and reported, the Democrats asserting that Tilden had been
+elected and the Republicans that Hayes had been. The Republican Senate,
+meanwhile, had prepared a counterblast. By legal proceedings a committee
+had obtained from the Western Union Telegraph Company over thirty
+thousand of the telegrams sent by both parties during the campaign. The
+Republicans declared that the "cipher despatches" among these messages
+showed that the Democrats had offered a substantial bribe for the vote
+of an Oregon Republican elector. Before the dispatches were returned to
+the telegraph company, somebody took the precaution to destroy those
+that concerned Republican campaign methods and to retain those relating
+to the Democrats. The latter were published by the New York _Tribune_
+and revealed attempts to bribe the Florida and South Carolina Returning
+Boards. Most of them had been sent by Tilden's nephew or received by
+him, so that the corrupt trail seemed to lead straight to the candidate
+himself, but the evidence was inconclusive. The Potter Committee then
+investigated the telegrams, together with a great number of witnesses,
+and another partisan report resulted. It thus appeared that both pot and
+kettle were black and there the matter rested. The Democrats had done
+themselves no good and had done the Republicans no harm.[5]
+
+The Democrats also attacked the election laws, under which federal
+officials supervised elections, and federal judges and marshals had
+jurisdiction over cases concerning the suffrage. Under these laws, also,
+troops could be used to enforce the judgments of the Courts. There is no
+doubt that intimidation, unfair practices and bribery were all too
+common in the North as well as in the South. The lack of official
+ballots and secret voting made abuses inevitable. In New York,
+Cincinnati and other northern cities, and on a smaller scale in the
+rural districts, abuses of one sort or another were normal
+accompaniments of elections. Intimidation in the South was notorious and
+not denied. The existing election laws gave the dominant party an
+opportunity to appoint large numbers of deputy-marshals--largely party
+workers, of course-paying them from the national treasury and so
+solidifying the party organization. In the election of 1876 about
+$275,000 had been spent in this way. Some of the federal supervisors had
+been extremely energetic--so much so that in one case in Louisiana their
+registration lists showed 8,000 more colored voters in 1876 than were
+discovered by the census enumerators four years later.
+
+If the Republicans saw involved in the laws both a principle and a party
+weapon, the Democrats saw both a principle and an opportunity. They
+attached a "rider" to an army appropriation bill, which made it unlawful
+to use any part of the army for any other than the purposes expressly
+authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress. Since the
+Constitution allowed the use of troops only to "execute the laws of the
+Union, to suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions," the new law would
+prevent the employment of armed forces for civil purposes at the polling
+places. The President was compelled to yield to save the appropriation
+bill.
+
+In the next Congress the Democrats controlled both House and Senate and
+they advanced to the attack on the remainder of the election laws.
+Attempts were made to prevent the appointment of special deputy-marshals
+by forbidding the payment of any compensation to them or to the regular
+marshals when used in elections. Each time that Congress passed such a
+law the President vetoed it, even though special sessions had to be
+called to make up for lost time. He saw in the use of the rider a
+dangerous assertion of coercive power on the part of Congress. By means
+of it, Congress was withholding funds essential for military and civil
+purposes until the President should assent to legislation totally
+unconnected with the appropriations. He felt himself being threatened
+and driven by a hostile legislature. For the President to give way
+before such constraint would be to lose the veto power and to destroy
+the independence of the executive as a branch of the government. The
+Democrats were unable to muster force enough to overrule the veto, and
+here the matter rested while other forces, which have already been
+described, were sapping the strength of the election laws. On the whole,
+the result was probably to bring the Republican factions together and so
+to strengthen the party for the election of 1880. The Democrats, on the
+other hand, probably lost ground.
+
+In the meanwhile a difficult and technical problem--the monetary
+question--was forcing itself upon the attention of Congress and of the
+country. The rapid development of the economic life of the United States
+was demanding an increased volume of currency with which to perform the
+multitude of exchanges which constantly take place in the life of an
+industrial people. Unless the volume of the currency expanded
+proportionately with the increase of business, or there was a
+corresponding increase in the use of bank checks, the demand for money
+would cause its value to go up--that is, prices to go down. If the
+volume expanded more rapidly than was necessitated by business, the
+value of money would fall and prices would go up. A change in the price
+level in either direction, as has been seen, would harm important groups
+of people. The exact amount, however, by which the volume should be
+increased was not easy to determine. Furthermore, assuming that both
+gold and silver should be coined, what amount of each would constitute
+the most desirable combination? What ought to be the weight of the
+coins? If paper currency was to supplement the precious metals, what
+amount of it should be in circulation? These are difficult questions
+under any circumstances. They did not become less so when answered by a
+bulky and uninformed Congress acting under the influence of definite
+personal, sectional and property interests.
+
+Several facts tended to restrict the kind of money whose volume could be
+greatly increased. It was not advisable to expand the greenbacks because
+legislation had already limited their amount and because such action
+would unfavorably affect the approaching resumption of specie payments.
+The quantity of national bank notes, another common form of paper money,
+was somewhat rigidly determined by the amount of federal bonds
+outstanding, for the national bank notes were issued upon the federal
+bonds as security. Moreover, the bonds were being rapidly paid off
+during the seventies and it was, therefore, impossible to expect any
+increase of the currency from this source. Normally the supply of gold
+available for coinage did not vary greatly from year to year and
+certainly did not respond with exactness to the demand of industry for a
+greater or smaller volume of circulating medium. It seemed to remain for
+silver to supply any needed increase.
+
+But silver was not in common use except as a subsidiary coin. For many
+years the value of the bullion necessary for coining a silver dollar had
+been greater than the value of the coin. Nobody therefore brought his
+silver to the mint but sold it instead in the commercial markets. Indeed
+so insignificant was the amount of silver usually coined into dollars
+that an act of 1873 systematizing the coinage laws had omitted the
+silver dollar completely from the list of coins. The omission was later
+referred to by the friends of silver currency as the "Crime of 1873." At
+the same time a remarkable coincidence was providing the motive power
+for the demand that silver be more largely used as currency. Early in
+the seventies Germany and the Latin Monetary Union, (France,
+Switzerland, Belgium, Italy and Greece), had reduced the amount of their
+silver coinage, thus throwing a large supply of bullion on the market.
+Simultaneously, enlarged supplies of silver were being found in western
+United States. A Nevada mine, for example, which had produced six
+hundred and forty-five thousand dollars' worth of ore in 1873 had turned
+out nearly twenty-five times that amount two years later. Naturally the
+market price of silver fell and the mine owners began to seek an outlet
+for their product. Thus the people who were convinced that the volume of
+the currency was insufficient for the industrial demands of the nation
+received a new and powerful reenforcement from the producers of silver
+ore. There arose what the New York _Tribune_ referred to as "The Cloud
+in the West."
+
+Inevitably the cloud in the West threw its shadow into Congress where
+the demand was insistent that the government "do something for silver."
+A commission had been appointed in 1876 to study the currency problem
+and make recommendations. When the report was made it appeared that the
+opinions of the members were so divergent that little was gained from
+the investigation. While the commission was deliberating, Richard P.
+Bland of Missouri introduced a bill providing for the free and unlimited
+coinage of silver. Under its provisions the owner of silver bullion
+could present any quantity of his commodity to the government to be
+coined under the conditions which controlled the coinage of gold. The
+House responded readily to Bland's proposal. In the Senate, under the
+leadership of William B. Allison, the free and unlimited feature of the
+bill was dropped and a provision adopted limiting the purchase of
+bullion to an amount not greater than four million dollars' worth per
+month and not less than two million dollars' worth. The bullion so
+obtained was to be coined into silver dollars, which were to be legal
+tender for all debts public and private. Bland was ready to accept the
+compromise because he hoped to be able to increase the use of silver by
+subsequent legislation. "If we cannot do that," he said, "I am in favor
+of issuing paper money enough to stuff down the bond-holders until they
+are sick." The remark was typical of the sectional and class hatreds and
+misunderstandings which this debate aroused, and of the maze of
+ignorance in which both sides were groping. To the silver faction, their
+opponents were "mendacious hirelings" and "Gilded Shylocks." God, in His
+infinite wisdom had imbedded silver in the western mountains for a
+beneficent purpose. "The country," said one speaker, "is in an agony of
+business distress and looks for some relief by a gradual increase of the
+currency." On the other hand, the opponents of silver scorned the
+"delusion" of a "clipped" coin and the dishonest proposition to make
+ninety cents' worth of silver pass as a dollar. The "storm-driven,
+buffeted, and scarred" ship of industrial peace, an easterner declared,
+"deeply laden with all precious and golden treasure is sighted in the
+offing!... shall we put out the lights?... Dare we remove the ship's
+helm, leaving her crippled and helpless!"
+
+Sherman believed that this limited amount of silver could be taken into
+the currency system without difficulty, but President Hayes thought that
+harm would result from making the silver dollar a legal tender when the
+market value of the bullion in the coin was not equal in value to that
+of the gold dollar. He therefore vetoed the bill on February 28, 1878.
+He could not carry Congress with him, however, and the measure was
+passed over the veto on the same day.
+
+Party lines had disappeared during the debates over the passage of the
+act. Eastern members of both houses and of both parties had been
+opposed, with few exceptions, to the increased use of silver; the
+westerners had been equally united in its favor. The East, the creditor
+section and the holder of most of the Civil War bonds, had no desire to
+try an experiment with the currency which would, in their opinion,
+reduce the purchasing power of their income. The debtor West looked with
+disfavor upon an increase in the real amount of their debts which was
+brought about by an inadequate supply of currency. Since prices
+continued to decline they believed that the remedy was a greater
+quantity of money. Evidently the greenback controversy was reviving in a
+new garb.
+
+The approach of the resumption of specie payments which had been set, it
+will be remembered, for January 1, 1879, increased the burden under
+which the westerners and the debtor classes in general were working.
+Favorable commercial conditions and Sherman's foresight, tact and
+intelligence made it possible to overcome the various difficulties in
+the way of accumulating a sufficient reserve of gold, and on December
+31, 1878, the Treasury had on hand about $140,000,000 of the precious
+metal, an amount nearly equal to forty per cent. of the paper in
+circulation. Despite the desirability of resumption, the first effects
+of preparations for it were harmful to considerable bodies of people. As
+January 1 approached, the greenbacks, which had been circulating at a
+depreciated value, rose nearer and nearer to par. Debts which had been
+incurred when paper dollars were worth sixty cents in gold, had to be
+paid in dollars worth eighty, ninety or a hundred cents, according to
+the date when the debt fell due. Business men who were heavily in debt
+and farmers whose property was mortgaged found their burden daily
+growing in size.
+
+Notwithstanding the steady advance of paper toward par value, Sherman
+nervously awaited business hours on January 2, 1879, (since the first
+fell on Sunday) to see whether there would be such a rush of holders of
+paper who would wish gold that his slender stock would be wiped out. New
+York, the financial center, was watched with especial anxiety. To
+Sherman's surprise, only $135,000 of paper was presented for redemption
+in gold; to his amazement and relief, $400,000 in gold was presented in
+exchange for paper. Evidently, now that paper and metal were
+interchangeable, people preferred the lighter and more convenient
+medium. Favorable business conditions enabled the government to continue
+specie payments; a huge grain crop in 1879, coupled with crop failures
+in England, caused unprecedented exports of wheat, corn and other
+products, and a corresponding importation of gold. The damage resulting
+from the appreciation of paper was temporary in character; the public
+credit was vastly benefited; and the greater amount of stability in the
+value of paper proved invaluable to industry.
+
+Happily Hayes's stormy political relations were balanced by comparative
+quiet in foreign affairs. Only Mexico caused trouble, and that was of
+negligible importance. A few raiders made sporadic excursions into
+Texas, which necessitated an expedition for the punishment of the
+marauders. General Ord was directed to cross the border if necessary,
+but General Diaz, at the head of the Mexican government, concluded an
+agreement for cooperation with the United States in the protection of
+the boundary. The agreement was only partly successful, however, and on
+several occasions troops crossed the Rio Grande and fought with bandits.
+
+On the Pacific Coast, meanwhile, the Chinese question was becoming a
+political issue. In earlier times the immigration of the Chinese had
+been encouraged because of the need of a cheap labor supply when the
+transcontinental railroads were being built. As the coast filled up,
+however, with native population, and the demand for laborers fell off,
+there arose numerous objections to the oriental. It was seen that since
+he was willing to work for extremely low wages he could drive American
+laborers out of their places. Labor leaders such as Dennis Kearney held
+meetings on the "sand lots" in San Francisco and aroused anti-Chinese
+feeling. Riots and violence, even, were not unknown.
+
+Just before the inauguration of President Hayes a commission of inquiry
+had visited the coast and examined many witnesses. The commission
+reported that the resources of the Pacific states had been more rapidly
+developed with coolie labor than they would otherwise have been, but
+that the Chinese lived under filthy conditions, formed an inferior
+foreign element and were, on the whole, undesirable. It recommended that
+the executive take steps in the direction of a modification of the
+existing treaty with China, for fear that the problem might spread
+eastward with increasing immigration. The electioneering possibilities
+of the subject had appealed to both parties and they had earnestly
+demanded action in their platforms of 1876. Opinion was forming
+throughout the country, aided by Bret Harte's famous lines:
+
+    Which I wish to remark
+    And my language is plain,
+    That for ways that are dark
+    And tricks that are vain,
+    The heathen Chinee is peculiar
+    Which the same I would rise to explain.
+
+Action by Congress was hindered by the Burlingame treaty of 1868 with
+China, which covered the subject of immigration in unmistakable
+language. By its provisions citizens of China were to have the same
+rights of travel and residence in America as the subjects of the most
+favored nation. Reciprocally, China was to grant equal privileges to
+citizens of the United States. The process of modifying a treaty through
+the ordinary diplomatic channels was so slow that Congress sought to
+avoid delay by passing a law forbidding shipmasters to bring in more
+than fifteen Chinese at one time, and calling upon the President to
+notify China that the terms of the Burlingame treaty, in so far as they
+related to immigration, would not hold after July 1, 1879, when the
+proposed legislation would take effect. President Hayes sympathized with
+the purpose of the bill but felt obliged to veto it because of the
+Burlingame treaty. The veto message recalled that the treaty had been of
+American seeking and that its ratification had been applauded all over
+the country. The abrogation of part of the agreement would be equivalent
+to abrogation of the whole, leaving American citizens in China without
+adequate treaty protection. Furthermore Hayes felt that treaties could
+not rightfully be violated by legislation, but advocated other measures
+for the relief of the people of the Pacific Coast. He thereupon sent to
+China a commission, headed by James B. Angell of Michigan, which
+succeeded in liberally modifying the existing treaty. Under the new
+arrangement the United States might "regulate, limit, or suspend" the
+immigration of Chinese laborers; and as the treaty was promptly
+ratified, it redounded somewhat to the credit of the Republicans in the
+election of 1880.
+
+The administration of Hayes was, on the whole, an admirable one. The
+problems which he faced were varied and difficult, but most of them were
+met sensibly and with success. To be sure, he did not grasp the social
+and economic forces behind the monetary agitation; nor did he have the
+insight and originality necessary for attacking the problem of industrial
+unrest as it appeared in the strike of 1877. But neither did his
+associates, nor his successors in the presidency for many years to
+come. On the other hand, the ethical standards of the administration
+were high and the atmosphere of the White House sane and wholesome. The
+home life of the President was exceptionally attractive, for Mrs. Hayes
+was a woman of unusual charm and social capacity. The attitude of Hayes
+on the southern question and on civil service reform was courageous and
+progressive. And most of all, his ideas on public questions were stated
+with unmistakable clearness in a day when old issues were sinking into
+the background and both parties were reluctant to define their position
+on the new ones.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+A great contribution to the understanding of Hayes's administration was
+made by the publication of C.R. Williams, _Life of Rutherford B. Hayes_
+(2 vols., 1914). It is complete and contains copious extracts from
+Hayes's diary, but is written with less of the critical spirit than is
+desirable; J.F. Rhodes has a valuable chapter in his _Historical Essays_
+(1909); J.W. Burgess, _Administration of R.B. Hayes_ (1916), is a
+eulogy; V.L. Shores, _Hayes-Conkling Controversy_ (1919), describes the
+civil service quarrel; J.R. Commons and others, _History of Labor in the
+United States_ (2 vols., 1918), describes the strike of 1877; so also
+does J.F. Rhodes, _History of the United States from Hayes to McKinley_
+(1919), with full references. On the Chinese affair, consult Mrs. M.E.
+B.S. Coolidge, _Chinese Immigration_ (1909). Most of the general
+histories already mentioned dwell at length on the Hayes administration.
+
+For the official messages of this and succeeding administrations, the
+most convenient source is J.D. Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the
+Presidents_ (10 vols., 1903).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] For a time public interest was absorbed by the determination of
+President and Mrs. Hayes to serve no wines of any kind in the White
+House. Finally a delicious frozen punch was served at about the middle
+of the state dinners, known to the thirsty as "the Life-saving Station."
+It was popularly understood to be liberally strengthened with old Santa
+Croix rum, but the President later asserted that he had caused the punch
+to be sharpened with the flavor of Jamaica rum and that no drop of
+spirits was inserted. What the _chef_ really did, perhaps nobody knows.
+At any rate, both sides were satisfied. Williams, _R.B. Hayes_, II; 312
+note.
+
+[2] Because March 4 fell on Sunday, the oath of office was privately
+administered to Hayes on Saturday evening, March 3. Williams, _Hayes_,
+II, 5.
+
+[3] George W. McCrary was Secretary of War; Richard W. Thompson,
+Secretary of the Navy; Charles Devens, Attorney-General.
+
+[4] Chamberlain, the Republican claimant in South Carolina, wrote in
+1901 that he was "quite ready now to say that he feels sure that there
+was no possibility of securing permanent good government in South
+Carolina through Republican influences." _Atlantic Monthly_, LXXXVII,
+482.
+
+[5] Many of the dispatches were in a complicated cipher which resisted
+all attempts at solution. The _Tribune_ published samples from time
+to time, keeping interest alive in the hope that somebody might solve
+the riddle. Finally two members of the _Tribune_ staff were successful
+in discovering the key to the cipher in a way that recalls the
+paper-covered detective story. The newspaper aroused and excited public
+interest by publishing specimens and eventually achieved a sensation by
+putting the most damaging material into print on October 16, 1878. One
+of the telegrams, with its translation, ran as follows:
+
+    "Absolutely Petersburg can procured by Copenhagen may Thomas
+    prompt Edinburgh must if river take be you less London Thames
+    will."
+
+    Translation: If Returning Board can be procured absolutely, will
+    you deposit 30,000 dollars? May take less. Must be prompt. Thomas.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+THE POLITICS OF THE EARLY EIGHTIES
+
+The Hayes administration was scarcely half over when the politicians
+began to look forward to the election of 1880. At the outset of his
+term, Hayes had advocated a single term for the executive and there was
+no widespread movement among the politicians to influence him to change
+his attitude. His enemies, indeed, had already turned to General Grant.
+There had been a third-term boom for the General during his second
+administration and he had indicated that he was not formidably opposed
+to further continuance in office. Suddenly, however, the anti-third-term
+feeling had risen to impressive proportions, whereupon the House of
+Representatives had adopted a resolution which characterized any
+departure from the two-term precedent as "unwise, unpatriotic, and
+fraught with peril to our free institutions." As the resolution passed
+by an overwhelming vote--233-18--nothing further was heard of a
+third-term boom.
+
+The Hayes administration put a different complexion on the matter. The
+wheel-horses of the party were not enthusiastic over the President or
+his policies, and in their extremity they looked to Grant. The New York
+State Republican Convention, under control of Roscoe Conkling and his
+forces, instructed delegates to support the General as a candidate for
+the nomination and endeavored to forestall opposition to a third term.
+It declared that the objection to a third presidential term applied only
+to a third consecutive term and hence was inapplicable to the
+re-election of Grant. Grant, meanwhile, presented a spectacle that was
+at once humorous and pathetic. He had not expected, on leaving the
+presidency, to return to power again, had dropped consideration of the
+political future and had given himself up to the enjoyment of foreign
+travel. The royal reception accorded him wherever he went suggested to
+his political supporters that they utilize his popularity. It was
+foreseen that when he returned to America he would receive a tremendous
+ovation, on the wave of which he might be carried into office. He was
+flooded with advice and entreaties that he act in accordance with this
+plan. His family was eager to return to the position of social eminence
+which they had occupied, and pressure from them was incessant. At first
+he did nothing either to aid or to hinder the boom, then gave way to the
+pressure and at last became extremely anxious to obtain the coveted
+prize.
+
+If the politicians did, in truth, desire a relaxation from the patronage
+standards of the Hayes regime, they did not make that the ostensible
+purpose of their campaign. They argued that the times demanded a strong
+man; that foreign travel had greatly broadened the General and given him
+a knowledge of other forms of government; that he had been great as a
+commander of armies, greater as a President, and that as a citizen of
+the Republic he "shone with a luster that challenged the admiration of
+the world." Behind him were Conkling and Platt, with the New York state
+organization under their control, Don Cameron who held Pennsylvania in
+his hand, General Logan, strong in Illinois, and lesser leaders who
+wielded much power in smaller states. Many business men were ready to
+lend their aid; the powerful Methodist Church, to which he belonged, was
+favorable to him; and, of course, his popularity as a military leader
+was unbounded. His return to the United States while the enthusiasm was
+at its height was the signal for an unprecedented ovation. The opponents
+of a third term painted in high colors the danger of a revival of the
+scandals of Grant's days in the presidential chair, formed "No Third
+Term" leagues, called an "Anti-Third-Term" convention and decried the
+danger of continuing a military man in civil office. _The Nation_
+scoffed at the educational effect of foreign travel on a man who was
+fifty-seven years of age and could understand the language in only one
+of the countries in which he travelled. A large fraction of the
+Republican press, in fact, was in opposition. "Anything to beat Grant"
+and "No third term" were their war-cries. Nor was there any lack of
+Republican candidates to oppose the Grant movement and to give promise
+of a lively nominating convention. Blaine's popularity was as widespread
+as ever. Those who feared the nomination of either Grant or Blaine
+favored Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont or Secretary Sherman. Both
+of these men were of statesmanlike proportions, but Edmunds was never
+widely popular and Sherman was lacking in the arts of the
+politician--"the human icicle," T.C. Platt called him.
+
+The Republican nominating convention of 1880 met in Chicago in a
+building described as "one of the most splendid barns" ever built. This
+convention is unusually worthy of study because it involved most of the
+elements which entered into American politics in the early eighties. It
+was long memorable as making a record for that form of enthusiasm which
+bursts into demonstrations. "Great applause," "loud laughter," "cheers"
+and "hisses long and furious" dot the newspaper accounts of its
+deliberations. The members "acted like so many Bedlamites," one of the
+delegates said. On one day the opening prayer was so unexpectedly short
+that there was applause and laughter. The keen contest for the
+nomination resulted in galleries packed with supporters of the several
+candidates, who cheered furiously as their favorite delegates appeared.
+As the galleries came down nearly to the level of the floor, the
+spectators were almost as much members of the convention as the
+delegates themselves. It was under such conditions, then, that the
+convention proceeded to the serious business of adopting principles and
+choosing a leader.
+
+Three hundred and six of the 757 delegates were sworn supporters of
+Grant--pledged to die, if they died at all, "with their boots on," one
+of their leaders said. In each of the big delegations--those from New
+York, Pennsylvania and Illinois--a minority was unfavorable to Grant.
+This minority could be counted in the General's column if the convention
+could be forced to adopt the so-called "unit-rule," under which the
+delegation from a state casts all its votes for the candidate favored by
+the majority. In this particular case, the minorities in New York,
+Pennsylvania and Illinois numbered more than sixty delegates, so that
+the adoption of the rule was a stake worth playing for. The plan
+formulated by the Grant leaders was worthy of the time.
+
+Donald Cameron of Pennsylvania was chairman of the National Republican
+Committee. Following the usual custom, Cameron was to call the
+convention to order and present the temporary chairman who had been
+chosen by the Committee. As the Grant supporters were in a minority even
+on the Committee, provision was made to meet the emergency in case the
+majority insisted on the appointment of an anti-Grant chairman. Cameron
+was to announce the name, a Grant delegate was to move to substitute a
+Grant man instead, and Cameron would enforce the unit-rule in the
+resulting ballot. This would ensure control of the organization of the
+convention and, doubtless, of the nomination of the candidate.
+
+Unhappily for this well-laid plan, rumor of it leaked out, and the
+majority of the National Committee--opposed to Grant--conveyed
+information to Cameron that he must agree to give up such a scheme or be
+ousted from his position. Cameron, convinced that his enemies were
+determined, gave up his project, and Senator George F. Hoar, who favored
+neither Grant nor Blaine, was made temporary and later permanent
+chairman.
+
+Although defeated in the first skirmish, the Grant forces pressed
+forward for renewed conflict. Conkling presented a resolution that every
+member of the convention be bound in honor to support the eventual
+candidate, whoever he might be. The resolution passed 716 to three; and
+he then moved that the three who had voted in the negative had thereby
+forfeited their votes in the convention. James A. Garfield of Ohio led
+the opposition to such rough-shod action and Conkling angrily withdrew
+his resolution amid hisses. When Garfield reported from the Committee on
+Rules in regard to the regulations under which the convention should
+deliberate, he moved that the unit rule be not adopted and the
+convention upheld him. It was manifest that the delegates were not in a
+mood to surrender to a junto of powerful machine politicians.
+
+The way having been now cleared for action, the convention adopted a
+platform. This was composed largely of a summary of the achievements of
+the party and denunciation of the opposition. Most of the planks were
+abstract or perfunctory, or expressed in such a way as not to commit the
+party seriously. _Harper's Weekly_, a Republican periodical, regretted
+the character of the platform and remarked that such documents are
+expected to say
+
+    An undisputed thing
+    In such a solemn way.
+
+Judged by this criterion, the platform was ideal. The obligations of the
+country to the veterans were emphasized and the restriction of Chinese
+immigration called for. On the tariff, the only utterance was an avowal
+that duties levied for the purposes of revenue should discriminate in
+favor of labor. After this declaration of faith had been unanimously
+adopted, a Massachusetts delegate presented an additional plank
+advocating civil service reform.
+
+The convention was now badly put to it. To reject a plank which had been
+accepted both in 1872 and in 1876 would discredit the party,
+particularly as the platform just adopted had accused the opposition of
+sacrificing patriotism "to a supreme and insatiable lust for office."
+Nevertheless the opposition to its adoption was formidable, and it had
+already been twice rejected in the Committee on Resolutions, which drew
+up the platform. There seemed no way of avoiding the issue, however, and
+the plank was thereupon adopted, though not before Webster Flanagan of
+Texas had blurted out, "After we have won the race ... we will give
+those who are entitled to positions office. What are we up here for?"
+
+With the speeches presenting candidates to the convention, the real
+business of the week began. Senator Conkling aroused a tempest of
+enthusiasm for General Grant in a famous speech which began with the
+lines,
+
+    When asked what state he hails from,
+      Our sole reply shall be,
+    He comes from Appomattox
+      And its famous apple tree.
+
+Garfield presented Sherman's name. At the outset General Grant led,
+Blame was a close second and Sherman third. This order continued for
+thirty-five ballots. By that time Blaine and Grant had fought each other
+to a standstill. The General's three hundred and six held together
+without a break, and Blaine's forces were equally determined.[1]
+
+There was little chance of compromise, as Grant and Blaine were not on
+speaking terms, and Conkling and Blaine looked upon each other with
+unconcealed hatred. Since Sherman was handicapped by lack of united
+support in his own state, the natural solution of the problem seemed to
+be the choice of some other leader who might harmonize the contending
+factions. On the thirty-fourth ballot, seventeen votes were given to
+Garfield; on the next, fifty; then a stampede began, in spite of a
+protest by Garfield, and on the thirty-sixth ballot a union of the
+Blaine and Sherman forces made him the choice of the convention. The
+nominee for the vice-presidency was Chester A. Arthur, who was one of
+the leading supporters of Grant and a member of the Conkling group.
+
+The choice of Garfield was well received by the country, perhaps the
+more so as a relief from the danger of a third term. The nominee was a
+man of great industry, possessed of a store of information, tactful,
+modest, popular, an effective orator, and a veteran of the war. His
+rise from canal boy to candidate for the presidency exemplified the
+possibilities before industrious youth and gave rise to many a homily
+on democratic America. Yet his friends had to defend his relation to a
+paving scandal in the District of Columbia and an unwise connection with
+the Credit Mobilier of 1873. In neither of these cases does Garfield
+seem to have been corrupt, but in neither does he appear in a highly
+favorable light.[2]
+
+As the Republicans were dispersing, the Greenback convention was
+assembling. Their strength in the campaign was almost negligible but
+their platform presaged the future. Money to be issued only by the
+government, the volume of money increased, ameliorative labor
+legislation, restriction of Chinese immigration, regulation of
+interstate commerce, an income tax, government for the people rather
+than for classes, wider suffrage,--all these were advocated in concise
+and unmistakable terms. James B. Weaver was the presidential candidate.
+
+Among the Democrats, the all important question was whether Tilden would
+be a candidate again. He naturally wished for a renomination and an
+opportunity to prove by an election that he had been "fraudulently"
+deprived of the presidency in 1876. The party, likewise, seemed to need
+his services, as no other leader of equal prominence had appeared. On
+the other hand, his health had rapidly failed since 1876 and it was
+apparent that he was unequal to the exacting labors of the presidency.
+Not until just before the meeting of the convention, however, did he
+make known his wishes and then he declared that he desired nothing so
+much as an honorable discharge from public service and that he
+"renounced" the renomination. The party took him at his word and turned
+to the adoption of a platform and the choice of another leader.
+
+The platform reflected the bitterness of the party over the "great
+fraud" of 1876-1877 and advocated tariff for revenue only, civil service
+reform and the restriction of Chinese immigration. In other words,
+except for the usual self-congratulation and the denunciation of the
+opposition, the Democratic platform closely resembled that of the
+Republicans. The convention then nominated for the presidency General
+Winfield S. Hancock, a modest, brave Union soldier, of whom Grant once
+said, "his name was never mentioned as having committed in battle a
+blunder for which he was responsible." He was not an experienced
+politician, but was popular even in the South.
+
+On the whole the Democratic convention was much less interesting than
+its Republican predecessor. There were no fierce factional quarrels to
+arouse the emotions to concert pitch. The applause spurted out here and
+there like the "jets from a splitting hose" in the "Ki yi yi yi" which
+characterized the cheers of the lower wards of New York, in contrast to
+the rolling billows of applause which formed so memorable an element in
+the opposition gathering. The New York Tribune, although hostile to
+everything Democratic, perhaps stated the fact when it commented on the
+lack of enthusiasm. The convention, the Tribune noted, was well-behaved,
+but a mob without leaders; there were no Conklings or Garfields or
+Logans, only John Kelleys and Wade Hamptons.
+
+The campaign of 1880 reflected the lack of definite utterances in the
+party platforms. Since each side was loath to press forward to the
+solution of any real problem facing the nation, the campaign was
+confined, for the most part, to petty or even corrupt partisanship. The
+career of General Garfield was carefully overhauled for evidences of
+scandal. Arthur's failings as a public officer were duly paraded.
+General Hancock was ridiculed as "a good man weighing two hundred and
+forty pounds." Some attempt was made by the Republicans to make an issue
+of the tariff, and a remark of Hancock to the effect that the tariff was
+a "local issue" was jeered at as proving an ignorance of public
+questions. There was little response to the "bloody shirt" and little
+interest in "the great fraud." A modicum of enthusiasm was injected into
+the canvass by the participation of Conkling and General Grant. The
+former was not happily disposed toward the Republican candidate and
+Grant had always refused to make campaign speeches, but as the autumn
+came on and defeat seemed imminent, these two leaders were prevailed
+upon to lend their assistance. Near the end of the campaign a letter was
+circulated in the Pacific states, purporting to have been written by
+Garfield to a Mr. Morey, and expressing opposition to the restriction of
+Chinese immigration. The signature was a forgery, but complete exposure
+in the short time before election day was impossible and the letter
+perhaps injured Garfield on the coast. Nevertheless Garfield and Arthur
+won, although their popular plurality was only 9,500 in a total of about
+nine millions. The electoral vote was 214 to 155 and showed that the
+division among the states was sectional, for in the North Hancock
+carried only New Jersey, together with Nevada and five electoral votes
+in California, the result probably of the Morey letter.
+
+Two aspects of the campaign had especial significance. The attempt by
+Conkling and his associates to choose the Republican nominee through the
+shrewd manipulation of political machinery, and against the wishes of
+the rank and file of the party, was a move on the part of the greater
+state bosses to get control of the national organization, so that they
+might manage it as they managed their local committees and conventions.
+The second notable circumstance concerned the collection and expenditure
+of the campaign funds.
+
+Even before the convention met, the Republican Congressional Committee,
+pursuing the common practice of the time, addressed a letter to all
+federal employees, except heads of departments, in which the suggestion
+was made that the office holders would doubtless consider it a
+"privilege and a pleasure" to contribute to the campaign funds an amount
+equal to two per cent. of their salaries. The Republican National
+Committee also made its demands on office holders--usually five per
+cent. of a year's salary. The Democrats, having no hold on the federal
+offices, had to content themselves with the cultivation of the
+possibilities in states which they controlled. In New York, Senator
+Platt was chairman of the executive committee and he sent a similar
+communication to federal employees in the state. Even the office boy in
+a rural post office was not overlooked, and when contributions were not
+forthcoming, the names of delinquents were sent to their superiors.
+Other developments appeared after the election was over. In February,
+1881, a dinner was given in honor of Senator S.W. Dorsey, secretary of
+the Republican National Committee, to whom credit was given for carrying
+the state of Indiana. General Grant presided and grace was asked by
+Reverend Henry Ward Beecher. Dorsey was an Arkansas carpet-bagger, who
+had been connected with a railroad swindle and was soon, as it turned
+out, to be indicted for complication in other frauds. The substance of
+the speeches was that the prospect of success in the campaign seemed
+waning, that Indiana was essential to success and that Dorsey was the
+agent who accomplished the task. Arthur, who was one of the speakers,
+explained the _modus operandi_: "Indiana was really, I suppose, a
+Democratic State. It had been put down on the books always as a State
+that might be carried by close and perfect organization and a great deal
+of--(laughter). I see the reporters are present, therefore I will simply
+say that everybody showed a great deal of interest in the occasion and
+distributed tracts and political documents all through the State."
+
+With the victory accomplished, the politicians turned from the contest
+with the common enemy to the question of the division of the spoils;
+from the ostensible issue of platforms, to the real issue that Flanagan
+had personified. Although the Republicans had presented a united front
+to their opponents, there were factional troubles within the party that
+all but dwarfed the larger contest. The "Stalwarts" were composed of the
+thorough "organization men" like Conkling, Platt and Arthur; the
+"Half-breeds" were anti-organization men and more sympathetic with the
+administration. The commander of the Stalwarts and one of the most
+influential leaders in the country was Roscoe Conkling, Senator from New
+York. In person Conkling was a tall, handsome, imperious man, with
+something of the theatrical in his appearance and manner. As a
+politician he was aggressive, fearless, scornful, shrewd and adroit when
+he chose to be, and masterful, always. As an orator he knew how to play
+on the feelings of the crowd; his vocabulary, when he turned upon one
+whom he disliked, was memorable for its wealth of invective and
+ridicule, and especially he uncorked the vials of his wrath on any who
+were not strictly organization men. Although an able man and a
+successful lawyer, Conkling seems to have had less interest in the
+public welfare than in conventions, elections and patronage.
+
+The announcement of Garfield's choice of a Cabinet was the signal for a
+fierce patronage fight. James G. Blaine, the choice for Secretary of
+State, was distasteful in the extreme to Conkling. Many years before,
+during a debate in the House, Blaine had compared Conkling to Henry
+Winter Davis as
+
+    Hyperion to a satyr, Thersites to Hercules, mud to marble,
+    dunghill to diamond, a singed cat to a Bengal tiger, a whining
+    puppy to a roaring lion.
+
+He had contemptuously referred to Conkling's "haughty disdain, his
+grandiloquent swell, his majestic, supereminent, overpowering,
+turkey-gobbler strut." Accordingly when Garfield disregarded Conkling's
+wishes in regard to the representation which New York should have in the
+cabinet, Conkling laid the blame upon his old enemy.[3]
+
+As soon as the administration was in office, the Senate met in executive
+session to act on appointments, and it appeared that the parties were
+evenly divided, the balance of power lying in the hands of two
+Independents. President Garfield sent in his list of nominees for office
+without consulting Conkling in regard to New York appointments. Among
+them was William H. Robertson for the coveted position of collector for
+the port of New York. As Robertson had been opposed to Grant and to the
+unit rule in the Republican convention, Conkling's rage reached a fever
+pitch. In an attempt to discredit the President before the country, he
+made public a letter from Garfield giving countenance to the practice of
+levying campaign assessments on federal employees. Conkling's point of
+view is not difficult to understand. Consultation with the senators from
+a state with regard to nominations to offices within its boundaries was
+the common custom; Conkling had sunk his dislike of Garfield during the
+campaign in order to assist in a party victory; moreover, he and Platt,
+the other New York senator, understood that Garfield had agreed to
+dispense New York patronage in conformity to the wishes of the
+Stalwarts, in case Conkling took the stump. He had carried out his part
+of the bargain and now desired his _quid pro quo_.
+
+Meanwhile the Senate was trying to organize and having failed because of
+the even division of the parties, stopped the attempt long enough to act
+on the nominations. The President then withdrew all except that of
+Robertson, thus indicating that offices in which other senators were
+concerned would not be filled until the New York case was settled.
+Foreseeing that the members would wish to clear the way for their own
+interests and that Robertson's nomination was likely to be agreed to,
+Conkling and Platt resigned their posts and appealed to the New York
+legislature for a re-election as a vindication of the stand they had
+taken. As the legislature was Republican and as Vice-President Arthur
+went to Albany to urge their case, they seemed likely to succeed; but to
+their mortification they were both defeated after an extended contest,
+and Conkling retired permanently to private life. Platt, who was
+promptly dubbed "Me Too," also relinquished public office, but only for
+a time. In the meanwhile, as soon as Conkling and Platt had left the
+Senate, the nomination of Robertson had been approved, and Garfield was
+triumphant.
+
+Further light was thrown upon political conditions by the investigations
+of the "star routes." These were routes in the South and West where
+mails had to be carried by stage lines, and were under the control of
+the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, Thomas J. Brady. Rumors had
+been common for some years that they were a source of corruption.
+Garfield's Postmaster-General, Thomas L. James, had already made a
+reputation as the reform postmaster of New York, and he set himself
+to investigate the reports. Among other things it was discovered that a
+combination of public men and contractors had succeeded in raising the
+compensation on 134 star routes from $143,169 to $622,808, dividing the
+extra profits among themselves. Brady and Senator Dorsey, the active
+agent in the campaign in Indiana, were accused of being in the "ring"
+and were indicted on the ground of conspiracy to defraud the government.
+Brady attempted to block the investigation by threatening Garfield with
+an exposure of the campaign methods, and when the threat failed he made
+public a letter from the President to "My dear Hubbell," chairman of the
+Congressional Committee, similar to that which Conkling had earlier
+published. The trials of the conspirators dragged on until 1883 and
+resulted in the acquittal of all the accused except one of the least
+important. Yet some good was accomplished, for the ring was broken up.
+Dorsey retired from public life, and renewed attention was drawn to the
+need of better federal officials.
+
+During the course of the trials, the country was shocked by the
+assassination of the President on July 2, 1881, at the hands of a
+disappointed office seeker named Guiteau. Despite a strong constitution
+Garfield grew slowly weaker and died on September 19. The catastrophe
+affected the country the more profoundly because of its connection with
+the factional quarrel in the Republican party and because, following the
+recent murder of the Russian Czar, it seemed to show that democratic
+government was no guarantee against violence.[4]
+
+The consternation with which the elevation of Chester A. Arthur to the
+presidency was received was not confined to the Democrats. An
+oft-repeated remark made at the time was expressive of the opinion of
+those best acquainted with the new executive: "'Chet' Arthur President
+of the United States! Good God!" In truth Arthur's previous career
+hardly justified anything except consternation. He had been identified
+always with machine politics and particularly with the Conkling group;
+he had been a prominent figure in the opposition to Hayes when the
+latter attempted to improve conditions in the New York Customs House;
+and had taken an active and undignified share in the quarrel between
+Garfield and Conkling. Chester A. Arthur, however, was a combination of
+characteristics such as enlist the interest of the student of human
+nature. Of Vermont birth, educated at Union College where he had taken
+high rank, he had taught school for a time, had entered the practice of
+law in New York, had made a good war record, and had been a member of
+the Republican party from its beginning. In many ways Arthur was made
+for politics. He was the "man of the world" in appearance, polished,
+refined, well-groomed, scrupulously careful about his attire, a
+_bon-vivant_. Yet he was equally at home in the atmosphere of politics
+in the early eighties; a leader of the "Johnnies" and "Jakes," the
+"Barneys" and "Mikes" of New York City. Dignity characterized him,
+whether in the "knock-down" and "drag-out" caucus or at an exclusive
+White House reception. He possessed a refinement, especially in his home
+life, that is not usually associated with ward politics but which forms
+an element of the "gentleman" in the best sense of that abused word.
+
+Yet they who feared that President Arthur would be like Chester A.
+Arthur, the collector of the port, were treated to a revelation. The
+suddenness with which the elevation to the responsibility of the
+executive's position broadened the view of the President proved that he
+possessed qualities which had been merely hidden in the pursuit of
+ordinary partisan politics. Platt, expectant of the dismissal of
+Robertson, now that a Stalwart was in power, fell back in disgust and
+disowned his former associate, for it appeared that Arthur intended to
+further the principles of reform. His first annual message to Congress
+contained a sane discussion of the civil service and the needed
+remedies, which committed him whole-heartedly to the competitive system.
+Although he did not go as far as some reformers would have had him, he
+went so much farther than was expected that commendation was
+enthusiastic, even on the part of the most prominent leaders in the
+reform element. In the same message he urged the repeal of the
+Bland-Allison silver-coinage act, the reduction of the internal revenue,
+revision of the tariff, a better navy, post-office savings banks, and
+enlightened Indian legislation. Altogether it was clear that he had laid
+aside much of the partisan in succeeding to his high office.[5]
+
+The Chinese problem soon provided him with an opportunity to show an
+independence of judgment, together with an indifference to mere
+popularity, which were in keeping with the new Arthur, but which were a
+surprise to his former associates. As a result of the changes in the
+Burlingame treaty, which gave the United States authority to suspend the
+immigration of Chinese laborers, Congress passed a bill in 1882 to
+prohibit the incoming of laborers for twenty years, western Republicans
+joining with the Democrats in its passage.[6] Arthur vetoed the measure
+on the ground that a stoppage for so great a period as twenty years
+violated those provisions of the treaty which allowed us merely to
+suspend immigration, not to prohibit it. An attempt to overcome the veto
+failed for lack of the necessary two-thirds majority. Congress did,
+however, pass legislation suspending the immigration of laborers for ten
+years, and this bill the President signed. Later acts have merely
+extended this law or made it more effective.
+
+Arthur also exercised the veto upon a rivers and harbors bill. It had,
+of course, long been the custom for the federal government to aid in the
+improvement of the harbors and internal water-ways of the country. But
+the modest sums of _ante-bellum_ days grew rapidly after the war,
+stimulated by immense federal revenues, until the suggested legislation
+of 1882 appropriated nearly nineteen million dollars. It provided not
+merely for the dredging of great rivers like the Mississippi and Ohio,
+but also for the Lamprey River in New Hampshire, the Waccemaw in North
+Carolina, together with Goose Rapids and Cheesequake Creek. Some of
+these, the opposition declared, might better be paved than dredged.[7]
+It might seem that a bill against which such obvious objections could be
+raised would be doomed to failure. But the argument of Ransom of North
+Carolina, who had charge of the bill in its later stages in the Senate,
+seems to have been a decisive one. Somebody had objected that the
+members of the committee had cared for the interests of their own
+states, merely. Ransom repelled the charge. He showed that the New
+England states had been looked out for; "Look next to New York, that
+great, grand, magnificent State ... that empire in itself ... Go to
+Delaware, little, glorious Delaware." The committee had retained $20,000
+for Delaware. "Go next ... to great, grand old Virginia." Virginia had
+received something. "Go to Missouri, the young, beautiful, growing,
+powerful State of my friend over the way." And so on--all had been
+treated with thoughtful care. Ransom was wise in his day and generation.
+Although Arthur objected to the bill on the grounds of extravagance and
+of the official demoralization which accompanied it, nevertheless
+Republicans and Democrats alike joined in passing over the veto an act
+which would get money into their home states.
+
+The congressional elections in the fall of 1882 indicated that the
+factional disputes among the Republicans, and their failure to reform
+conditions in the civil service had presented the opposition with an
+opportunity. In the House of Representatives, Republican control was
+replaced by a Democratic majority of sixty-nine; the state legislatures
+chosen were Democratic in such numbers as to make sure the even division
+of the Senate when new members were elected; in Pennsylvania, a
+Democratic reformer, Robert E. Pattison, was elected governor, and in
+New York another, Grover Cleveland, was successful by the unprecedented
+majority of 190,000.
+
+The results of the campaign added interest to a civil service reform
+bill which had been drafted by some reformers led by Dorman B. Eaton,
+and which had been presented to the Senate by George F. Pendleton, of
+Ohio. The debate elicited several points of view. Pendleton set forth
+the evils of the existing system of appointments, and emphasized the
+superior advantages of appointment after competitive examination. The
+Democrats were in distress. Although Pendleton was himself a Democrat
+and the party platforms had been advocating reform, nevertheless the
+election of 1884 was not far ahead, Democratic success seemed likely,
+and the party leaders desired an unrestrained opportunity to fill the
+offices with their followers. Senator Williams expressed a conviction
+that the Republican party was a party of corruption and continued:
+
+    The only way to reform is to put a good honest Democratic
+    president in in 1884; then turn on the hose and give him a
+    good hickory broom and tell him to sweep the dirt away.
+
+The Republicans, on their side, were fearful of the same clean sweep
+that Williams hoped for, and they therefore looked with greater
+equanimity upon a bill which might retain in office the existing
+office-holders, most of whom belonged to their party. This aspect of the
+situation was not lost upon such Democrats as Senator Brown who moved
+that the measure be entitled "a bill to perpetuate in office the
+Republicans who now hold the patronage of the government." In the Senate
+only five members voted against its passage, but thirty-three absented
+themselves; and in the House forty-seven opposed, while eighty-seven
+were absent. A little study of the debate makes it clear that the
+passage of the act was due to conviction in favor of reform on the part
+of a few and to fear of public opinion on the part of many others.
+Undoubtedly many of the absentees were members who would not vote for
+the measure and were fearful of the results of voting against it. The
+President signed the bill January 16, 1883.
+
+The Pendleton act left large discretion in the hands of the President.
+It authorized the appointment of a commission of three who should
+prepare and put into effect suitable rules for carrying out the law. The
+act also provided that government offices should be arranged in classes
+and that entrance to any class should be obtained by competitive
+examination; that no person should be removed from the service for
+refusing to contribute to political funds; and that examinations should
+be held in one or more places in each state and territory where
+candidates appeared. The system was to be inaugurated in customs
+districts and post offices where the number of employees was as many as
+fifty, but could be extended later under direction of the President. The
+soliciting or receiving of contributions by federal officials of all
+grades, for political purposes, was forbidden. With the exceptions just
+mentioned, officers could be removed from office as before, but the
+purpose of removal was now gone. Since the appointee to the vacancy must
+be the successful competitor in an examination, the chief who removed an
+officer could not replace him with a personal friend or party worker.
+
+The first commission was headed by Dorman B. Eaton. The work of grading
+officials and placing them within the protection of the law began at
+once, and by the close of President Arthur's term nearly 16,000 were
+classified. Fortunately, the work of the commission was carried on
+sensibly and slowly, and no backward steps had to be taken.
+
+The attitude of Congress toward tariff revision illustrates many of the
+characteristics of congressional action during the early eighties. In
+his first message to Congress, Arthur said that the surplus for the year
+was $100,000,000, and therefore urged the reduction of the internal
+revenue taxes and the revision of the tariff. In May, 1882, Congress
+authorized a tariff commission to investigate and report, and in
+conformity with the law Arthur appointed its nine members. All of them
+were protectionists and the chairman, John L. Hayes, was secretary of
+the Wool Manufacturers' Association. After holding hearings in more than
+a score of cities and examining some hundreds of witnesses, the
+commission recommended reductions varying from nothing in some cases to
+forty or fifty per cent. in others. The average reduction was twenty to
+twenty-five per cent.
+
+Using the report as a foundation, the Senate drew up a tariff measure,
+added it to a House bill which provided for a reduction of the internal
+revenues, and passed the combination. Meanwhile, lobbyists poured into
+Washington to guard the interests of the producers of lumber, pig-iron,
+sugar and other materials upon which the tariff might be reduced. When
+the Senate bill reached the House it contained lower duties than the
+protectionist members desired. The latter, although in possession of the
+organization of the House, were not strong enough to restore higher
+rates, but under the shrewd management of Thomas B. Reed, one of their
+number, they were able to refer the bill to a conference committee of
+the two houses which contained seven strong protectionists out of ten
+members. Reed admitted that the proceedings were "unusual in their
+nature and very forcible in their character" but he felt that a change
+in the tariff had been promised and that the only way to bring it about
+in the face of Democratic opposition was to settle the details "in the
+quiet of a conference committee." A "great emergency" having arisen, he
+would take extraordinary measures. The bill produced under these
+circumstances reduced the internal revenue taxes, lowered some of the
+tariff duties and raised others, but left the general level at the point
+where it had been at the close of the war. _The Nation_, favorable to
+reform, scornfully characterized the act as "taking a shaving off the
+duty on iron wire, and adding it to the duty on glue!" Senator Sherman,
+a protectionist member of the conference committee, wrote an account of
+the whole procedure many years afterward. After commending the spirit
+and proposals of the tariff commission and mentioning the successful
+efforts of many persons to have their individual interests looked out
+for, he expressed a regret that he did not defeat the bill, as he could
+have done in view of the evenly balanced party situation in the Senate
+at that time.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The election of 1880 is well treated by Sparks, Stanwood, Andrews, and
+Rhodes. Senator G.F. Hoar, the chairman of the Republican nominating
+convention, has a valuable chapter in his _Autobiography of Seventy
+Years_. Such newspapers as the New York _Times_ and _Tribune_ are
+invaluable for a discussion of the conventions.
+
+The events of the administration, such as the tariff debates, the
+passage of the civil service law and others are discussed in the special
+works mentioned in Chapter V. Consult also: Edward Stanwood, _J.G.
+Blaine_; T.C. Platt, _Autobiography_; and A.R. Conkling, _Life and
+Letters of Roscoe Conkling_. The _Annual Cyclopaedia _contains several
+excellent articles on the tariff (1882, 1883), civil service reform
+(1883), star route trials (1882, 1883). H.C. Thomas, _The Return of the
+Democratic Party to Power in 1884_ (1919), contains useful chapters on
+Garfield and Arthur.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] For Platt's account of the annual reunion and banquet of the three
+hundred and six--"The Old Guard"--see _Autobiography_, 115.
+
+[2] Garfield's early career as a canal boy led to such campaign songs
+as the following:
+
+    He early learned to paddle well his own forlorn canoe,
+    Upon Ohio's grand canal he held the hellum true.
+    And now the people shout to him: "Lo! 't is for you we wait.
+    We want to see Jim Garfield guide our glorious ship of state."
+
+[3] William Windom, of Minn., was Secretary of the Treasury; E.T.
+Lincoln, of Ill., Secretary of War; Wayne MacVeagh, of Pa.,
+Attorney-General; T.L. James, of N.Y., Postmaster-General; W.H. Hunt,
+of La., Secretary of the Navy; S.J. Kirkwood, of Ia., Secretary of
+the Interior.
+
+[4] The death of the President emphasized the need of a presidential
+succession law. Under an act of 1792, the president and vice-president
+were succeeded by the president of the Senate and the speaker of the
+House. When Garfield died, the Senate had not yet elected a presiding
+officer and the House had not met. The death of Arthur would have left
+the country without a legal head. The Presidential Succession Act of
+1886 remedied the fault by providing for the succession of the cabinet
+in order, beginning with the Secretary of State. The presiding officers
+of the Senate and House were omitted, because they might not be of the
+dominant party.
+
+[5] The cabinet was composed of F.T. Frelinghuysen, N.J., Secretary of
+State; C.J. Folger, N.Y., Secretary of the Treasury; R.T. Lincoln, Ill.,
+Secretary of War; B.H. Brewster, Pa., Attorney-General; T.O. Howe, Wis.,
+Postmaster-General; W.E. Chandler, N.H., Secretary of the Navy; H.M.
+Teller, Colo., Secretary of the Interior.
+
+[6] Above, p. 145.
+
+[7] Some thoroughly unselfish members of Congress like Senator Hoar,
+however, believed the bill a justifiable one and voted for it. See Hoar,
+_Autobiography_, II, chapter VIII.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+THE OVERTURN OF 1884
+
+The election of 1880 was memorable only for the type of politics with
+which that contest was so inextricably involved. The party leaders were
+second-rate men; the platforms, except for that of the Greenback party,
+were as lacking in definiteness as the most timid office-seeker could
+desire; in brief, it was a cross-section of American professional
+politics at its worst. The election of 1884 was a distinct, although not
+a complete contrast. It was not a campaign of platforms, but like the
+election of 1824 it was a battle of men. Two genuine leaders, each
+representing a distinct type of politics, contended for an opportunity
+to try out a philosophy of government in the executive chair. In 1880
+the conventions were the chief interest--the campaign was dull. The
+campaign of 1884, on the other hand, was one of the most remarkable in
+our history.
+
+It will be remembered that the year 1882 had been characterized by
+political upheavals. In Pennsylvania the Greenbackers had demanded that
+currency be issued only by the central government--not by the national
+banks--and that measures be taken to curb monopolies; the independent
+Republicans had revolted against Cameron, and demanded civil service
+reform and the overthrow of bossism; and the Democrats had elected a
+governor of the reformer type, Robert E. Pattison. Massachusetts
+Republicans had gasped the day after the election to find that "Ben"
+Butler, who bore a questionable reputation as a politician, as a soldier
+and as a man, had been elected by a combination of Greenbackers and
+Democrats on a reform program. In New York the Democrats had taken
+advantage of a factional quarrel among their opponents to elect as
+governor a man who had achieved a reputation as a reformer--Grover
+Cleveland. That some of the states which had been Democratic in 1882,
+had become Republican again in 1883 illustrates the unstable character
+of the politics of the time.
+
+The beginning of the convention season of 1884 gave hint of the vigorous
+campaign ahead. An Anti-Monopoly party nominated Benjamin F. Butler, who
+was also supported by the Greenbackers. The Prohibitionists presented a
+ticket headed by John P. St. John. The action of the Republican
+convention, which met at Chicago on June 3, proved to be the turning
+point in the campaign. President Arthur was frankly a candidate for
+another term, but he did not have the united support of the professional
+politicians and was distrusted by most of the reform element. Nor had
+his veto of the Chinese immigration bill and the rivers and harbors act
+tended to increase his popularity. Most enthusiastic, confident and
+vociferous were the supporters of James G. Blaine, of Maine. The
+independent element hoped to nominate Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, and
+was particularly disturbed at the character of the workers for the "Man
+from Maine." His campaign manager, Stephen B. Elkins, had been charged
+with a discreditable connection with the star-route scandals; men of the
+Platt type were urging that it was now Blaine's "turn"; and Powell
+Clayton, an Arkansas carpet-bagger of ill-repute, was the Blaine
+candidate for the position of temporary chairman of the convention.
+
+Before a candidate was chosen the delegates turned to the adoption of
+the platform. This was of the usual type but was an advance over that of
+1880 in several respects. It committed the party to a protective tariff
+and advocated an interstate commerce law and the extension of civil
+service reform.
+
+The balloting for candidates proved that Blaine was clearly the choice
+of the convention. The mere mention of his name threw the delegates
+into storms of applause and even on the first ballot he received votes
+from every state in the union save five. On the fourth ballot he
+received an overwhelming majority and became the nominee. John A.
+Logan of Illinois, a prominent politician and soldier, was nominated
+for the Vice-Presidency--a tail to the ticket, in the opinion of the
+Democrats, which was designed to "Wag Invitation to the Soldier Vote."
+The choice of Blaine was variously received by the different factions
+in the convention. The Pacific coast delegates, in a special train,
+went from Chicago to Augusta, Maine, before starting for home, in
+order personally to pledge their support to the candidate. On the
+other hand, Theodore Roosevelt disgustedly remarked that he was going
+to a cattle-ranch in the West to stay he knew not how long. George
+William Curtis sadly declared that he had been present at the birth of
+the Republican party and feared that he was to be a witness of its
+death. Other reformers were no less disaffected.
+
+The outspoken Republican opposition to Blaine gave infinite aid and
+comfort to the Democrats whose convention, coming a month later, could
+take advantage of the growing schism in the opposition. During the
+interval between the two conventions the growing sentiment in favor of
+the nomination of Grover Cleveland received the additional impetus of
+independent Republican support. The Democratic party was still an object
+of suspicion to them, but they were ready to run the risks of even a
+Democratic administration, if a leader of proved integrity should be
+nominated, and Cleveland seemed to them to meet the demands of the
+times. The first work of the convention, which met in Chicago on July 8,
+was the adoption of a reform platform. Characterizing the opposition
+party as a "reminiscence," it condemned Republican misrule, and promised
+reform; it proposed a revision of the tariff that would be fair to all
+interests, and reductions which would promote industry, do no harm to
+labor and raise sufficient revenue; and it briefly advocated "honest"
+civil service reform.
+
+The enthusiasm which the independent Republicans were manifesting for
+Cleveland was balanced by the hostility of elements within his party.
+As Governor he had exercised his veto power with complete disregard
+for the effect on his own political future. He had, for example,
+vetoed a popular measure reducing fares on the New York City elevated
+railroad, basing his objections on the ground that the bill violated
+the provisions of the fundamental railroad law of the state. He was
+opposed by Tammany Hall, led by John Kelley, who declared that the
+labor element disliked him. Kelley's reputation, however, was such
+that his hostility seemed like a compliment and gave force to General
+Bragg's assertion, in seconding the nomination of Cleveland, that his
+friends "love him most for the enemies he has made." The first ballot
+proved that the Governor was stronger than his competitors, Senator
+Bayard, Allen G. Thurman, Samuel J. Randall and several men of lesser
+importance, and on the second ballot he received the nomination.
+
+The choice of Cleveland gave the independent movement more than the
+expected impetus. The New York _Times_ at once crossed the line into
+the Cleveland camp and _Harpers Weekly_, long a supporter of the
+Republicans, the Boston _Herald_, Springfield _Republican_, New York
+_Evening Post_, _The Nation_, the Chicago _Times_ and a host of less
+important ones followed. A conference of Independents in New York
+City, which was composed of five hundred delegates and which enlisted
+the support of such men as Carl Schurz, George William Curtis, Henry
+C. Lea, Charles J. Bonaparte, Moorfield Storey and President Seelye of
+Amherst College, gave striking evidence of the revolt which Blaine's
+nomination had aroused. Curtis said in the conference, that the chief
+issue of the campaign was moral rather than political. The New York
+_Times_ declared that the issue was a personal one. Some of the better
+element, however, like Senator Hoar, earnestly urged the election of
+Blaine, while Senator Edmunds refused either to aid or oppose his
+party. Others, like Roosevelt, were unable to give ungrudging support,
+but felt that reform would be better promoted by working within the
+party than by withdrawing. It is obvious that Blaine and Cleveland,
+not the platforms of the parties, had become the issue of the
+campaign.
+
+James G. Blaine was born in Pennsylvania in 1830, was educated at
+Washington College in his native state, later moved to Augusta, Maine,
+and purchased an interest in the Kennebec _Journal_. On assuming his
+journalistic duties he familiarized himself with the politics of the
+state and became powerful in local, and later in federal affairs. He was
+a member of the first Republican convention and was chairman of the
+state Republican committee for more than twenty years, from which point
+of vantage he had a prevailing influence in Maine politics. He served in
+the state and federal legislatures as well as in Garfield's cabinet and
+was a prominent candidate for the presidential nomination in 1876 and in
+1880.
+
+Grover Cleveland, although only seven years younger than Blaine, was
+relatively inexperienced on the stage of national affairs. He was born
+in New Jersey, the son of a Presbyterian minister, grew up with little
+education, was salesman in a village store and later clerk in a law
+office, at the age of eighteen. Although he had been sheriff of Erie
+County, it was not until 1881, when he became mayor of Buffalo, that
+he took an important part in politics, and here his record as the
+business-like "veto mayor" was such as to carry him into the governor's
+chair a year later. The huge majority which he received in the
+gubernatorial contest was not wholly due to his own strength--doubtless
+factional quarrels among the Republicans assisted him--but the
+prominence which this election gave him and his conduct as Governor
+made inevitable his candidacy for higher office.
+
+Few men could have been nominated who would have presented a more
+complete contrast than Blaine and Cleveland. In personality Blaine was
+magnetic, approachable, high-strung, possessed of a vivid imagination
+and of a marvellous memory for facts, names and faces. Over him men
+went "insane in pairs," either devotedly admiring or completely
+distrusting him. Cleveland was almost devoid of personal charm except
+to his most intimate associates. He was brusque and tactless,
+unimaginative, plodding, commonplace in his tastes and in the elements
+of his character. Men threw their hats in the air and cheered
+themselves hoarse at the name of Blaine; to Cleveland's courage,
+earnestness and honesty, they gave a tribute of admiration. When the
+campaign was at fever heat, Blaine was lifting crowds of eager
+listeners to the mountain peaks of enthusiasm; Cleveland was in the
+governor's room in Albany, phlegmatically plodding away at the
+business of his office. He was too heavy, unimaginative, direct, to
+indulge in flights of oratory. Yet scarcely anything that Blaine said
+still lives, while some of Cleveland's phrases have passed into the
+language of every-day.
+
+No less a contrast existed between Blaine and Cleveland as political
+characters. The former's experience in the machinery of politics, in the
+disposal of its loaves and fishes, has already been mentioned. Of that
+part of politics, Cleveland had had no experience. It is said that he
+never was in Washington, except for a single day, until he went there to
+become President. Both were bold and active fighters, but Blaine was a
+strategist, a manager and a diplomat, while Cleveland could merely state
+the policy which he desired to see put into effect, and then crash
+ahead. Blaine had the instinct for the popular thing, was never ahead of
+his party, was surrounded by his followers; Cleveland saw the thing
+which he felt a moral imperative to accomplish and was far in advance of
+his fellows. The Republican was popular among the professional political
+element in his party and was supported by it; the Democrat never was.
+Cleveland openly declared his attitude on controverted issues, in words
+that admitted of no ambiguity and at times when only silence or soft
+words would save him from defeat. Blaine lacked the moral courage and
+the indifference to immediate results which were necessary for so
+exalted an action. Cleveland had more of the reformer in his nature, and
+had so keen a sense of responsibility and duty that his political career
+was a succession of battles against things that seemed wrong to him.
+Blaine accepted the party standards as they were; he belonged to the
+past, to the policies and political morality of war and reconstruction;
+Cleveland belonged to the transition from reconstruction to the
+twentieth century.
+
+The particular thing, however, that came out of Blaine's past to dog his
+foot-steps, give him the enmity of the Independents--better known as the
+"Mugwumps"--and, doubtless, to defeat him, was a series of transactions
+exposed in the Mulligan letters. In order to understand these, it is
+necessary to inquire into events that occurred fifteen years before the
+overturn of 1884. In April, 1869, a bill favorable to the Little Rock
+and Fort Smith Railroad--an Arkansas land-grant enterprise--was before
+the House of Representatives. Blaine was Speaker. As the session was
+near its close and the bill seemed likely to be lost, its friends
+bespoke Blaine's assistance. He suggested that a certain point of order
+be raised, which would facilitate the passage of the measure, and also
+asked General John A. Logan to raise the point. Logan did so, Blaine
+sustained him and the act was passed. Nearly three months later, Warren
+Fisher, Jr., a Boston business man, asked Blaine to participate in the
+affairs of the Little Rock Railroad. Blaine signified his readiness,
+closing his letter with the words, "I do not feel that I shall prove a
+dead-head in the enterprise if I once embark in it. I see various
+channels in which I know I can be useful." When Blaine's enemies got
+hold of this, they declared that he intended to use his position as
+Speaker to further the interests of the road, as he had done at the time
+of the famous point of order; his friends asserted that he intended
+merely to sell the securities of the road to investors. Whether one of
+these contentions is true, or both, he did sell considerable amounts of
+the securities of the road to Maine friends, getting a "handsome
+commission." Considerable correspondence passed between Blaine and
+Fisher from 1869 to 1872 when their relations ended. Blaine understood
+that all their correspondence was mutually surrendered.
+
+In the spring of 1876, the presidential campaign was on the horizon and
+Blaine was a prominent candidate for the Republican nomination.
+Meanwhile ugly rumors were flying about concerning the connection of
+certain members of Congress, Blaine among them, with questionable
+railroad transactions, and he arose in the House to deny the charges. He
+did not discuss the matter fully, as he did not wish his Maine
+constituents to know that he had received a large commission for selling
+Little Rock securities. Gossip grew, however, and a congressional
+investigation resulted in May, 1876. Blaine was one of the witnesses,
+but was doubtless anxious to bring the investigation to an end, since it
+clearly reduced his chances of receiving the nomination. Presently
+gossip said that Warren Fisher and James Mulligan were going to testify.
+Mulligan had been confidential clerk to one of Mrs. Blaine's brothers
+and later to Fisher. When Mulligan began his testimony it appeared that
+he intended to lay before the committee a package of letters that had
+passed between Blaine and Fisher, and thereupon, at Blaine's whispered
+request, one of the members of the committee procured an adjournment for
+the day. That evening Blaine found Mulligan at the latter's hotel and
+prevailed on him to surrender the letters temporarily, in order that
+Blaine might read and then return them. Blaine thereupon consulted two
+lawyers and on their advice he refused to restore the package to
+Mulligan. Merely to keep silence, however, was to admit guilt. Blaine,
+therefore, arose one day in the House of Representatives and holding the
+letters in his hand read selections and defended himself in a remarkable
+burst of emotional oratory. At the climax of this defence he elicited
+from the chairman of the committee of investigation an unwilling
+admission that the committee had suppressed a dispatch which Blaine
+declared would exonerate him. Blaine was triumphant, his friends sure
+that he had cleared himself and the matter dropped for the time. Further
+investigation was prevented by Blaine's refusal to produce the letters
+even before the committee and by his sudden illness shortly afterward.
+His election to the Senate soon took him out of the jurisdiction of the
+House committee and no action resulted.
+
+The nomination of Blaine in 1884 was a fresh breeze on the half-dead
+embers of the Mulligan letters. _Harper's Weekly_ and other periodicals
+published them with damaging explanatory remarks. Campaign committees
+spread them abroad in pamphlet form. Attention was directed to such
+phrases as "I do not feel that I shall prove a dead-head" and "I see
+various channels in which I know I can be useful." Hostile cartoonists
+used the phrases with an infinite variety of innuendo. But the most
+powerful evidence was still to come. On September 15, 1884, Fisher and
+Mulligan made public additional letters which Blaine had not possessed
+at the time of his defence in 1876. The most damaging of these was one
+in which Blaine had drawn up a letter completely exonerating himself,
+which he asked Fisher to sign and make public as his own. Blaine had
+marked his request "confidential" and had written at the bottom "Burn
+this letter." Fisher had neither written the letter which was requested
+nor burned Blaine's. Meanwhile it was recalled that Blaine had earlier
+characterized the reformers as "upstarts, conceited, foolish, vain" and
+as "noisy but not numerous, pharisaical but not practical, ambitious but
+not wise," and the already intemperate campaign became more personal
+than ever.
+
+Thomas Nast's able pencil caricatured Blaine in _Harper's Weekly_ as a
+magnetic candidate too heavy for the party elephant to carry; _Puck_
+portrayed him as the "tattooed man" covered all over with "Little Rock,"
+"Mulligan Letters" and the like. _Life_ described him as a
+
+    Take all I can gettery,
+    Mulligan lettery,
+    Solid for Blaine old man.
+
+Nor was the contest of scurrility entirely one-sided. _Judge_
+caricatured Cleveland in hideous cartoons. The New York _Tribune_
+described him as a small man "everywhere except on the hay-scales."
+Beginning in Buffalo rumors spread all over the country that Cleveland
+was an habitual drunkard and libertine. As is the way of such gossip,
+its magnitude grew until the Governor appeared in the guise of a monster
+of immorality. The editor of the _Independent_ went himself to Buffalo
+and ran the rumors to their sources. He came to the conclusion that
+Cleveland as a young man had been guilty of an illicit connection, that
+he had made amends for the wrong which he had done and had since lived a
+blameless life. Such religious periodicals as the _Unitarian Review_,
+however, continued to describe him as a "_debauchee_" and "_roue_."
+Nearly a thousand clergymen gathered in New York declared him a synonym
+of "incapacity and incontinency." Much was made, also, of the fact that
+Cleveland had not served in the war, and John Sherman denounced him as
+having no sympathy for the Union cause. It did little good in the heated
+condition of partisan discussion to point out that young Cleveland had
+two brothers in the service, that he was urgently needed to support his
+widowed mother and her six other children, and that he borrowed money to
+obtain a substitute to take the field. On the other side, _Harper's
+Weekly_ dwelt upon the Mulligan scandal; _The Nation_, while deploring
+the incident in Cleveland's past, considered even so grave a mistake as
+less important than Blaine's, since the latter's vices were those by
+which "governments are overthrown, states brought to naught, and the
+haunts of commerce turned into dens of thieves."
+
+As the campaign neared an end it appeared that the result would turn
+upon New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Indiana, and especially upon
+the first of these. In New York several elements combined to make the
+situation doubtful and interesting. Tammany's dislike of Cleveland was
+well-known, but open opposition, at least, was quelled before election
+day. Roscoe Conkling, still influential despite his retirement, refused
+to take the stump in behalf of Blaine, declaring that he did not engage
+in "criminal practice." The Republicans also feared the competition of
+the Prohibitionists, because they attracted some Republicans who refused
+to vote for Blaine and could not bring themselves to support a Democrat.
+On the eve of the election an incident occurred which would have been of
+no importance if it had not been for the closeness of the contest. As
+Blaine was returning from a speaking tour in the West, he was given a
+reception in New York by a delegation of clergymen. The spokesman of the
+group, the Reverend Dr. Burchard, referred to the Democrats as the party
+of "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion." Blaine, weary from his tour, failed to
+notice the indiscreet remark, but the opposition seized upon it and used
+it to discredit him in the eyes of the Irish. On the same evening a
+dinner at Delmonico's at which many wealthy men were present, provided
+material for the charge that the Republican candidate was the choice of
+the rich classes.
+
+Early returns on election night indicated that the Democrats had carried
+the South and all the doubtful states, with the possible exception of
+New York. There the result was so close that some days elapsed before a
+final decision could be made. Excitement was intense; and business
+almost stopped, so absorbed were people in the returns. At length it was
+officially decided that Cleveland had received 1,149 more votes than
+Blaine and by this narrow margin the Democrats carried New York, and
+with it the election.
+
+Contemporary explanations of Blaine's defeat were indicated by a
+transparency carried in a Democratic procession which celebrated the
+victory:
+
+    The _World_ Says the Independents Did It
+    The _Tribune_ Says the Stalwarts Did It
+    The _Sun_ Says Burchard Did It
+    Blaine Says St. John Did It
+    Theodore Roosevelt Says It Was the Soft Soap Dinner[1]
+    We Say Blaine's Character Did It
+    But We Don't Care What Did It
+             It's Done.
+
+None of these explanations took into account the strength of Cleveland,
+but the closeness of the result made all of them important. From the
+vantage ground of later times, however, it could be seen that greater
+forces were at work. By 1884 the day had passed when political contests
+could be won on Civil War issues. The younger voters had no recollections
+of Gettysburg and felt no animosity toward the Democratic South. Moreover,
+Cleveland's success was the culmination of a long-continued demand for
+reform, which he satisfied better than Blaine.
+
+The opening of the first Democratic administration since Buchanan's time
+excited great interest in every detail of Cleveland's activities and
+characteristics.[2] Moreover, many who had voted for him distrusted his
+party and were apprehensive lest it turn out that a mistake had been
+made in placing such great confidence in one man. The more stiffly
+partisan Republicans firmly believed that Democratic success meant a
+triumphant South, with the "rebels" again in the saddle. Sherman
+declared that Cleveland's choice of southern advisors was a "reproach to
+the civilization of the age," and Joseph B. Foraker, speaking in an Ohio
+campaign, found that the people wished to hear Cleveland "flayed" and
+wanted plenty of "hot stuff."
+
+The President's early acts indicated that the partisans were unduly
+disturbed. His inaugural address was characterized by straightforward
+earnestness. The exploitation of western lands by fraudulent claimants
+was sharply halted. The cabinet, while inexperienced, contained several
+able men, of whom Thomas F. Bayard, Secretary of State, William C.
+Whitney, Secretary of the Navy, and L.Q.C. Lamar, the Secretary of the
+Interior, were best known.[3]
+
+The first great obstacle that Cleveland faced was well portrayed by one
+of Nast's cartoons, in which the President, with an "Independent" club
+in his hand, was approaching a snarling, open-jawed tiger, which
+represented the office-seeking classes. The drawing was entitled
+"Beware! For He is Very Hungry and Very Thirsty." It was not difficult
+to foresee grave trouble ahead in connection with the civil service. The
+Democrats had been out of power for twenty-four years, the offices were
+full of Republicans, about 100,000 positions were at the disposal of the
+administration, and current political practice looked with indifference
+upon the use of these places as rewards for party work. Hordes of
+office-seekers descended upon congressmen, in order to get introductions
+to department chiefs; they filled the waiting rooms of cabinet officers;
+they besieged Cleveland. Disappointed applicants and displaced officers
+added to the clamor and confusion.
+
+The President's policy, as it worked out in practice, was a compromise
+between his ideals and the wishes of the party leaders. He earnestly
+approved the Pendleton act and desired to carry out both its letter and
+its spirit. He removed office holders who were offensively partisan and
+who used their positions for political purposes. He gave the South a
+larger share in the activities of the government, both in the cabinet
+and in the diplomatic and other branches of the service. When the term
+of a Republican office holder expired he filled the place with a fit
+Democrat, if one could be found, in order to equalize the share of the
+two parties in the patronage. Nearly half of the diplomatic and consular
+appointments went to southerners, and eventually most of the Republicans
+were supplanted.
+
+The displacement of so many officials gave the Republicans an
+opportunity to attempt to discredit the President in the eyes of his
+mugwump supporters. An amended law of 1869 gave the Senate a certain
+control over removals, although the constant practice of early times had
+been to give the executive a free hand. Moreover the law had fallen into
+disuse--or, as the President put it--into "innocuous desuetude." The
+case on which the Senate chose to force the issue was the removal of
+George M. Duskin, United States District Attorney in Alabama, and the
+nomination of John D. Burnett in his place. The Senate called upon the
+Attorney-General to transmit all papers relating to the removal; the
+President directed him to refuse, on the ground that papers of such a
+sort were not official papers, to which the Senate had a right, and also
+on the ground that the power of removal was vested, by the Constitution,
+in the president alone. In the meantime it had been hinted to Cleveland
+that his nominations would be confirmed without difficulty if it were
+acknowledged that the suspensions were the usual partisan removals. To
+do this would, of course, make his reform utterances look hypocritical
+and he refused to comply:
+
+    I ... dispute the right of the Senate ... in any way save
+    through the judicial process of trial on impeachment, to review
+    or reverse the acts of the Executive in the suspension, during
+    the recess of the Senate, of Federal officials.
+
+As he was immovable and was taking precisely the position that such
+Republican leaders as President Grant had previously taken, the Senate
+was obliged to give way. Although it relieved its feelings by censuring
+the Attorney-General, it later repealed the remains of the Tenure of
+Office act of 1869, leaving victory with the President.
+
+In connection with the less important offices Cleveland was forced to
+compromise between the desirable and the practicable. Most of the
+postmasters were changed, although in New York City an efficient officer
+was retained who had originally been appointed by Garfield. All the
+internal revenue collectors and nearly all the collectors of customs
+were replaced. On the other hand, the classified service was somewhat
+extended by the inclusion of the railway mail service, a change which,
+with other increases, enlarged the classified lists by 12,000 offices.
+
+It seems evident that Cleveland pressed reform far enough to alienate
+the politicians but not so far as to satisfy the reformers. When he
+withstood Democratic clamor for office, the Independents applauded, and
+the spoilsmen in his own party accused him of treason. When he listened
+to the demands of the partisans, the reformers became disgusted and many
+of them returned to their former party allegiance. Eugene Field
+expressed Republican exultation at the dissension in the enemy's ranks:
+
+    ... the Mugwump scorned the Democrat's wail,
+    And flirting its false fantastic tail,
+    It spread its wings and it soared away,
+    And left the Democrat in dismay,
+            Too hoo!
+
+Aside from the President, official Washington seems to have had but
+little real interest in reform. The Vice-President, Hendricks, was a
+partisan of the old school, and so many members of Congress were out of
+sympathy with the system that they attempted to annul the law by
+refusing appropriations for its continuance. On the whole a fair
+judgment was that of Charles Francis Adams, a Republican, who thought
+that Cleveland showed himself as much in advance of both parties as it
+was wise for a leader of one of them to be.
+
+In addition to further improvements in the civil service laws, Cleveland
+was interested in a long list of reforms which he placed before Congress
+in his first message: the improvement of the diplomatic and consular
+service; the reduction of the tariff; the repeal of the Bland-Allison
+silver-coinage act; the development of the navy, which he characterized
+as a "shabby ornament" and a naval reminder "of the days that are past";
+better care of the Indians; and a means of preventing individuals from
+acquiring large areas of the public lands. The fact that Hayes and
+Arthur had urged similar reforms showed how little Cleveland differed
+from his Republican predecessors. It was not likely, however, that the
+program would be carried out, for Congress was not in a reforming mood
+and the Republicans controlled the upper house so that they could block
+any attempt at constructive policies.
+
+The latent hostility which many of the Civil War veterans felt toward
+the Democratic party was fanned into flame by Cleveland's attitude
+toward pension legislation. The sympathy of the country for its disabled
+soldiers had early resulted in a system of pensions for disability if
+due either to wounds or to disease contracted in the service. Early in
+the seventies the number of pensioners had seemed to have reached a
+maximum. Two new centers of agitation, however, had appeared, the Grand
+Army of the Republic and the pension agent. The former was originally a
+social organization but later it took a hand in the campaign for new
+pension legislation. The agents were persons familiar with the laws, who
+busied themselves in finding possible pensioners and getting their
+claims established. The agitation of the subject had resulted in the
+arrears act of 1879, which gave the claimant back-pensions from the day
+of his discharge from the army to the date of filing his claim,
+regardless of the time when his disability began. As the average first
+payment to the pensioner under this act was about $1,000, the number of
+claims filed had grown enormously and the pension agents had enjoyed a
+rich harvest. The next step was the dependent pensions bill, which
+granted a pension to all who had served three months, were dependent on
+their daily toil, and were incapable of earning their livelihood,
+whether the incapacity was due to wounds and disease or not. President
+Cleveland's veto of the measure aroused a hostility which was deepened
+by his attitude toward private pension acts.
+
+For some time it had been customary to pass special acts providing
+pensions for persons whose claims had already been rejected by the
+pension bureau as defective or fraudulent. So little attention was paid
+to private bills in Congress that 1454 of them passed between 1885 and
+1889, generally without debate and often even without the presence of a
+quorum of members. Two hours on a day in April, 1886, sufficed for the
+passage of five hundred such bills. Nobody would now deny that many were
+frauds, pure and simple. Cleveland was too frugal and conscientious to
+pass such bills without examination and he began to veto some of the
+worst of them. Each veto message explained the grounds for his dissent,
+sometimes patiently, sometimes with a sharp sarcasm that must have made
+the victim writhe. In one case where a widow sought a pension because of
+the death of her soldier husband it was discovered that he had been
+accidentally shot by a neighbor while hunting. Another claimant was one
+who had enlisted at the close of the war, served nine days, had been
+admitted to the hospital with measles and then mustered out. Fifteen
+years later he claimed a pension. The President vetoed the bill,
+scoffing at the applicant's "valiant service" and "terrific encounter
+with the measles." Altogether he vetoed about two hundred and thirty
+private bills. Time after time he expressed his sympathy with the
+deserving pensioner and his desire to purge the list of dishonorable
+names, and many applauded his courageous efforts. Nevertheless, his
+pension policy presented an opportunity for hostile criticism which his
+Republican opponents were not slow to embrace. His efforts in behalf of
+pension reform were said to originate in hostility to the old soldiers
+and in lack of sympathy with the northern cause. In 1887 it even became
+necessary for him to withdraw his acceptance of an invitation to attend
+a meeting of the Grand Army in St. Louis, because of danger that he
+might be subjected to downright insult.[4]
+
+Before the hostility due to the pension vetoes had subsided,
+Adjutant-General Drum called the attention of the President to the fact
+that flags taken from Confederate regiments by Union soldiers during the
+war and also certain flags formerly belonging to northern troops had for
+many years lain packed in boxes in the attic and cellar of the War
+Department. At his suggestion Cleveland ordered the return of these
+trophies to the states which the regiments had represented. Although
+recommended by Drum as a "graceful act," it was looked upon by the old
+soldiers with the utmost wrath. The commander of the Grand Army called
+upon Heaven to avenge so wicked an order and such politicians as
+Governor Foraker of Ohio gained temporary prominence by their bitter
+condemnation of it. Eventually the clamor was so great that the
+President rescinded the order on the ground that the final disposition
+of the flags was within the sphere of action of Congress only. In
+February, 1905, however, Congress passed a resolution providing for the
+return of the flags and the exchange was effected without excitement.
+
+For the reasons already mentioned, little legislation was passed during
+President Cleveland's administration that was of permanent importance.
+An exception was the Interstate Commerce Act, which is a subject for
+later discussion. A Presidential Succession Act, which has earlier been
+described, provided for the succession of the members of the cabinet in
+case of the removal or death of the president and vice-president. The
+Electoral Count Act placed on the states the burden of deciding contests
+arising from the choice of presidential electors. When more than one set
+of electoral returns come from a state, each purporting to be legal,
+Congress must decide which shall be counted. Of some importance, too,
+was the establishment of the Department of Agriculture in 1889 and the
+inclusion of its secretary in the cabinet. The admission of the Dakotas,
+Montana and Washington as states took place in the same year. The
+improvement of the navy, begun so auspiciously by Secretary Chandler
+under President Arthur, was continued with enthusiasm and vigor, and the
+vessels constructed formed an important part of our navy.
+
+Of less popular interest than many of the political questions, but of
+more lasting importance, was the rapid reduction of the public land
+supply. The purpose of the Homestead law of 1862 had been to supply land
+at low rates and in small amounts to _bona fide_ settlers, but the
+beneficent design of the nation had been somewhat nullified by the
+constant evasion of the spirit of the laws. Squatters had occupied land
+without reference to legal forms; cattlemen had fenced in large tracts
+for their own use and forcibly resisted attempts to oust them; by hook
+and by crook individuals and companies had got large areas into their
+possession and held them for speculative returns. Western public opinion
+looked upon many such violations with equanimity until the supply of
+land began to grow small. Then came the demand for the opening of the
+Indian reservations, which comprised 250,000 square miles in 1885. The
+Dawes act of 1887 provided for individual ownership of small amounts of
+land by the Indians instead of tribal ownership in large reservations.
+By this means a considerable amount of good land was made available for
+settlement by whites. The dwindling supply of western land also called
+attention to certain delinquencies on the part of the railway companies.
+Many of them had been granted enormous amounts of land on certain
+conditions, such as that specified parts of the roads be constructed
+within a given time. This agreement, with others, was frequently broken,
+and question arose as to whether the companies should be forced to
+forfeit their claims. Cleveland turned to the problem with energy and
+forced the return of some millions of acres. Nevertheless, the fact that
+it was becoming necessary to be less prodigal with the public land
+indicated that the supply was no longer inexhaustible, and led the
+President in his last annual message to urge that the remaining supply
+be husbanded with great care. Congress was not alert to the demands of
+the time, however, and no effective steps were taken for many years.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+H.C. Thomas, _The Return of the Democratic Party to Power in 1884_
+(1919), is most complete and scholarly on the subject; Sparks, Curtis,
+Dewey, and Stanwood continue useful; H.T. Peck, _Twenty Years of the
+Republic, 1885-1905_ (1907), is illuminating and interesting; H.J. Ford,
+_Cleveland Era_ (1919), is brief; the files of _The Nation_ and
+_Harper's Weekly_ are essential, while those of the New York _Sun,
+Evening Post_ and _Tribune_ add a few points. The Mulligan letters are
+reprinted in _Harper's Weekly_ (1884, 643-646).
+
+On the administration, consult the general texts and the special volumes
+mentioned in chapter V; G.F. Parker, _Recollections of Grover Cleveland_
+(1909); and _Political Science Quarterly_ (June, 1918), "Official
+Characteristics of President Cleveland," give something on the personal
+side; J.L. Whittle, _Grover Cleveland_ (1896), is by an English admirer;
+Cleveland's own side of one of his controversies is in Grover Cleveland,
+_Presidential Problems_ (1904); on Blaine, Edward Stanwood, _James G.
+Blaine_ (1905). The _Annual Cyclopaedia_ has useful biographical
+articles.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] A reference to the Dorsey dinner at which Arthur told how Indiana
+was carried.
+
+[2] His marriage to Miss Frances Folsom, which occurred in 1886,
+occasioned lively interest.
+
+[3] Other members were: Daniel Manning, N.Y., Secretary of the
+Treasury; William C. Endicott, Mass., Secretary of War; A.H. Garland,
+Ark., Attorney-General; William F. Vilas, Wis., Postmaster-General.
+
+[4] President Cleveland also frequently used his veto power to prevent
+the passage of appropriations for federal buildings which he deemed
+unnecessary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+TRANSPORTATION AND ITS CONTROL
+
+The most significant legislative act of President Cleveland's
+administration was due primarily neither to him nor to the great
+political parties. It concerned the relation between the government
+and the railroads, and the force which led to its passage originated
+outside of Congress. The growth of the transportation system,
+therefore, the economic benefits which resulted, the complaints which
+arose and the means through which the complaints found voice were
+subjects of primary importance.
+
+Beginning with the construction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
+about 1830, the extension of the railways went forward with increasing
+rapidity so that they soon formed a veritable network: between 1830
+and 1850 over 7,000 miles were laid; by 1860 the total was 30,000
+miles; the Civil War and the financial depression of 1873 retarded
+progress somewhat, but such delays were temporary, and by 1890 the
+total exceeded 160,000 miles. In the earlier decades most construction
+took place in the Northeast, where capital was most plentiful and
+population most dense. Later activity in the Northeast was devoted to
+building "feeders" or branch lines. In the South, the relatively
+smaller progress which had been made before the war had been undone
+for the most part by the wear and tear of the conflict, but the
+twenty-five years afterward saw greatly renewed construction. The most
+surprising expansion took place in Texas where the 711 miles of 1870
+were increased to 8,754 by 1890. In the Middle West, roads were
+rapidly built just before the war and immediately after it, and the
+first connection with the Pacific Coast, as has been shown, was made
+in 1869.
+
+[Illustration:
+Railroad Mileage, 1860-1910, in thousands of miles]
+
+Many of the circumstances accompanying this rapid expansion were novel
+and important. Beginning with a federal grant to the Illinois Central,
+for example, in the middle of the century, both the nation and the
+states assisted the roads by gifts of millions of acres of land. It
+was to the advantage of the companies to procure the grants on the
+best possible terms, and they exerted constant pressure upon
+congressmen whose votes and influence they desired. Frequently the
+agents of the roads were thoroughly unscrupulous, and such scandals as
+that connected with the Credit Mobilier were the result. More
+important still, the fact that the federal and state governments had
+aided the railroads so greatly gave them a strong justification for
+investigating and regulating the activities of the companies.
+
+Mechanical inventions and improvements had no small part in the
+development of the transportation system. The early tracks,
+constructed of wood beams on which were fastened iron strips, and
+sometimes described as barrel-hoops tacked to laths, were replaced by
+iron, and still later by heavy steel rails. By 1890 about eighty per
+cent. of the mileage was composed of steel. Heavy rails were
+accompanied by improved roadbeds, heavier equipment and greater speed.
+A simple improvement was the gradual adoption of a standard
+gauge--four feet eight and a half inches--which replaced the earlier
+lack of uniformity. The process was substantially completed by the
+middle eighties, when many thousands of miles in the South were
+standardized. On the Louisville and Nashville, for example, a force of
+8,763 men made the change on 1,806 miles of track in a single day. The
+inauguration of "standard" time also took place during the eighties.
+Hitherto there had been a wide variety of time standards and different
+roads even in the same city despatched their trains on different
+systems. In 1883 the country was divided into five vertical zones each
+approximately fifteen degrees or, in sun-time, an hour wide. Both the
+roads and the public then conformed to the standard time of the zone
+in which they were.
+
+[Illustration:
+Map of the United States showing railroads in 1870]
+
+Of greater importance was the consolidation of large numbers of small
+lines into the extensive systems which are now familiar. The first
+roads covered such short distances that numerous bothersome transfers
+of passengers, freight and baggage from the end of one line to the
+beginning of the next were necessary on every considerable journey. No
+fewer than five companies, for example, divided the three hundred
+miles between Albany and Buffalo, no one of them operating more than
+seventy-six miles. In 1853, these five with five others were
+consolidated into the New York Central Railroad. Sixteen years later,
+in 1869, the Central combined with the Hudson River, and soon
+afterwards procured substantial control of the Lake Shore and Michigan
+Southern, the Rock Island, and the Chicago and Northwestern. As the
+result of this process a single group of men directed the interests of
+a system of railroads from New York through Chicago to Omaha. The
+Pennsylvania Railroad began with a short line from Philadelphia to the
+Susquehanna River, picked up smaller roads here and there--eventually
+one hundred and thirty-eight of them, representing two hundred and
+fifty-six separate corporations--reached out through the Middle West
+to Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis, and in 1871 controlled over
+three thousand miles of track, with an annual income of over forty
+million dollars. In the eighties a railroad war in northern New
+England started the consolidation of the Boston and Maine system.
+
+The beneficial results of the growth of the transportation facilities
+of the nation were immediate and revolutionary. The fact that average
+freight rates were cut in halves between 1867 and 1890 helped make
+possible the economic readjustments after the Civil War to a degree
+that is not likely to be overestimated. Not only did railway
+construction supply work for large numbers of laborers and help bring
+about an ever greater westward migration, but it opened a market for
+the huge agricultural surplus of the Middle West. Without the market
+in the cities of the populous Atlantic Coast and Europe, the expansion
+of the West would have been impossible. Moreover, the railways brought
+coal, ore, cotton, wool and other raw materials to the Northeast, and
+thus enabled that section to develop its manufacturing interests.
+
+[Illustration:
+Map of the United States showing railroads in 1890]
+
+Despite the admittedly great benefits resulting from the railroad
+system, there was a rising tide of complaint on the part of the public
+in regard to some aspects of its construction and management. It was
+objected, for example, that many of the western roads especially were
+purely speculative undertakings. Lines were sometimes built into new
+territory where competition did not exist and where, consequently, the
+rates could be kept at a high point. The Chicago, Burlington and
+Quincy presented such a case in 1856. Profits were so great as to
+embarrass the company, since the payment of large dividends was sure
+to arouse the hostility of the farmers who paid the freight rates.
+"This, indeed," declared the biographer of one of the presidents of
+the road, "was the time of glad, confident morning, never again to
+occur in the history of railroad-building in the United States."
+Sometimes lines were driven into territory which was already
+sufficiently supplied with transportation facilities, in order to
+compel the company already on the ground to buy out the new road. If,
+as time went on, traffic enough for both roads did not appear, they
+had to be kept alive through the imposition of high rates; otherwise,
+one of them failed and the investors suffered a loss. The
+opportunities for profit, however, were so numerous that the amount of
+capital reported invested in railways increased by $3,200,000,000
+during the five years preceding 1885.
+
+A practice which was productive of much wrong-doing and which was
+suggestive of more dishonesty than could be proved, related to the
+letting of contracts for the construction of new lines. The directors
+of a road frequently formed part or all of the board of directors of a
+construction company. In their capacity as railroad directors they
+voted advantageous contracts to themselves in their other capacity,
+giving no opportunity to independent construction companies who might
+agree to build at a lower cost. As the cost of construction was part
+of the debt of the road, the directors were adding generously to their
+own wealth, while the company was being saddled with an increased
+burden. It cost only $58,000,000, for example, to build the Central
+Pacific, but a construction company was paid $120,000,000 for its
+services. When John Murray Forbes was investigating the Chicago,
+Burlington and Quincy he found that the president of the road was
+paying himself a salary as president of a construction company, out of
+the railroad's funds, without the supervision of the treasurer or any
+one else, and without any auditing of his accounts. Moreover, six of
+the twelve members of the board of directors were also members of the
+construction company. Such an attempt to "run with the hare and hunt
+with the hounds" was suggestive, to say the least, of great
+possibilities of profit to the directors and a constant invitation to
+unnecessary construction.
+
+Another grievance against the railways was the reckless, irresponsible
+and arrogant management under which some of them operated. An eminent
+expert testified before an investigating commission in 1885 that Jay
+Gould once sold $40,000,000 of Erie Railway stock and pocketed the
+proceeds himself. Most of the energy of the officers of some roads was
+expended in deceiving and cheating competitors. "Railroad
+financiering" became a "by-word for whatever is financially loose,
+corrupt and dishonest." If certain roads demonstrated by successful
+operation that honest methods were better in the long run, their
+probity received scant advertisement in comparison with the
+unscrupulous practices of their less respectable neighbors. It is to
+be remembered, also, that the growth of the railway system had been so
+rapid and so huge that it was impossible to meet the demand for
+trained administrators. Naturally, men possessed of little or no
+technical understanding of transportation problems could not provide
+highly responsible management.
+
+The dishonest manipulation of the issues and sales of railroad stocks
+is a practice that was not confined solely to the twenty-five years
+after the Civil War, but the numerous examples of it which occurred
+during that period aggravated the exasperation which has already been
+mentioned. Daniel Drew, the treasurer of the Erie Railway in 1866,
+furnished an excellent illustration of this type of activity. Drew had
+in his possession a large amount of Erie stock which had been secretly
+issued to him in return for a loan to the company. The stock in the
+market was selling near par and still rising. Drew instructed his
+agents to make contracts for the future delivery of stock at prices
+current at the time when the contracts were made. When the time came
+for fulfilling his contracts, Drew suddenly threw the secret stock on
+the market, drove general market prices on Erie stock down from
+ninety-five to fifty, bought at the low figure, and sold at the high
+price which was called for in the contracts made by his agents. The
+effect of such sharp dealing on investors, the railroad or the public
+seems not to have entered into the calculation. Indeed, the Erie and
+many another road was looked upon by its owners merely as a convenient
+piece of machinery for producing fortunes.
+
+Gould, Drew and other railroad men of their time were also expert in
+the practice of "stock-watering." This consists in expanding the
+nominal capitalization of an enterprise without an equivalent addition
+to the actual capital. The rates which the railway has to charge the
+public tend to increase by approximately whatever dividends are paid
+on the water.[1] Then, as later, when a road was prospering greatly
+it would sometimes declare a "stock dividend," that is, give its
+stockholders additional stock in proportion to what they already
+owned. The addition would frequently be water. Its purpose might be to
+cover up the great profits made by the company. If, on a million
+dollars' worth of stock, it was paying ten per cent. dividends, the
+public might demand lower freight and passenger rates; but if the
+stock were doubled and earnings remained stationary, then the
+dividends would appear as five per cent.--an amount to which there
+could be no objection. H.V. Poor, the railroad expert, declared before
+a commission of investigation in 1885 that the New York Central
+Railroad was carrying $48,000,000 of water, on which it had paid eight
+per cent. dividends for fifteen years. He also estimated that of the
+seven and a half billions of indebtedness which the roads of the
+country were carrying in 1883, two billions represented water. Others
+thought that the proportion of water was greater. In any case the
+unnecessary burden upon business to provide dividends for the watered
+stock was an item of some magnitude. The investor, however, looked
+upon stock-watering with other eyes. The building of a new road was a
+speculation; the profits might be large, to be sure, but there might
+in many cases be a loss. In order to tempt money into railroad
+enterprises, therefore, inducements in the form of generous stock
+bonuses were necessary.
+
+The rate wars of the seventies gave wide advertisement to another
+aspect of railroad history. The most famous of these contests had
+their origin in the grain-carrying trade from the Lakes to the
+sea-board. The entry of the Baltimore and Ohio and the Grand Trunk
+into Chicago in 1874, stimulated a four-cornered competition among
+these roads and the Pennsylvania and New York Central for the traffic
+between the upper Mississippi Valley and the coast. Rates on grain and
+other products were cut, and cut again; freight charges dropped to a
+figure which wiped out profits; yet it was impossible for any line to
+drop out of the competition until exhaustion forced all to do so. A
+railroad can not suspend business when profits disappear, for fixed
+expenses continue and the depreciation of the value of the property,
+especially of the stations, tracks and rolling stock, is extreme.
+Since the rate wars were clearly bringing ruin in their train, rate
+agreements and pooling arrangements were devised. The latter took
+several forms. Sometimes a group of competing roads agreed to divide
+the business among the competitors on the basis of an agreed-upon
+percentage. Another plan was to pool earnings at the close of a period
+and divide according to a prearranged ratio. Sometimes destructive
+competition was prevented by a division of the territory, each company
+being allowed a free hand in its own field. In general, pooling
+agreements were likely to break down, although a southern pool
+organized by Albert Fink on a very extensive scale lasted for many
+years and was thought to have had a vital influence in eliminating
+rate-wars. Their efficacy depended mainly on good faith, and good
+faith was a rarity among railroad officials in the seventies and
+eighties. In the eyes of the public, rate agreements and pools were
+vicious conspiracies which left the rights and well-being of the
+private shipper completely out of the calculation.
+
+Still another indictment of the railways resulted from their
+participation in politics. It was inevitable, of course, that the
+roads should be drawn into the field of legislation--the grants of
+public land, for example, helped bring about the result. It early
+seemed advantageous to attempt to influence state legislatures to pass
+favorable laws, and it seemed a necessity to bring pressure to bear in
+order to protect the roads from hostile acts. The methods used by the
+railway agents in their political activity naturally varied all the
+way from legitimate agitation to crude and subtle forms of bribery. An
+insidious method of influencing both law-making and litigation was the
+pass system. Under it the roads were accustomed to give free
+transportation to a long list of federal and state judges, legislators
+and politicians. For a judge to accept such favors from a corporation
+which might at any time be haled before his court, and for a
+legislator to receive a gift from a body that was constantly in need
+of legislative attention is now held to be improper in the extreme.
+But in those days a less sensitive public opinion felt hardly a qualm.
+That the practice was likely to arouse an unconscious bias in the
+minds of public officials is hardly debatable. The more crude forms of
+bribery, too, were not uncommon. It was testified before a committee
+of investigation that the Erie Railway Company in one year expended
+$700,000 as a corruption fund and for legal expenses, carrying the
+amount on the books in the "India-rubber account." The manipulation of
+the courts of New York by the Erie and the New York Central during the
+late sixties was nothing short of a scandal. Alliances between
+political rings and railroad officials for the purpose of caring for
+their mutual interests were so common that reformers questioned
+whether the American people could be said to possess self-government
+in actuality. Immediately after the Civil War, Charles Francis Adams,
+an acute student of transportation, declared that it was scarcely an
+exaggeration to say that the state legislatures were becoming a
+species of irregular boards of railroad direction. The evils of the
+alliance between the roads and politics were not, of course, due
+entirely to the former. The receiver of a pass shared with the giver
+the evil of the system. Many a legislator was corrupt; more shared in
+practices which were little removed from dishonorable. Adams, for
+example, gives an account of his experiences, as a director of the
+Union Pacific, in dealing with a United States senator in 1884. The
+congressman was ready to take excellent care of railroad corporations
+which retained him as counsel, but was a corrupt and ill-mannered
+bully toward the Union Pacific, which had not employed him.[2]
+
+The most constant grievance was discrimination--that the roads varied
+their rates for the benefit or detriment of especial types of freight,
+of individuals and of entire localities. Through business between
+competing points was carried at a low figure, while the roads recouped
+themselves by charging heavily in towns where competition was absent.
+Shippers complained that rates between St. Paul and Chicago, for
+example, where competition existed were hardly more than half the
+charges to places at a similar distance where a single road was in a
+position to demand what it pleased. Manufacturers in Rochester could
+send goods to New York City and reship them to Cincinnati, back
+through Rochester, for less than the rate direct to their destination.
+Yet the direct haul was seven hundred miles shorter than the indirect.
+Secret arrangements were commonly made with favored shippers by which
+they secured lower rates than their competitors. When it became
+evident that transportation cost entered into the price of
+substantially everything which the ordinary citizen consumed, and when
+it was considered that a slight rise in railroad rates might easily
+amount to a heavy tax on a shipper or an entire region, it was seen
+that uniformity of rates was a matter of the utmost concern.
+
+In brief, then, it was complained that the growth of the
+transportation system had placed enormous power in the hands of a
+small group of men, many of whom had indicated by their selfishness,
+arrogance and questionable practices that they ought not to be
+entrusted with so great a measure of authority.
+
+The best example of the American railroad president after the war was
+Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt began his career by
+ferrying passengers and freight between Staten Island and New York
+City. Later he turned his attention to shipping, in which he made a
+fortune, and planned the operation of steamships on a large scale.
+Becoming interested in railroading, he clearly perceived the
+importance of the western trade and the necessity of consolidation.
+Vanderbilt was a man of vision, a man who combined magnitude of plan
+with the vigorous grasp of the practical details necessary for the
+realization of his ambitions. He was buoyant, energetic, confident,
+ambitious, determined, despotic. Unhampered by modern conceptions of
+public duty, undeterred by the hostility of powerful opponents, with
+eyes fixed upon the combination and control of a great transportation
+system, Vanderbilt entered courageously upon bitter struggles for
+supremacy which involved the misuse of the courts, the control of the
+New York state legislature and a thousand charges of corrupt influence
+and bribery, but he welded railroads together, replaced wood and iron
+with steel, and constructed tracks and terminals. At his death in 1877
+he left a huge fortune and bequeathed to his successors a great,
+consolidated railroad enterprise, skillfully and successfully
+administered. The great weakness of Commodore Vanderbilt and his
+associates, and of those who later imitated his work was their
+fundamental conception of the railroad as a private venture. Success
+consisted in bigness, great profits, crushing or buying out
+competitors, and administering the business for the best good of the
+few owners, regardless of the interests of the region through which
+the railway passed. Vanderbilt and many of his contemporaries were men
+of business sagacity and foresight, but their ethical outlook was
+restricted and their sense of public responsibility not well
+developed.
+
+So considerable a list of grievances naturally bestirred the people to
+seek relief at the hands of their legislators. Two lines of action
+were followed. In Massachusetts, as early as 1869, a state commission
+was formed with purely advisory powers. Under the able leadership of
+Charles Francis Adams it attained great influence and worked
+effectively for the elimination of railroad abuses through conference
+and the weight of public opinion. In Illinois, on the other hand,
+reliance was placed upon compulsory action. The state constitution of
+1870 declared the railroads to be public highways and required the
+legislature to fix rates for the carriage of freight and passengers,
+and to pass laws to correct abuses connected with the railways and
+grain warehouses. In compliance with the constitution the state passed
+the necessary legislation and placed their execution in the hands of a
+commission with considerable power. Other western states followed the
+Illinois model.
+
+On the national scale the agitation for government action began with
+the minor parties. In 1872 the Labor Reformers demanded fair rates and
+no discrimination; in 1876 the Prohibitionists called for lower rates;
+in 1880 the Greenbackers stood for fair and uniform rates; four years
+later they urged laws which would put an end to pooling,
+stock-watering and discrimination, and in the same year the
+Republicans promised an act to regulate commerce if they were elected.
+The most effective force behind the demand for railroad regulation was
+the Patrons of Husbandry, better known as the "Grange." This society
+was founded by O.H. Kelley, a government clerk in Washington, in 1867.
+Its initial purpose was the organization of the agricultural classes
+for social and intellectual improvement, but later it engaged in the
+effort to correct transportation abuses and to arouse cooperation
+among the farmers in other ways. The movement grew astonishingly,
+especially in the Middle West, where its membership reached nearly
+759,000 in 1875.
+
+Transportation conditions in the West had not reached the relatively
+stable situation which characterized those of the East. In the West
+much new work was being done, with the attendant evils of construction
+companies and unnecessary and speculative undertakings. Much of the
+railroad stock was in the hands of eastern investors whom the western
+farmers pictured as living in idle ease on swollen incomes, careless
+of the high rates and unfair discriminations under which the farmer
+groaned. The constantly falling prices, which influenced the West in
+so many other ways, served to heighten the discontent with any abuse
+which increased the farmer's burden. Moreover, the western states had
+contributed huge amounts of land to help build the railways and they
+were not minded to give up the hold which their generosity had
+justified.
+
+Impelled, then, by such force as the Grange and similar organizations
+supplied, the western states proceeded to the adoption of laws whose
+purposes ordinarily included railroad rate-making by the legislature
+or by a commission, the doing away with such abuses as discrimination,
+and the prohibition of free passes. The railroads promptly opposed the
+laws and carried the battle to the courts. The so-called "Granger
+Cases" resulted. Three of these were representative of the general
+trend of the decisions.
+
+The famous case Munn _v._ Illinois, which was decided by the Supreme
+Court in 1876 was possibly the most vital case in the history of the
+regulation of public service corporations after the Civil War. The
+legislature of Illinois, in conformity with the state constitution of
+1870, had passed a law fixing maximum charges for the storage of grain
+in warehouses. The owners of a certain warehouse refused compliance
+with the law on the ground that it was contrary to the Constitution
+and hence null and void. They argued that when the state fixed rates
+it deprived the owners of the right to set higher charges and so, in
+effect, deprived them of their property, in defiance of that portion
+of the Fourteenth Amendment forbidding a state to "deprive any person
+of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."
+
+On examination of the history of the control of such enterprises, the
+Court found that it had been customary in England for many centuries
+and in this country from the beginning, to regulate rates on ferries,
+charges at inns, and similar public enterprises, and that it had never
+been thought that such action deprived persons of property without due
+process of law. In other words, the established common law, at the
+time of the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, did not look upon
+rate regulation as a deprivation of property. The Court, therefore,
+declared the Illinois warehouse law constitutional, and in doing so
+made the following statement:
+
+    Property does become clothed with a public interest when
+    used in a manner to make it of public consequence, and affect
+    the community at large. When, therefore, one devotes his
+    property to a use in which the public has an interest, he, in
+    effect, grants to the public an interest in that use, and must
+    submit to be controlled by the public for the common good,
+    to the extent of the interest he has thus created.
+
+While the Munn case was before the Court, the case Peik _v._ the
+Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company was raising a question which
+struck at the heart of the chief practical impediment in the way of
+state control of transportation. The central question in the
+litigation was whether the legislature of Wisconsin could lawfully
+regulate rates on railroads inside the state. Since the bulk of the
+traffic on most roads crosses state borders at one time or another in
+its transit, the regulation of rates within a state normally affects
+interstate commerce. But the regulation of interstate commerce is
+vested in Congress by the terms of the Constitution. The railroad was
+quick to take advantage of the division of power between the states
+and the nation. Indeed, when fighting state legislation, the roads
+earnestly emphasized the exclusive power of Congress over interstate
+commerce; but when fighting national regulation, they equally
+deprecated any interference with the reserved rights of the states.
+Acting in accordance with its established practice, the Court decided
+that the state was authorized to regulate rates within its borders,
+even though such regulation indirectly affected persons outside, until
+Congress passed legislation concerning interstate commerce. Obviously
+this decision allowed the states to work out their railroad problems
+unhampered, and constituted one of the chief victories for the
+Grangers.
+
+In 1886, however, the Court overturned some of the principles which
+had been established in the Munn and Peik cases. The new development
+came about in connection with the Wabash railroad. It appeared that
+the road had been carrying freight from Peoria, Illinois, to New York
+for smaller rates than were charged from Gilman to New York, despite
+the fact that Peoria was eighty-six miles farther away. Since Illinois
+law forbade a road to levy a greater charge for a short haul than for
+a long one, a suit was instituted and carried to the Supreme Court.
+The company held that the Illinois legislation affected interstate
+commerce and hence trenched upon the constitutional power of Congress.
+This time the Court upheld the road. It decided that the
+transportation of goods from Illinois to New York was commerce among
+the states, that such commerce was subject to regulation by Congress
+exclusively, and that the Illinois statute was void. It seemed, then,
+that state regulation was a broken reed on which nobody could safely
+lean, and attention thereupon turned to the federal government.
+
+Congress had already been discussing federal regulation intermittently
+for some years. The so-called "Windom Report" of 1874 had advised
+federal construction and improvement of transportation facilities in
+order to lower rates through competition, but no action had resulted.
+In 1878 the "Reagan bill" had proposed government regulation, and from
+that time the subject had been almost continuously before Congress. In
+1885 the Senate had appointed a select committee of five to
+investigate and report upon the regulation of freight and passenger
+transportation. The committee was headed by Shelby M. Cullom, who had
+been a member of the legislature of Illinois and later governor, in
+the years when the railroad and warehouse laws were being put into
+effect. It endeavored to discover all shades of opinion by visiting
+the leading commercial centers, and by consulting business men, state
+commissioners of railroads, Granger officials and others. After a
+somewhat thorough investigation, the committee expressed its
+conviction that no general question of governmental policy occupied so
+prominent a place in the attention of the public as that of
+controlling the growth and influence of corporations. The needed
+relief might be obtained, the committee thought, through any one of
+four methods: private ownership and management, with a greater or less
+degree of government oversight; government ownership and management;
+government ownership with private management under public regulations;
+partial state ownership and management in competition with private
+companies. The widespread opposition to state ownership of railroads,
+the commission thought, seemed to point to some form of government
+regulation and control of the existing situation.
+
+Impressed with the magnitude of the abuses involved, and the
+hopelessness of regulation through state laws, the committee presented
+a bill designed to bring about regulation on a national scale through
+a federal agency. The resulting law was the Interstate Commerce Act of
+February 4, 1887. It provided that all railway charges should be
+reasonable and just; forbade the roads to grant rebates, or to give
+preferences to any person, locality or class of freight, or to charge
+more for a short haul than for a long one except with the consent of
+the proper authorities; it made pooling unlawful; and it ordered the
+companies to post printed copies of their rates, which were not to be
+altered except after ten days' public notice. The act also created an
+Interstate Commerce Commission of five members to serve six-year
+terms, into whose hands the administration of the measure was placed.
+Persons who claimed that the railways were violating the provisions of
+the law could make complaint to the Commission, or bring suit in a
+United States Court. In order that the Commission might know the
+condition of the roads, it was given power to call upon the carriers
+for information, to demand annual reports from them, and to require
+the attendance of witnesses. If the railroads refused to carry out the
+orders of the Commission, they could be brought before a United States
+district court.
+
+In forbidding pools, the Act committed the railroads to the policy of
+enforced competition, a policy which was commonly accepted at the time
+as the best one for the public interest. Such experts, however, as
+Professor A.T. Hadley and Charles Francis Adams, Jr., raised important
+objections. They cited the rate wars to indicate the results of
+competition and declared that railroads ought to be monopolies. If two
+grocery stores are established where trade enough exists for only one,
+they asserted, the weaker competitor can close his doors and the
+public loss is not heavy; but in the case of the railways a weak
+competitor must continue business even at disastrously low rates
+because all his interest charges continue and the depreciation on his
+property is extreme. The construction of an unnecessary road and its
+subsequent operation at a loss, its failure or its abandonment,
+constitute a great drain upon the public. Such objectors contended
+that pooling combinations did away with many of the evils of
+cut-throat competition, and they accordingly urged that the carriers
+be permitted to make such arrangements, under whatever government
+regulation might be needed to prevent unreasonable charges. By such
+means the available business of a region might be fairly divided among
+the roads entering it, without resort to competitive rate-cutting and
+its consequent evils.
+
+The passage of the law was looked upon with much hostility on the part
+of the railroad interests. James J. Hill thought that the railroads
+might survive, although the country would be ruined, and he predicted
+that Congress would shortly be called in special session to repeal the
+act. More important than mere hostility was the constant opposition
+and evasion which characterized the attitude of the carriers toward
+the operation of the law. Discriminations were commonly practiced and
+hidden away in accounts under false or misleading headings. Rebates
+were given and received, a fact which was due in no small degree to
+the shippers themselves. A large shipper might demand advantageous
+rates and threaten to turn his trade over to a rival road. As the
+arrangement would be secret, and the likelihood of discovery small,
+the temptation to break the law was correspondingly great.
+
+The good results of the passage of the law were disappointingly
+slight. To be sure, the Commission was gaining experience,
+administrative precedents were being established and injustice was
+somewhat less common than before. The first chairman was Judge T.M.
+Cooley, a noted lawyer whose appointment was considered an admirable
+one. Most important of all, the principle of government regulation was
+established. Nevertheless, progress was so slow as to be almost
+invisible. The courts hampered the activities of the Commission. When
+cases arose involving its decisions, they allowed a retrial of the
+entire case from the beginning, permitting the introduction of facts
+which had been designedly withheld by the carriers in order to
+undermine the influence of the Commission, and sometimes they reversed
+its findings and so dulled the effectiveness of its labors. Eleven
+years after the Act was passed the Commission declared that abuses
+were so constant that the situation was intolerable; a prominent
+railroad president made the charge that "good faith had departed from
+the railway world"; and an important authority on railroad affairs
+declared that the Commission had become an impotent bureau of
+statistics.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+More study has been made of railroad regulation and the technical side
+of railroading than of the history of transportation and the effects
+of the roads on the political and economic life of the people. An
+excellent single volume is John Moody, _The Railroad Builders_ (1919),
+which devotes attention to the important personages of railroad
+history, discusses the growth of large systems and contains valuable
+maps; the best concise account of the history of the railways is W.Z.
+Ripley, _Railroads: Rates and Regulation_ (1912). Chap. I; W.Z.
+Ripley, _Railway Problems_ (rev. ed., 1913), is reliable; E.R. Johnson
+and T.W. Van Metre, _Principles of Railroad Transportation_ (1916),
+has some excellent chapters and several informing maps; C.F. Carter,
+_When Railroads were New_, (1909), is a popular account; C.F. Adams,
+_Chapters of Erie_ (1886), exposes early railroad practices; H.G.
+Pearson, _An American Railroad Builder_ (1911), presents the career
+of J.M. Forbes as a railroad president; A.T. Hadley, _Railroad
+Transportation_ (1886), is a classic, early account. Consult also E.R.
+Johnson, _American Railway Transportation_ (1903); Frank Parsons,
+_Heart of the Railroad Problem_ (1906); C.F. Adams, Jr., _Railroads:
+Their Origin and Problems_ (1878, rev. ed., 1893); "A Decade of
+Federal Railway Regulation," in _Atlantic Monthly_ (Apr., 1898). On
+the personal side, the following are valuable: E.P. Oberholtzer, _Jay
+Cooke, Financier of the Civil War_ (2 vols., 1907); J.G. Pyle, _Life
+of J.J. Hill_ (2 vols., 1917); _Memoirs of Henry Villard_ (1909). On
+the subject of land grants and regulation: L.H. Haney, _Congressional
+History of Railways_ (2 vols., 1910); S.J. Buck, _The Granger
+Movement_ (1913), and the same author's _The Agrarian Crusade_ (1920),
+are best on the relation of unrest among the agricultural classes to
+the railroad problem. The "Cullom Report" is in Senate Reports, 49th
+Congress, 1st session (Serial Number 2356), in 2 vols., and is a mine
+of information on early abuses. The most important Granger cases are
+in _United States Reports_, vol. 94, p. 113 (Munn _v._ Ill.), and vol.
+118, p. 557 (Wabash case).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] For example, an investor might contribute $100 in cash to an
+enterprise. The "paid in capital" or "actual" capital would, then be
+$100. He might receive in return $100 in stock and $100 in bonds, in
+which case the "nominal capital" would be $200; the additional $100
+would be "water." If the enterprise paid interest on the bonds, and
+dividends on the stock, it would, of course, be paying a return on the
+water. The practice of stock-watering did not end with the days of
+Gould and Drew.
+
+[2] In this connection Professor Farrand mentions the statement of a
+railroad magnate that "in Republican counties he was a Republican, and
+in Democratic counties he was a Democrat, but that everywhere he was
+for the railroad." _Development of the United States_, p. 290.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+EXTREME REPUBLICANISM
+
+That the election of 1888 differed from its predecessors since 1865 was
+due chiefly to the independence, courage and political insight of
+President Cleveland. Hitherto campaigns had been contested with as
+little reference to real issues as conditions rendered possible.
+Neither party had possessed leaders with sufficient understanding of
+the needs of the nation to force a genuine settlement of an important
+issue. That 1888 saw a clear contest made it a memorable year in recent
+politics.
+
+It will be remembered that the tariff act of 1883 had been satisfactory
+only to a minority in Congress, because it retained the high level of
+customs duties that had been established during the Civil War. The
+congressional election of 1882 had resulted in the choice of a
+Democratic House of Representatives and had offered another opportunity
+for downward revision. Early in 1884, therefore, William R. Morrison
+presented a bill making considerable additions to the free list and
+providing for a "horizontal" reduction of about twenty per cent. on all
+other duties as levied under the act of 1883. The measure was defeated
+by four votes. Opposed to it were substantially all the Republicans and
+forty-one Democrats, most of them from the industrial states of New
+York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The Democratic tariff plank of
+1884, as has been seen, was practically meaningless, but the election
+of Cleveland, and the choice of a Democratic House gave another
+opportunity for revision. Again Morrison attempted a reduction, and
+again he was defeated by Samuel J. Randall and the other protectionist
+Democrats.
+
+The entire matter, however, was about to receive a new and important
+development at the hands of President Cleveland and John G. Carlisle,
+who was the Speaker of the House during the four years from 1885 to
+1889. Carlisle was a Kentuckian, a man of grave bearing, unflagging
+industry and substantial attainments. His tariff principles were in
+accord with those of the President, and his position as Speaker enabled
+him to determine the make-up of the Committee on Ways and Means, which
+would frame any tariff legislation. Cleveland had expressed his belief
+in the desirability of tariff reduction in his messages to Congress of
+1885 and 1886, basing his recommendations on the same facts that had
+earlier actuated President Arthur in making similar suggestions. His
+recommendations, however, had received the same slight consideration
+that had been accorded those of his Republican predecessor. He
+therefore determined to challenge the attention of the country and of
+Congress by means of a novel expedient.
+
+Previous presidential messages had covered a wide variety of
+subjects--foreign relations, domestic affairs, and recommendations of
+all kinds. Departing from this custom, the President made up his mind
+to devote an entire message to tariff reform. His project was startling
+from the political point of view, for his party was far from being a
+unit in its attitude toward reduction, a presidential campaign was at
+hand, and the Independents, who had had a strong influence in bringing
+about his success in 1884, sent word to him that a reform message would
+imperil his chances of re-election. This type of argument had little
+weight with Cleveland, however, and his reply was brief: "Do you not
+think that the people of the United States are entitled to some
+instruction on this subject?"
+
+On December 6, 1887, therefore, he sent to Congress his famous message
+urging the downward revision of the tariff. The immediate occasion of
+his recommendation, he declared, was the surplus of income over
+expenditure, which was piling up in the treasury at a rapid rate and
+which was a constant invitation to reckless appropriations. The portion
+of the public debt which was payable had already been redeemed, so that
+whatever surplus was not expended would be stored in the vaults, thus
+reducing the amount of currency in circulation, and making likely a
+financial crisis. The simplest remedy for the situation seemed to
+Cleveland to lie in a reduction of the income, and the most desirable
+means of reduction seemed to be the downward revision of the tariff, a
+system of "unnecessary taxation" which he denominated "vicious,
+inequitable, and illogical." Disclaiming any wish to advocate free
+trade, he expressed the hope that Congress would turn its attention to
+the practical problem before it:
+
+    Our progress toward a wise conclusion will not be improved by
+    dwelling upon the theories of protection and free trade. This
+    savors too much of bandying epithets. It is a _condition_ which
+    confronts us, not a theory.
+
+The effect of the message was immediate. Men began at once to take
+sides as if everybody had been waiting for a leader to speak his mind;
+and the parties adopted the definite principles to which they adhered
+for many years afterwards. The Democrats very generally rallied to the
+support of their champion; gaps in the ranks were closed up; and
+doubtless the usual pressure was applied to obstinate members who were
+disinclined to follow the leader. The Republican attitude was well
+expressed in the phrase of one of the politicians: "It is free-trade,
+and we have 'em!" The most prominent Republican, James G. Blaine, was
+in Paris, but true to his instinctive recognition of a good political
+opportunity he gave an interview which was immediately cabled to
+America. In it Blaine maintained that tariff reduction would harm the
+entire country, and especially the South and the farmers, and urged the
+reduction of the surplus by the abolition of the tax on tobacco, which
+he termed the poor man's luxury. The "Paris Message" was generally
+looked upon as the Republican answer to Cleveland, and as pointing to
+Blaine as the inevitable candidate for the ensuing campaign. On one
+point, most men of both parties were agreed--that the President had
+displayed great courage. "The presidential chair," declared James
+Russell Lowell, "has a MAN in it, and this means that every word he
+_says_ is weighted with what he _is_."
+
+The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in the House of
+Representatives, Roger Q. Mills, promptly presented a bill which
+conformed to the principles for which the President had argued. The
+discussion of the Mills bill was long known as the "Great Tariff Debate
+of 1888." The House seethed with it for more than a month. Mills and
+Carlisle on one side and William McKinley and Thomas B. Reed on the
+other typified the new leadership and the new positions which the
+parties were taking. Senator Morrill's idea that the war tariff was a
+temporary one, President Arthur's advice that the tariff be revised,
+the recommendations of the Tariff Commission of 1882 that reductions
+were necessary,--all these were no longer heard. Instead, the
+Republicans upheld the protective system as the cause of the unexampled
+prosperity of the nation. It is not to be supposed that protectionist
+or reductionist converts were made by the endless discussion, but the
+initial prejudices of each side were undoubtedly deepened. Each telling
+blow on either side was applauded by the partisans of each particular
+speaker, so that "applause" fairly dots the dull pages of the
+Congressional Record. McKinley enlivened his colleagues by pulling from
+his desk and exhibiting a suit of clothes which he had purchased for
+$10.00, a figure, he asserted, which proved that the tariff did not
+raise prices beyond the reach of the laboring man. Mills tracked down
+the cost of the suit and the tariff on the materials composing it, and
+further entertained the House by an exhibit showing that it cost $4.98
+to manufacture the suit and that the remainder of the price which the
+laborer paid was due to the tariff. In the end, the Mills bill passed
+the House with but four Democrats voting against it. Randall was so ill
+that he was unable to be present when the final vote was taken, but a
+letter from him declaring his opposition to the bill was greeted with
+great applause on the Republican side. Randall's day was past, however,
+and leadership was passing to new men.
+
+Meanwhile the Republicans in the Senate, where they were in control,
+had prepared a tariff bill which was designed to give evidence of the
+sort of act which would be passed if they were successful in the
+campaign. Senator Allison and Senator Aldrich were influential in this
+connection. The passage of leadership in tariff matters to Senator
+Aldrich and men of his type was as significant as the transition in the
+House. Aldrich was from Rhode Island, an able man who had had
+experience in state affairs, had served in the federal House of
+Representatives and had been in the Senate since 1881. He had already
+laid the foundations of the great financial and industrial connections
+which gave him an intimate, personal interest in protection and which
+later made him an important figure in American industry and politics.
+Since neither party controlled both branches of Congress, it was
+impossible to pass either the Mills bill or the Senate measure; but the
+proposed legislation indicated what might be expected to result from
+the election. Each side had thoroughly committed itself on the tariff
+question.
+
+In the meanwhile, great interest attached to the question of leaders
+for the campaign. Opposition to Cleveland was not lacking. His efforts
+in behalf of civil service reform had not endeared him to the
+office-seekers, and the hostility of the Democrats in the Senate was
+shown by their feeble support of him. The West did not relish his
+opposition to silver coinage, while his vetoes of pension legislation
+were productive of some hostility, even in his own party. Nor was the
+personality of the President such as to allay ill-feeling. Indeed,
+Cleveland was in a position comparable to that of Hayes eight years
+before. He was the titular party leader, but the most prominent
+Democratic politicians were not in agreement with his principles, and
+any step taken by him was likely to arouse as much hostility in some
+Democratic quarters as among the Republicans. Opposition to his
+nomination focused upon David B. Hill, Governor of New York, a man who
+was looked upon as better disposed towards the claims of party workers
+for office. Other leaders like Bayard, Thurman and Carlisle aroused
+little enthusiasm, and the gradual drift of sentiment toward Cleveland
+became unmistakable. If the politicians did not accept him with joy,
+they at least accepted him; for he was master of the party for the
+moment at least, and his hold on a large body of the rank and file was
+not to be doubted. When the Democratic convention met in St. Louis in
+June, 1888, his nomination was made without the formality of a
+ballot.[1]
+
+The platform was devoted, for the most part, to the question of revenue
+reform, indorsing the President's tariff message and urging that the
+party be given control of Congress in order that Democratic principles
+might be put into effect. Resolutions were also adopted recommending
+the passage of the Mills bill, which was still under discussion when
+the convention met.
+
+Among the Republicans the choice of a candidate was a far more
+difficult matter. The probable choice of the party was Blaine, but his
+letter from Italy, where he was travelling early in the convention
+year, forbade the use of his name and opened the contest to a great
+number of less well-known leaders. Publicly it was stated that Blaine
+refused for reasons which were "entirely personal," but intimate
+friends knew that he would accept a nomination if it came without
+solicitation and as the result of a unanimous party call. Although the
+demand for him still continued, there were smaller "booms" for various
+favorite sons, and as his ill health continued he made known his
+irrevocable decision to withdraw. Except for Blaine, the most prominent
+contender was Senator Sherman, whose candidacy reached larger
+proportions than ever before. The Ohio delegation was unitedly in his
+favor and considerable numbers of southern delegates were expected to
+vote for him. On the other hand, his lack of personal magnetism was
+against him and his career had been connected with technical matters
+which did not make a popular appeal. On the first ballot in the
+nominating convention his lead was considerable, although not decisive,
+but no fewer than thirteen other leaders also received votes. One of
+these was Senator Benjamin Harrison of Indiana whom Blaine had
+suggested as an available man and whom the New York delegation
+considered a strong candidate because he was poor, a reputable senator,
+a distinguished volunteer officer in the war and a grandson of William
+H. Harrison of Tippecanoe fame. Further voting only emphasized the lack
+of unanimity until the eighth ballot, when the delegates suddenly
+turned to Harrison and nominated him.
+
+The platform was long and verbose. It devoted much attention to the
+protective tariff which, in imitation of Henry Clay, it entitled the
+"American system"; it advocated the reduction of internal revenue
+duties, if necessary to cut down the surplus; and it urged civil
+service reform, liberal pensions and laws to control oppressive
+corporations.
+
+Two factions of the Labor party, as well as the Prohibitionists,
+nominated candidates and urged programs to which no attention was paid,
+but which were later taken up by both the great parties, such as
+arbitration in labor disputes, an income tax, the popular election of
+senators, woman suffrage and the prohibition of the manufacture of
+alcoholic beverages.
+
+The campaign deserves attention because of the unusual elements that
+entered into it. A spectacular feature which, although not new, was
+developed on a large scale, was the formation of thousands of political
+clubs, which paraded evenings with flaming torches. In this type of
+organization the Republicans were more successful than the Democrats
+and thus steered many young men into the party at a time when they were
+looking forward to casting their first ballot. The most unwholesome
+feature was, as before, the methods used to finance the campaign. In
+this connection both parties were guilty, but the Republicans were able
+to tap a new source of supply. The campaign was in the hands of Matthew
+S. Quay, a Pennsylvania senator whose career as a public official left
+much to be desired. Quay's political methods were vividly described at
+a later time by his friend and admirer Thomas C. Platt, whose account
+lost none of its delightfulness in view of the fact that Platt
+obviously felt that he was complimenting his friend in telling the
+story. Believing in the "rights" of business men in politics, Platt
+declared, Quay was always able to raise any amount of money needed,
+although when funds were raised by business interests against him, he
+lifted the "fiery cross" and virtuously exposed his opponents before
+the people. Having calculated with skill the number of votes needed for
+victory, he found out where he could get them--"and then he got them."
+
+That Quay was able to tap a new source of supply was due to a
+combination of circumstances. It will be remembered that the Pendleton
+civil service act of 1883 had forbidden the assessment of
+office-holders in political campaigns, and had made it necessary to
+procure funds elsewhere. In the campaign of 1888, business men who
+believed that the success of Cleveland would hurt their interests, and
+manufacturers who profited directly by the protective tariff rallied to
+the defence of Harrison and contributed heavily to his campaign
+fund.[2]
+
+The use to which the funds thus contributed were put was revealed in a
+letter written apparently by W.W. Dudley, treasurer of the National
+Republican Committee, and sent to party leaders in Indiana. The latter
+were directed to find out who had the "Democratic boodle" and force
+them, presumably by competition, to pay big prices for their own men.
+The leaders were also instructed to "divide the floaters into blocks of
+five and put a trusted man with the necessary funds in charge of these
+five, and make him responsible that none get away, and that all vote
+our ticket."
+
+On the other hand the most wholesome feature of the campaign was its
+educational aspect. Hundreds of societies, tons of "literature,"
+thousands of stump speeches attacked and defended the tariff.
+Schoolboys glibly retailed the standard arguments on one side or the
+other. Attention was centered, as it had not been since the war, on an
+important issue.
+
+At the close of the campaign the Republicans played a trick which was
+reminiscent of the Morey letter of Garfield's day. A letter purporting
+to be from a Charles F. Murchison, a naturalized American of English
+birth, was sent to the British minister in Washington, Lord
+Sackville-West. Murchison requested the minister's opinion as to
+whether President Cleveland's hostile policy in a recent controversy
+with Canada had been adopted for campaign purposes and whether after
+election the President would be more friendly toward England. Lord
+Sackville indiscreetly replied that he believed President Cleveland
+would show a conciliatory spirit toward Great Britain. The
+correspondence was held back until shortly before the election and was
+then published in the newspapers and on hand bills. Republicans
+triumphantly declared that Cleveland was the "British candidate." The
+President was at first inclined to overlook the incident but eventually
+gave way to pressure and dismissed the minister, whereupon the English
+government refused to fill the vacancy until there was a change of
+administration.
+
+In the ensuing election the vote cast was unusually heavy; the
+protectionists felt that a supreme effort must be made to preserve the
+tariff system, and the Democrats, having experienced the joys of power,
+were determined not to loosen their grip on authority; the
+Prohibitionists increased their vote over that of 1884 by 100,000,
+while the Labor party cast 147,000, almost as many ballots as the
+Prohibitionists had numbered in the earlier year. Cleveland received
+somewhat over 100,000 more votes than Harrison, but his support was so
+placed that his electoral vote was sixty-five less than his opponent's.
+
+From the standpoint of political history the result was unfortunate.
+The tariff question had been sadly in need of a definite answer, the
+people had been educated upon it and had given a decision, but the
+electoral system placed in power the party pledged to the theories of
+the minority. Aside from the unusual effect of our machinery of
+election, many small elements entered into the Republican victory. Some
+of the Independents had become disaffected since 1884 and had returned
+to the Republican fold. Disgruntled office-seekers opposed a President
+who did not reward his workers. In New York, which was the decisive
+factor, Hill was a candidate for re-election as governor and was
+elected by a small majority, while Cleveland lost the state by 7,000
+votes. This gave color to charges that the enemies of the President had
+made a bargain with the Republicans by which the latter voted for Hill
+as governor and the Democrats for Harrison as President.
+
+Benjamin Harrison, veteran of the Civil War in which he had attained
+the rank of brevet brigadier-general, and senator from Indiana for a
+single term, was hardly a party leader when he was nominated for the
+presidency. Although he was by no means unknown, he had been
+sufficiently obscure to be unconnected with factional party quarrels,
+and his career and character were without blemish. At the time of his
+accession to the executive chair he was fifty-six years of age, a short
+man with bearded face, and with head set well down between his
+shoulders. Accounts of his characteristics, drawn by his party
+associates, did not differ in any essential detail. As a public
+speaker, the new President was a man of unusual charm--felicitous in
+his remarks, versatile, tactful. In a famous trip through the South and
+West in 1891, he made speech after speech at a wide variety of places
+and occasions, and created a genuine enthusiasm. His remarks were
+widely read and highly regarded. Nevertheless there seems to have been
+some truth in the remark of one of his contemporaries that he could
+charm ten thousand men in a public speech but meet them individually
+and send every one away his enemy. His manner, even to senators and
+representatives of his own party, was reserved to the point of
+frigidity. When he granted requests for patronage he was so ungracious
+as to anger the recipients of favor. Although his personal character
+and integrity were as unquestioned as those of Hayes, and although he
+was a man of cultured tastes, well-informed, thoughtful and
+conscientious, it must be admitted that he lacked robust leadership and
+breadth of vision, and that he did not understand the real purposes of
+the policies which his party associates were embarking upon, or if he
+did that he tamely acquiesced in them. The party leaders were soon
+engaged in initiating practices and passing legislation which would
+strengthen the organization with certain groups of interested persons.
+Harrison, conscientious but aloof, provided no compelling force to turn
+attention toward wider and deeper needs.
+
+Two appointments to the cabinet were important. Since Blaine was the
+foremost leader of the party and had done much to bring about the
+election of Harrison, it was well-nigh impossible for the latter to
+fail to offer him the position of Secretary of State. The appointment
+was so natural that popular opinion looked upon it as the only
+possibility, yet the natures of the two men were so diverse and their
+positions in the party so different that friction seemed likely to
+result. Even before the administration began it was freely predicted
+that Blaine would "dominate" the cabinet, a prophecy that might well
+create a feeling of restraint between the two. The invitation to John
+Wanamaker to become Postmaster-General was regarded as significant.
+Wanamaker was a wealthy merchant of Philadelphia, who had organized an
+advisory campaign committee of business men which contributed and
+expended large sums of money during the canvass. Critical reformers
+like the editor of _The Nation_ were not slow to connect Wanamaker's
+large contribution to the campaign fund with his elevation to the
+cabinet, and to suggest that the business interests were being brought
+into close relations with the administration. T.C. Platt, expectant of
+a return for his campaign assistance, in the form of a cabinet
+position, and in fact understanding that a pledge had been made that he
+would be appointed, found himself superseded by William Windom of
+Minnesota in the Treasury and became a bitter opponent of the
+President.[3]
+
+It was an odd turn of the fortune of politics that brought Benjamin
+Harrison face to face with the responsibility for furthering the cause
+of civil service reform--the same Harrison who, as a senator, had
+sneered at Cleveland for surrendering to difficulties. The party
+platform had urged the continuation of reform, which had been
+"auspiciously begun under the Republican administration" and had
+declared that the party promises would not be broken as Democratic
+pledges had been; and Harrison had announced his adherence to the party
+statement. In some respects real progress was made. Secretary of the
+Navy Tracy introduced reform methods in his department. The appointment
+of Theodore Roosevelt to the Civil Service Commission was productive of
+good results. The work of reform was defended forcefully and
+successfully; its opponents were challenged to substantiate their
+charges. When Senator Gorman declared that in an examination for letter
+carriers in Baltimore the candidates were asked to tell the most direct
+route from Baltimore to China, Roosevelt at once wrote asking him to
+state the time and place of the examination himself or to send somebody
+to look over the papers, copies of which were in the commission's
+office. The senator did not reply.
+
+The removal of office holders, however, proceeded with amazing
+rapidity. The First Assistant Postmaster-General was J.S. Clarkson, who
+had been vice-chairman of the Republican National Campaign Committee.
+The speed with which he cleared the service of Democrats earned him the
+title "headsman" and is indicated by the estimate that he removed one
+every three minutes for the first year. When the force of clerks was
+increased for the taking of the census of 1890, the superintendent of
+the census office found himself "waist deep in congressmen" trying to
+get places for friends. The Republican postmaster of New York who had
+been continued by Cleveland was not re-appointed. It was soon
+discovered, also, that the President was placing his own and his wife's
+relatives in office and giving positions to large numbers of newspaper
+editors, thus indirectly subsidizing the press. The Commissioner of
+Pensions, Corporal James Tanner, distributed pensions so freely as to
+arouse wide-spread comment and was soon relieved of his position.[4]
+
+Curtis, addressing the National Civil Service Reform League, flayed the
+President because he had despoiled the service. A Republican newspaper,
+he declared, had said that the administration whistled reform down the
+wind "as remorselessly as it would dismiss an objectionable tramp."
+Prominent members of the party went to the President in person to urge
+on him the redemption of the platform promises.
+
+Although progress was not general, nevertheless there were particular
+reforms that commended themselves. The offensive Clarkson gave way to
+hostile criticism and retired. During the last half of the
+administration, the civil service rules were amended so as to add a
+considerable number of employees to the classified service, especially
+in the post office department. Quay and Dudley found their methods
+condemned by public opinion and resigned their positions on the
+National Republican Committee.[5]
+
+Aside from his choice of subordinates, Harrison contributed little to
+the political history of his administration, for the leadership was
+seized by a small coterie of extreme Republicans in the House of
+Representatives, of whom the chief figure was the Speaker, Thomas B.
+Reed. The House which had been elected with Harrison contained 159
+Democrats and 166 Republicans. The Republican majority was too slight
+for safety, for the questions which were coming before Congress were
+such as to arouse party feeling to a high pitch. The Republicans felt
+themselves commissioned, by a successful election, to put the party
+program into force, but so powerful a minority could readily block any
+legislation under the existing parliamentary rules. Only Reed knew what
+expedient would be resorted to in the attempt to put through the party
+program, and not even he could guarantee that the adventure would be
+successful.
+
+Thomas B. Reed had long represented Maine in the House of
+Representatives. He was a man of huge bulk, bland in appearance,
+imperturbable in his serenity, caustic, concise and witty of tongue,
+rough, sharp, strong, droll. In the cut-and-thrust of parliamentary
+debate and manoeuvre, as well as in his knowledge of the intricacies of
+procedure, Reed was a past master. He worsted his adversaries by
+turning the laugh on them, and his stinging retorts, which swept the
+House "like grapeshot," made him a powerful factor in partisan
+contests.[6]
+
+The political and economic philosophy of Reed and his associates was
+unusually important, because it controlled their action during the time
+when they dominated the House and determined the character of the
+legislation passed during Harrison's time. When President Cleveland's
+tariff message welded the Democrats together to demand reduction, it
+likewise influenced the Republicans to adopt the other extreme. That is
+not to say, of course, that the Republican attitude was due solely to
+Cleveland, for the party was already committed to protectionism.
+Nevertheless, many of its prominent leaders, including its presidents,
+had urged revision. That recommendation was now no longer heard. Such
+men as McKinley in the House fairly apotheosized the protective system.
+The philosophy of the party leaders received full exposition in a
+volume edited by John D. Long, ex-governor of Massachusetts, and
+composed of articles written by sixteen of the most prominent
+Republicans. It had been published during the campaign. The attitude of
+the party toward its chief tenet was expressed in the phrase, "The
+Republican party enacted a protective tariff which made the United
+States the greatest manufacturing nation on earth"; and its conception
+of the Democratic party in the statement that the Democrats were mainly
+old slave-holders, liquor dealers and criminals in the great northern
+cities. In the field of national expenditure, also, the party reacted
+from Cleveland's frugality. Senator Dolph frankly urged the expenditure
+of the surplus revenue rather than the reduction of taxation. McKinley
+took the position that prices might be too low. "I do not prize the word
+cheap," he said; "cheap merchandise means cheap men and cheap men mean
+a cheap country." Harrison remarked that it was "no time to be weighing
+the claims of old soldiers with apothecary's scales." This philosophy
+was now to have its trial, but first the obstructive power of the
+minority must be curbed. Reed's plan for accomplishing this result
+appeared late in January, 1890.
+
+A contested election case was up for decision in the House. The roll
+was called and three less than a quorum of representatives answered.
+Scores of Democrats were present, but by merely refusing to answer to
+their names they could be officially absent. Unless the Republicans
+could provide a quorum--that is, more than half the total membership of
+the chamber of their own number, they were helpless. Clearly they
+could not muster their full force at all times and especially on
+questions upon which the party might be divided. On the other hand, the
+right to refuse to vote was a long-standing one and had been used over
+and over again by Republicans as well as Democrats. Reed, however, had
+made up his mind to cut the Gordian knot. Looking over the House he
+called the names of about forty Democrats, directed the clerk to make
+note of them and then declared a quorum present. The meaning of the act
+was not lost on the opposition. Pandemonium broke loose. Members rushed
+up the aisle as if to attack the Speaker, but Reed, huge, fearless and
+undisturbed, stood his ground. The Democrats hissed and jeered and
+denounced him with a wrath which was not mollified by the derisive
+laughter of the Republicans, who were surprised by the ruling, but
+rallied to their leader. Two days later, when a member moved to
+adjourn, the Speaker ruled the motion out of order and refused to
+entertain any appeal from his decision. He then firmly but quietly
+stated his belief that the will of the majority ought not to be
+nullified by a minority and that if parliamentary rules were used
+solely for purposes of delay, it was the duty of the Speaker to take
+"the proper course."
+
+The rules committee then presented a series of recommendations designed
+to expedite business. One of the proposed changes provided that the
+chair should entertain no dilatory motions. Such motions, whose purpose
+was merely to obstruct action, had long been common. The Republicans
+were said to have alternated motions to adjourn and to fix a day for
+adjournment no less than one hundred and twenty-eight times in an
+attempt to defeat the Kansas-Nebraska bill in 1854. The second rule
+allowed the speaker to count members who were present and not voting in
+determining whether a quorum was present. Other rules systematized
+procedure and facilitated the passage of legislation. The Democrats
+raged, denounced Reed as a "Czar," fought against the adoption of the
+rules--all to no avail. The majority had its way; the Speaker
+dominated legislation.[7]
+
+The efficacy of the Reed reforms in expediting legislation was quickly
+demonstrated. One of the earliest proposals to pass the House was Henry
+Cabot Lodge's federal election law, which was intended to insure
+federal control at polling places. Theoretically the measure was
+applicable to the North as well as to the South, but no doubt existed
+that it was really designed to prevent southern suppression of the
+negro vote. The Democrats rallied to the opposition and denounced
+Lodge's plan as a "force act." Despite objections it passed the House,
+but it languished in the Senate and finally was abandoned. The generous
+expenditure policy which the new philosophy called for brought forth
+certain increases which were noteworthy. The dependent pension bill
+which Cleveland had vetoed was passed, and a direct tax which had been
+levied on the states during the Civil War was refunded. Another extreme
+party measure was the Sherman silver act which became law on July 14,
+1890. By it, 4,500,000 ounces of silver were to be purchased each
+month. Its partisan character was indicated by the fact that no
+Republicans voted against it, and no Democrats for it. Since the amount
+of silver to be purchased was practically the total output of the
+country, it was evident that the western mine owners were receiving the
+same attention that was being accorded manufacturers who sought
+protective tariff laws. Indeed, western Republicans, who were opposed
+to the high tariff which eastern Republicans favored, were brought to
+support such legislation only by a bargain through which each side
+assisted the other in getting what it desired.[8]
+
+The tariff measure which was thus entwined with the silver bill was
+intended to carry out the pledge made in the party platform. Harrison
+had early called the attention of Congress to the need of a reduction
+of the surplus, had urged the passage of a new tariff law and the
+removal of the tobacco tax which, he declared, would take a burden from
+an "important agricultural product." The framing of the bill was in the
+hands of William McKinley, the chairman of the Committee on Ways and
+Means. McKinley was a thorough-going protectionist whose attitude on
+the question had already been expressed somewhat as follows: previous
+Democratic tariffs have brought the country to the brink of financial
+ruin; without the protective tariff English manufacturers would
+monopolize American markets; under the protective system the foreign
+manufacturer largely pays the tax through lessened profits; under
+protection the American laborer is the best paid, clothed and contented
+workingman in the world; since it is necessary, then, to preserve
+protection, the surplus should be reduced by the elimination of the
+internal revenues; and protective tariff duties should be raised and
+retained, not gradually lowered and done away with.
+
+The Committee early proceeded to hold public hearings at which
+testimony was taken, and to which manufacturers came from all over the
+country to make known what duties they thought they ought to have. The
+bill which was finally presented to the House proposed a level of
+duties which was so high that it has generally been considered the
+extreme of protection. McKinley himself justified the high rates only
+on the ground that without them the bill could not be passed. With the
+help of the Reed rules and the western Republicans the McKinley tariff
+reached the President and was signed by him on October 1, 1890. It went
+into effect at once.
+
+The more prominent features of the measure sprang from the tariff creed
+which had been advocated through the campaign. In order to conciliate
+the farmers, the protective principle was applied to agricultural
+products, and tariffs were laid on such articles as cereals, potatoes
+and flax. On the cheaper grades of wool and woolens and on carpet wools
+there was a slight rise over even the rates of 1883. On the higher
+grades of woolen, linen and clothing the increase was marked. The duty
+on raw sugar was removed and one-half cent per pound retained on the
+refined product, but domestic sugar producers were given a bounty of
+two cents a pound in order to protect them against the free importation
+of the raw material. As the sugar duty had been productive of large
+amounts of revenue, its remission reduced the surplus by about sixty to
+seventy millions of dollars. In order to encourage the manufacture of
+tin-plates, a considerable duty was imposed, which was to cease after
+1897 unless domestic production reached specified amounts. As the
+result of Blaine's urgency, a reciprocity feature was introduced. The
+usual plan had been to reduce duties on certain products in case
+concessions to American goods were given by the exporting countries,
+but in the McKinley act the Senate inserted a novel provision. Instead
+of being given power to lower duties in case reciprocal reductions were
+made, the President was authorized to impose duties on certain articles
+on the free list when the exporting nation levied "unjust or
+unreasonable" customs charges on American products. It was expected
+that this plan would be applied to Latin-American countries and would
+increase our exports to them in return for sugar, molasses, tea, coffee
+and hides. In general, the McKinley act was the climax of protection.
+Under the impetus of President Cleveland's reduction challenge, the
+Republican party had recoiled to the extreme.
+
+The high rates levied by the new tariff act were quickly reflected in
+retail prices and caused immediate and wide-spread discontent. The
+benefits which the farmer had been led to expect did not put in their
+appearance. Unhappily for McKinley and his associates the congressional
+elections occurred early in November, scarcely a month after the new
+law went into effect, and when the dissatisfaction was at its height.
+The result was a stinging defeat for the Republicans. The 159 Democrats
+were increased to 235, and the 166 Republicans dwindled to 88. Even in
+New England the Democrats gained eleven members, in New York eight, and
+in Iowa five. In Wisconsin not one Republican survived, and among the
+lost in Ohio was McKinley himself.
+
+Although the Republicans retained control of the Senate after 1890, the
+Democratic House brought an end for a time to the domination of Reed
+and the primacy of the lower chamber in the government. Such extreme
+legislation as had characterized the first half of the Harrison regime
+stopped abruptly. The role played in all this by Harrison himself seems
+to have been a minor one. Many of his recommendations lacked the solid
+character of those made by Hayes, Arthur and Cleveland, and he did not
+make his influence felt in connection with the silver legislation, of
+which he probably disapproved. It is significant that the one piece of
+legislation which had the most enduring results was not a partisan act.
+This act, the Sherman Anti-Trust law, demands attention in detail.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+In addition to the general and special works already mentioned, C.
+Hedges, _Benjamin Harrison: Speeches_ (1892), provides useful material;
+Cleveland's tariff message of Dec. 6, 1887 is in J.D. Richardson,
+_Messages and Papers of the Presidents_, VIII, 580-591.
+
+On the administration, and particularly the ascendancy of the House of
+Representatives under Reed, consult: De A.S. Alexander, _History and
+Procedure of the House of Representatives_ (1916); Mary P. Follett,
+_Speaker of the House of Representatives_ (1896); C.S. Olcott, _William
+McKinley_ (2 vols., 1916); J.G. Cannon in _Harper's Magazine_ (Mar.,
+1920); _Annual Cyclopaedia_, 1890, pp. 181-191; S.W. McCall, _Thomas B.
+Reed_ (1914), well written, although adding little to what was already
+known; H.D. Croly, _Marcus A. Hanna_ (1912); W.D. Foulke, _Fighting the
+Spoilsman_ (1919), on Harrison and the civil service; G.W. Curtis,
+_Orations and Addresses_ (2 vols., 1894), summarizes the
+administration's attitude toward civil service; T.B. Reed, _Reed's
+Rules, A Manual of General Parliamentary Law_ (1894), gives a concise
+summary of parliamentary conditions from Reed's standpoint; H.B.
+Fuller, _The Speakers of the House_ (1909), excellent on the personal
+side. The tariff is well treated in Stanwood, Taussig and Tarbell. On
+pensions consult W.H. Glasson, _History of Military Pension Legislation
+in the United States_ (1900), or better, the same author's _Federal
+Military Pensions in the United States_ (1918).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The vice-presidential candidate was Allan G. Thurman of Ohio,
+affectionately known as the "noble old Roman," one of whose titles to
+fame was the ownership of a large red bandanna handkerchief which he
+nourished on all occasions.
+
+[2] A party worker who realized the opportunity which this fact
+presented complained that Pennsylvania manufacturers who made fortunes
+under protection did not contribute to the Republican campaign fund,
+and remarked: "If I had my way about it I would put the manufacturers
+of Pennsylvania under the fire and fry all the fat out of them."
+
+[3] The remaining members of the cabinet were: Redfield Proctor, Vt.,
+Secretary of War; W.H.H. Miller, Ind., Attorney-General; B.F. Tracy,
+N.Y., Secretary of the Navy; J.W. Noble, Mo., Secretary of the
+Interior; J.M. Rusk, Wis., Secretary of Agriculture.
+
+[4] Corporal Tanner is commonly supposed to have been so anxious to
+have a hand in the generous distribution of government revenue among
+the old soldiers that he declared one morning as he seated himself at
+his desk, "God help the surplus." This is a mistake, although the
+Corporal seems to have been more ready than the President to act
+quickly and generously on claims.
+
+[5] The open character of the financial corruption of the campaign
+also gave impetus to the movement for the secret or Australian ballot
+which was first introduced in Louisville, Ky., on Feb. 28, 1888, and in
+Massachusetts on May 29, of the same year. Another reform movement was
+that which resulted in the destruction of the Louisiana lottery. Cf.
+A.K. McClure, _Recollections_, 173-183, and Peck, _Twenty Years_,
+215-220.
+
+[6] An incident which occurred when he was not speaker may serve to
+illustrate the manner in which he routed his opponents. Representative
+Springer, of Illinois, who had a reputation for loquacity and
+insincerity, once asked for unanimous consent to correct a statement
+which he had previously made in debate. "No correction needed," shouted
+Reed. "We didn't think it was so when you made it."
+
+[7] In his _Manual of General Parliamentary Law_, Reed declared that
+the House prior to 1890 was the most unwieldy parliamentary body in the
+world. Three resolute men, he asserted, could stop all public business.
+A few years later, when the Democrats were in power, they adopted the
+plans which Reed had so successfully used.
+
+[8] These acts were part of the general financial history of the
+period and in that connection demand fuller discussion at a later
+point. Cf. Chap. XV.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+INDUSTRY AND _LAISSEZ FAIRE_
+
+About the time the Sherman Anti-trust law was being passed, in 1890,
+Henry D. Lloyd was writing his book _Wealth Against Commonwealth_, in
+which occurred a memorable passage:
+
+    A small number of men are obtaining the power to forbid any but
+    themselves to supply the people with fire in nearly every form known
+    to modern life and industry, from matches to locomotives and
+    electricity. They control our hard coal and much of the soft, and
+    stoves, furnaces, and steam and hot-water heaters; the governors on
+    steam-boilers and the boilers; gas and gas-fixtures; natural gas and
+    gas-pipes; electric lighting, and all the appurtenances. You cannot
+    free yourself by changing from electricity to gas, or from the gas
+    of the city to the gas of the fields. If you fly from kerosene to
+    candles, you are still under the ban.
+
+To understand the dangers of the monopolies which Lloyd feared and
+denounced, it is necessary to know the principal features in the
+development of American industry from the close of the Civil War to
+1890.
+
+It will be remembered that the consolidation of small railroad lines
+into large systems was accompanied by such advantages to the companies
+and to the travelling public, as to demonstrate that combination was the
+inevitable order of the day. The similar integration of small industrial
+and commercial enterprises took place more slowly between 1870 and 1890,
+but the process was no less inevitable on that account. The census of
+1890 indicated that the production of manufactured articles had greatly
+increased since 1870; more capital was engaged; the product was more
+valuable; and more workmen were employed. Nevertheless the number of
+establishments which were in operation had shown a considerable decline
+in many industries. An army of 100,000 employees represented the
+expansion of the wage-earning force in the iron and steel works, for
+example, and $270,000,000 the increase in the value of their products;
+yet the number of establishments engaged showed a shrinkage of nearly
+fourteen per cent. The workers in the textile mills grew from 275,000 to
+512,000, and the capital outlay from $300,000,000 to $750,000,000, but
+the number of factories declined from 4,790 to 4,114. A cartoon in
+_Puck_ on January 26, 1881, remarked that "the telegraph companies have
+been consolidated, which in simple language means that Mr. Jay Gould
+controls every wire in the United States over which a telegram can be
+sent."
+
+Some of the reasons for the prevalent tendency toward combination were
+not hard to discover. In the first place, although industrial
+organizations fought one another with the utmost bitterness, it was in
+the nature of things for them to combine if threatened by any common
+foe. Moreover, production on a large scale made possible savings and
+improvements that were outside the grasp of more modest enterprises;
+buying and selling large quantities of goods commanded opportunities for
+profit; waste products could be made use of and costly scientific
+investigations conducted in order to discover improved methods, overcome
+difficulties and open new avenues of activity; large salaries and
+important positions could be offered to men of executive capacity; and
+expensive equipment could be purchased and utilized.[1] An effective
+force which tended to drive industries to combine was the cut-throat
+competition which prevailed. Herbert Croly in his stimulating book _The
+Promise of American Life_ vividly describes the bitter, warlike
+character of industrial competition after 1865. Competition was battle
+to the knife and tomahawk. The leaders were constantly seeking bigger
+operations, to which the bigger risks only added zest. A company might
+be making unbelievable profits one year and "skirting" bankruptcy the
+next. Exciting as all this was, however, the desire for adventure was
+not as powerful as the desire for profits, and cut-throat competition in
+industry led as naturally to combination, as rate-wars on the railroads
+led to pooling agreements.
+
+An important factor in the development of large corporations was the
+increasing use of the corporation form of industrial organization, as
+contrasted with the co-partnership plan. If a few men enter a
+copartnership, each of them must supply a considerable amount of
+capital; but if a corporation is formed and stock is sold, the par value
+of the shares may be placed at a low figure--$100 or less, for
+example--and thus a large number of persons may be able to establish an
+industry which is far beyond the financial resources of any individual
+or small group among them. The corporation, moreover, is relatively
+permanent, for the death of one stock-holder among many is unimportant
+as compared with that of one member of a co-partnership. In case of
+disaster to the enterprise the liability of the stock-holder in a
+corporation is limited to the amount which he has invested, while any
+member of a partnership may be legally held for all the debts of the
+organization. With such advantages in its favor the corporation plan
+largely dominated the organization of industry.
+
+The most famous example of combination before 1890 was the Standard Oil
+Company, which was the cause of more litigation, more study and more
+complaint than any other industrial organization that has ever existed
+in America. In 1865 Rockefeller & Andrews started an oil-refining
+business in Cleveland, Ohio. Samuel Andrews was a mechanical genius and
+he attended to the technical end of the industry; John D. Rockefeller
+had bargaining capacity, and to him fell the task of buying the crude
+oil, providing barrels and other materials and selling the product. The
+firm prospered. H.M. Flagler was taken into the company and a branch was
+established in New York. In 1870 these three with a few others organized
+the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, with a capitalization of a million
+dollars. It controlled not over ten percent. of the business of
+oil-refining in the United States at that time. But the oil business was
+so profitable that capital flowed into it and competition became keen.
+Rockefeller and some associates, therefore, devised the South
+Improvement Company of Pennsylvania, a combination of refiners, headed
+and controlled by the Standard, the purpose of which was to make
+advantageous arrangements With the railroads for transportation
+facilities. Early in 1872, a most remarkable contract was signed between
+the company and the important railroads of the oil country--the
+Pennsylvania, the New York Central and the Erie. By it the roads agreed
+to establish certain freight rates from the crude-oil producing region
+of western Pennsylvania to such refining and shipping centers as New
+York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburg and Cleveland. From these rates
+the South Improvement Company was to receive substantial rebates,
+amounting to forty or fifty per cent. on crude oil and twenty-five to
+forty-five per cent. on refined. On their side the railroads were
+promised the entire freight business of the Company, each to have an
+assured proportion of the traffic, with freedom from rate-cutting
+competition. All this was the common railroad practice of the times.
+
+But another portion of the contract was not so common. It provided that
+the roads should give the South Improvement Company rebates on all oil
+shipped by its competitors and furnish it with full way-bills of all
+such shipments each day. In other words, the Company was to know exactly
+the amount of the business of its competitors and with whom it was being
+done. The contract allowed the roads to make similar rebates with
+anybody offering an equal amount of traffic, but the likelihood of such
+an outcome was slender in the extreme. Armed with this powerful weapon,
+Rockefeller entered upon a campaign to eliminate competition by offering
+to buy out independent refiners either with cash or with Standard Oil
+stock, at his estimate of the value of their property. Those who
+objected to selling were shown that the alliance between the South
+Improvement Company and the railroads was so strong that they faced the
+alternative of giving way or being crushed. Of the twenty-six refineries
+in Cleveland, at least twenty-one yielded. The capacity of the Standard
+leaped from 1,500 to 10,000 barrels a day and it controlled a fifth of
+the refining business of the country. When these facts came to be known
+in the oil country, the bitter Oil War of 1872 began. Independent
+producers joined to fight for existence, and at length the railroads
+gave way and agreed to abandon the contract with the South Improvement
+Company, and the legislature of Pennsylvania annulled its charter,
+although in one way or another rebates continued and the absorption of
+rivals went on. In 1882 the entire combination--thirty-nine refiners,
+controlling ninety to ninety-five per cent. of the product--was
+organized as the Standard Oil Trust. All stock-holders in the combining
+companies surrendered their certificates and received in return receipts
+or "trust-certificates," which showed the amount of the owner's interest
+in the trust. In order to secure unity of purpose and management, the
+affairs of the combination were put into the hands of nine trustees,
+with Rockefeller at the head.
+
+The wonderful success of the Standard Oil Company, however, was not due
+solely to the alliance with the railroads, although this advantage came
+at a strategic time when it was fighting for supremacy. Its marketing
+department gave it an unenviable reputation, but achieved amazing
+success. The department was organized to cover the country, find out
+everything possible about competitors, and then kill them off by
+price-cutting or other means. The great resources of the Company enabled
+it to undersell rivals, going below cost if necessary, and thus wearing
+out opposition. Continuity of control, also, contributed to Standard
+success; the narrow limits of the area in which the crude oil was
+produced before 1890 rendered the problem of securing a monopoly
+somewhat easier; the organization was extremely efficient and the
+constituent companies were stimulated to a high degree of productivity
+by encouraging the spirit of emulation; men of ability were called to
+its high positions; the policy of gaining the mastery over the trade in
+petroleum and its products was kept definitely and persistently to the
+front; and then there was John D. Rockefeller.
+
+Rockefeller was what used to be called a "self-made" man. He began his
+business life in Cleveland as a clerk at an extremely modest salary.
+Capacity for details and for shrewd bargaining, patience, frugality,
+seriousness, secretiveness, caution, an instinctive sense for business
+openings, self-control--all these were characteristic both of the
+Cleveland clerk and the later oil-refiner. In the bigger field he
+developed a daring caution, a quick understanding of the value of new
+inventions, a capacity for organization, quick grasp of essentials and a
+resourcefulness that dominated the entire Standard combination. He built
+his own barrels, owned the pipe-lines, tank-cars, tank-wagons and
+warehouses. Consolidation, magnitude and financial returns were his
+aims, and in achieving these he and his associates were so successful as
+to make the Standard a leader in all branches of business, except the
+ethics of industry. Litigation has been the constant accompaniment of
+Standard progress.
+
+Following the Standard Oil Company, other combinations found the trust
+form of organization a convenient one. The cotton trust, the whiskey
+trust, and the sugar, cotton bagging, copper and salt trusts made the
+public familiar with the term. Moreover, popular suspicion and hostility
+became aroused, and the word "trust" began to acquire something of the
+unpleasant connotation which it later possessed.
+
+Although it was upon the Standard Oil Company that people turned when
+they denounced the trusts and feared or condemned their practices, the
+principles to which the Standard adhered when under the strain of
+competition were the practices which were followed by their
+contemporaries, both big and little. When the Diamond Match Company, for
+example, was before the Courts of Michigan in 1889, it appeared that the
+organization was built up for the purpose of controlling the manufacture
+and trade in matches in the United States and Canada. Its policy was to
+buy up and "remove" competition, so that it might monopolize the
+manufacture and sale of matches. It could then fix the price of its
+commodity at such a point that it could recoup itself for the expense of
+eliminating competitors and also make larger profits than were possible
+when its rivals were active.
+
+Still more dangerous was the combination of the hard coal operators. By
+1873, six corporations owned both the hard coal deposits of Pennsylvania
+and the railroads which made it possible to haul the coal out to the
+markets. In the same year and later these companies made agreements
+which determined the amounts of coal that they would mine, the price
+which they would charge, and the proportion of the whole output that
+each company would be allowed to handle. Independent operators--that is,
+operators not in the combination--found their existence precarious in
+the extreme, for their means of transportation was in the hands of the
+six coal-carrying railroads, who could raise rates almost at will and
+find reasons even for refusing service. The states were powerless to
+remedy the situation because their authority did not extend to
+interstate commerce, yet it was intolerable for a small group of
+interested parties to have power to fix the output of so necessary a
+commodity as coal, on no other basis than that provided by their own
+desires.
+
+Other abuses appeared which showed that industrial combinations were
+open to many of the complaints which, in connection with the railroads,
+had led to the Interstate Commerce Act. Industrial pools resembled
+railroad pools and were objected to for similar reasons. Bankers and
+others who organized combinations were given returns that seemed as
+extravagant as the prices paid to railroad construction companies; the
+issues of the stock of corporations were bought and sold by their own
+officers for speculative purposes; and stock-watering was as common as
+in railroading. The industrial combinations also had somewhat the same
+effect on politics that the railroads had. Lloyd declared that the
+Standard Oil Company had done everything with the Pennsylvania
+legislature except refine it.
+
+One of the most noted cases of corporation influence in politics was
+that of the election of Senator Henry B. Payne of Ohio. In 1886 the
+legislature of the state requested the United States Senate to
+investigate the election of Payne because of charges of Standard Oil
+influence. The debate over the case showed clearly the belief on the
+part of many that the Standard, which controlled "business, railroads,
+men and things" was also choosing United States senators. Senator Hoar
+raised the question whether the Standard was represented in the Senate
+and even in the Cabinet. In denying any connection with the Oil Company,
+Payne himself declared that no institution or association had been "to
+so large an expense in money" to accomplish his defeat when he was a
+candidate for election to the lower house. Popular suspicion seemed
+confirmed, therefore, that the Company was taking an active share in
+government. Whether the trust was for or against Payne made little
+difference.
+
+A complaint that brought the trust problem to the attention of many who
+were not interested in its other aspects was the treatment accorded
+independent producers. The rough-shod methods employed by the Standard
+Oil Company, the Diamond Match Company and the coal operators were
+concretely illustrated in many a city and town by such incidents as that
+of a Pennsylvania butcher mentioned by Lloyd. An agent of the great meat
+slaughtering firms ordered the butcher to cease slaughtering cattle, and
+when he refused the agent informed him that his business would be
+destroyed. He then found himself unable to buy any meat whatever from
+Chicago, the meat-packing center, and discovered that the railroad would
+not furnish cars to transport his supplies. Faced by such overwhelming
+force, the independent producer was generally compelled to give way to
+the demands of the big concerns or be driven to the wall. The
+helplessness of the individual under such conditions was strikingly
+expressed by Mr. Justice Harlan of the Supreme Court in a decision in a
+suit against the Standard Oil Company:
+
+    All who recall the condition of the country in 1890 will remember
+    that there was everywhere, among the people generally, a deep
+    feeling of unrest. The Nation had been rid of human slavery ...
+    but the conviction was universal that the country was in real danger
+    from another kind of slavery sought to be fastened on the American
+    people, namely, the slavery that would result from aggregations of
+    capital in the hands of a few ... controlling, for their own ...
+    advantage exclusively, the entire business of the country, including
+    the production and sale of the necessaries of life.
+
+Observers noted that fortunes which outstripped the possessions of
+princes were being amassed for the few by combinations which sometimes,
+if not frequently, resorted to illegal and unfair practices, and they
+compared these conditions with the labor unrest, the discontent and the
+poverty which was the lot of the many.
+
+In the meanwhile there had arisen a growing demand for action which
+would give relief from the conditions just described. As early as 1879
+the Hepburn committee appointed by the New York Assembly had
+investigated the railroads and had made public a mass of information
+concerning the relation of the transportation system to the industrial
+combinations. In 1880 Henry George had published _Progress and Poverty_
+in which he had contended that the entire burden of taxation should be
+laid upon land values, in order to overcome the advantage which the
+ownership of land gave to monopoly. In 1881 Henry D. Lloyd had fired
+his first volley, "The Story of a Great Monopoly," an attack on the
+Standard Oil Company which was published in the _Atlantic Monthly_ and
+which caused that number of the periodical to go through seven
+editions.[2] In 1888 Edward Bellamy's _Looking Backward_ had pictured
+a socialized Utopian state in which the luxuries as well as the
+necessities of life were produced for the common benefit of all the
+people. Societies had been formed for the propagation of Bellamy's
+ideas, and the parlor study of socialism had become popular.
+
+The platforms of the political parties had given evidence of a
+continuing unrest without presenting any definite proposals for relief.
+As far back as 1872 the Labor Reformers had condemned the "capitalists"
+for importing Chinese laborers; in the same year the Republicans and
+Democrats had opposed further grants of public land to corporations and
+monopolies--referring in the main to the railroads; in 1880 the
+Greenbackers and in 1884 the Anti-Monopolists, the Prohibitionists and
+the Democrats had denounced the corporations and called for government
+action to prevent or control them; and in 1888 the Union Labor party,
+the Prohibitionists and the Republicans had urged legislation for doing
+away with or regulating trusts and monopolies. By 1890 eight states had
+already passed anti-trust laws. Among unorganized forces, possibly the
+independent producers were as effective as any. Although usually
+overcome by the superior strength of their big opponents, they
+frequently conducted vigorous contests and sometimes carried the issue
+to the courts where damaging evidence was made public.
+
+The solution of the problem of trust control was not easy to discover.
+The amount of property involved was so great that forceful legislation
+would be fought to the last ditch; while legislation that was obviously
+weak, on the other hand, would not satisfy public opinion. Public
+officials were hopelessly divergent in their views. Cleveland had
+called attention to the evils of the trusts in his tariff message of
+1887, but had laid his emphasis on the need of reduced taxation rather
+than upon control of the great combinations. Blaine was opposed to
+federal action. Thomas B. Reed had characteristically ridiculed the
+idea that monopolies existed:
+
+    And yet, outside the Patent Office there are no monopolies in this
+    country, and there never can be. Ah, but what is that I see on the
+    far horizon's edge, with tongue of lambent flame and eye of forked
+    fire, serpent-headed and griffin-clawed?
+
+Surely it must be the great new chimera "Trust." Quick, cries every
+masked member of the Ways and Means. Quick, let us lower the tariff.
+Let us call in the British. Let them save our devastated homes.
+
+More serious was the almost universal lack of knowledge of the elements
+involved in the situation. Industrial leaders were unenlightened and
+wrapped up in the attempt to outdo rivals who were equally
+unenlightened and absorbed; the nation needed instruction and
+leadership, and neither was to be found. Instead, the poorer classes
+became more and more hostile to big business interests; the capitalist
+class set itself stolidly to the preservation of its interests. The one
+saw only the abuses, the other only the benefits of combinations.
+Thoughtful men felt that industrialism was afflicted with a malady
+which would kill the nation unless a remedy were found.
+
+The legal and constitutional position of the trusts was almost
+impregnable. Ever since the decision of the Supreme Court in the
+Dartmouth College case, handed down in 1819, franchises and charters
+granted by states to corporations had been regarded as contracts which
+could not be altered by subsequent legislation. Moreover, the Court had
+so interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment, as has been seen, that the
+states had found great difficulty in framing regulatory legislation
+that would pass muster before the judiciary.[3] It was doubtful
+whether federal attempts at regulation would be more fortunate. More
+fundamental still, for public opinion underlies even constitutional
+interpretation, American industrial and commercial expansion had run
+ahead of our conception of the possible and proper functions of
+government. Government as the protector of property was an ancient
+concept and commonly held in the United States; government as the
+guardian of the individual against the powerful holder of a great deal
+of property was a new idea and not generally looked upon with favor.
+
+It has already been seen that the prevailing economic theory, _laissez
+faire_, was diametrically opposed to government regulation of the
+economic activities of the individual. According to this view,
+unrestricted industrial liberty would result in adjustment by business
+itself on honorable lines. Men whose integrity was such that they were
+in control of great enterprises, asserted an attorney for the Standard
+Oil Company, would be the first to realize that a fair policy toward
+competitors and the public was the most successful policy. Combination
+was declared to be inevitable in modern life and reductions in the
+price of many commodities were pointed to as a justification for
+leaving the trusts unhampered.
+
+Public opinion, however, was reaching the point where it was prepared
+to brush aside theoretical difficulties. President Harrison, Senator
+Sherman and others urged action. Large numbers of anti-monopoly bills
+were presented in Congress. The indifference of some members and the
+opposition of others was somewhat neutralized by the fiery zeal of such
+men as Senator Jones of Arkansas, who declared that the fortunes made
+by the Standard Oil Company did not represent a single dollar of honest
+toil or one trace of benefit to mankind. "The sugar trust," declared
+the senator, "has its 'long, felonious fingers' at this moment in every
+man's pocket in the United States, deftly extracting with the same
+audacity the pennies from the pockets of the poor and the dollars from
+the pockets of the rich."
+
+After much study of the mass of suggested legislation, Congress relied
+upon its constitutional power to regulate commerce among the several
+states and passed the Sherman Anti-trust Act, which received President
+Harrison's signature on July 2, 1890. Its most significant portions are
+the following:
+
+    Sec. 1. Every contract, combination in the form of trust or
+    otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among
+    the several States, or with foreign nations, is ... illegal.
+
+    Sec. 2. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize,
+    or combine or conspire with any other such person ... to monopolize
+    any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with
+    foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of misdemeanor.
+
+The purpose of the framers of the Act seems clearly to have been to
+draw up a general measure whose terms should be those usual in the
+English common law and then rest on the assurance that the courts would
+interpret its meaning in the light of former practice. For some
+centuries restraint of trade had been considered illegal in England,
+but no contract was held to be contrary to law if it provided only a
+_reasonable_ restraint--that is, if the restraint was merely minor and
+subsidiary. The Sherman act was a Senate measure, was presented from
+the Judiciary Committee and was passed precisely as drawn up by it. In
+speaking from the Committee, both Edmunds and Hoar took the attitude
+which the latter expressed as follows: "The great thing that this bill
+does ... is to extend the common-law principles, which protected fair
+competition ... in England, to international and interstate commerce in
+the United States." Just how far the members of Congress who were not
+on the Judiciary Committee of the Senate shared in this view or really
+understood the bill can not be said. Indeed, many members of both
+chambers absented themselves when the bill came to a vote.[4]
+
+For a long time the Sherman Act like the Interstate Commerce Act was
+singularly ineffective and futile. Trusts were nominally dissolved, but
+the separate parts were conducted under a common and uniform policy by
+the same board of managers. The Standard Oil Company changed its form
+by selecting the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey as a "holding
+corporation." Stock of the members of the combination was exchanged for
+stock in the New Jersey organization, leaving control in the same hands
+as before. The "same business was carried on in the same way but 'under
+a new sign.'" The wide variety of conditions tolerated under the
+corporation laws of the several states made confusion worse confounded.
+In its early attempts to convict corporations of violation of the law,
+the government was uniformly defeated.
+
+In 1893 came the climax of futility. The American Sugar Refining
+Company had purchased refineries in Philadelphia which enabled it to
+control, with its other plants, ninety-eight per cent. of the refining
+business in the country. The government asked the courts to cancel the
+purchase on the ground that it was contrary to the Sherman law, and to
+order the return of the properties to their former owners. The Supreme
+Court declared that the mere purchase of sugar refineries was not an
+act of interstate commerce and that it could not be said to restrain
+such trade, and it refused to grant the request of the government.
+Unhappily the prosecuting officers of the Attorney-General's office had
+drawn up their case badly, making their complaint the purchase, not the
+resulting restraint. No direct evidence was presented to show that
+interstate commerce in sugar and the control of the sugar business and
+of prices were the chief objects of the combination. To the public it
+seemed that the corporations were impregnable, for even the United
+States government could not control them.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The early history of anti-trust agitation centers about Henry D. Lloyd.
+His earliest article, "The Story of a Great Monopoly," is in _The
+Atlantic Monthly_ (Mar., 1881); his classic account of trust abuses is
+_Wealth against Commonwealth_ (1894); consult also C.A. Lloyd, _Henry
+D. Lloyd_ (2 vols., 1912). Early and valuable articles in periodicals
+are in _Political Science Quarterly_, 1888, pp. 78-98; 1889, pp.
+296-319; W.Z. Ripley, _Trusts, Pools, and Corporations_ (rev. ed.,
+1916), is useful; B.J. Hendrick, _Age of Big Business_ (1919), is
+interesting and contains a bibliography. Ida M. Tarbell, _History of
+the Standard Oil Company_ (2 vols., 1904), is carefully done and a
+pioneer work. Other valuable accounts are: S.C.T. Dodd, _Trusts_
+(1900), by a former Standard Oil attorney; Eliot Jones, _The Anthracite
+Coal Combination in the United States_ (1914); J.W. Jenks, _Trust
+Problem_ (1900), contains a summary of the economies of large scale
+production; J.W. Jenks and W.E. Clark, _The Trust Problem_ (4th ed.,
+1917), is scholarly and complete; J.D. Rockefeller, _Random
+Reminiscences of Men and Events_ (1916), is a brief defence of the
+Standard Oil Company; W.H. Taft, _Anti-Trust Act and the Supreme Court_
+(1914), summarizes a few important decisions on the Sherman law. Edward
+Bellamy, _Looking Backward_ (1888), describes an economic Utopia. Early
+proposed anti-trust laws, together with the Congressional debates on
+the subject are in _Senate Documents_, 57th Congress, 2nd session, vol.
+14, No. 147 (Serial Number 4428). No complete historical study has yet
+been made of the effects of industrial development, immediately after
+the Civil War, on politics and the structure of American society.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Charles M. Schwab mentions an unusual example. Under the direction
+of Andrew Carnegie, the wealthy steel magnate, he had a new mill
+erected, which seemed likely to meet all the demands which would be
+placed upon it. But in the process of building it Schwab had seen a
+single way in which it could be improved. Carnegie at once gave orders
+to have the mill taken down before being used at all, and rebuilt on
+the improved plan.
+
+[2] It was not until 1894 that Lloyd published _Wealth Against
+Commonwealth_, but his pen had been busy constantly between 1881 and
+1894.
+
+[3] Cf. above, pp. 89-93, on Fourteenth Amendment.
+
+[4] The authorship of the Sherman law has often been a source of
+controversy. Senator John Sherman, as well as other members, introduced
+anti-trust bills in the Senate in 1888. Senator Sherman's proposal was
+later referred to the Judiciary Committee, of which he was not a
+member. The Committee thoroughly revised it. Senator Hoar, who was on
+the Committee, thought he remembered having written it word for word as
+it was adopted. Recent investigation seems to prove that the senator's
+recollection was faulty and that Edmunds wrote most of it, while Hoar,
+Ingalls and George wrote a section each and Evarts part of a sentence.
+If this is the fact, it seems most nearly accurate to say that Sherman
+started the enterprise and that almost every member of the Judiciary
+committee, especially Edmunds, shared in its completion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+DEMOCRATIC DEMORALIZATION
+
+In view of the fact that Harrison had been successful in 1888 and that
+Cleveland had been the most able Democratic leader since the Civil War,
+it seemed natural that their parties should renominate them in 1892.
+Yet the men at the oars in the Republican organization were far from
+enthusiastic over their leader. It is probable that Harrison did not
+like the role of dispenser of patronage and that he indicated the fact
+in dealing with his party associates; at any rate, he estranged such
+powerful leaders as Platt, Quay and Reed by his neglect of them in
+disposing of appointments. The reformers were no better satisfied; much
+had been expected of him because his party had taken so definite a
+stand in 1888, and when his choice of subordinates failed to meet
+expectations, the scorn of the Independents found forceful vent. Among
+the rank and file of his party, Harrison had aroused respect but no
+great enthusiasm.
+
+The friends of Blaine were still numerous and active, and they wished
+to see their favorite in the executive chair. Perhaps Blaine felt that
+there would be some impropriety in his becoming an active candidate
+against his chief, while remaining at his post as Secretary of State;
+at any rate he notified the chairman of the National Republican
+Committee, early in 1892, that he was not a candidate for the
+nomination. The demand for him, nevertheless, continued and relations
+between him and Harrison seem to have become strained. Senator Cullom,
+writing nearly twenty years afterward, related a conversation which he
+had had with Harrison at the time. In substance, according to the
+senator, the President declared that he had been doing the work of the
+Department of State himself for a year or more, and that Blaine had
+given out reports of what was being done and had taken the credit
+himself. Cullom's recollection seems to have been accurate, at least as
+far as relations between the two men were concerned, for three days
+before the meeting of the Republican nominating convention Blaine sent
+a curt note to the President resigning his office without giving any
+reason, and asking that his withdrawal take effect immediately. The
+President's reply accepting the resignation was equally cool and
+uninforming. If Blaine expected to take any steps to gain the
+nomination, the available time was far too short. That the act would be
+interpreted as hostile to the interests of Harrison, however, admitted
+of no doubt, and it therefore seems probable that Blaine had changed
+his mind at a late day and really hoped that the party might choose
+him.[1]
+
+Despite Blaine's apparent change of purpose, it seemed necessary to
+renominate Harrison in order to avoid the appearance of discrediting
+his administration, and on the first ballot Harrison received 535 votes
+to Blaine's 183 and was nominated. The only approach to excitement was
+over the currency plank in the platform. Western delegates demanded the
+free coinage of silver, which the East opposed. The plank adopted
+declared that
+
+    The Republican party demands the use of both gold and silver as
+    standard money, with such restrictions and under such provisions,
+    to be determined by legislation, as will secure the maintenance of
+    the parity of values of the two metals.
+
+It was a meaningless compromise, but it seems to have satisfied both
+sides.
+
+Cleveland, during the Harrison administration, had been an object of
+much interest and not a little speculation. After seeing President
+Harrison safely installed in office, he went to New York city where he
+engaged in the practice of law. He himself thought that he was retiring
+permanently and not a few enemies were quite willing that this should
+be the case. The eminent Democratic editor, Henry Watterson, remarked
+that Cleveland in New York was like a stone thrown into a river, "There
+is a 'plunk,' a splash, and then silence.". He was constantly invited,
+nevertheless, to address public assemblies, which provided ample
+opportunity for him to express his thoughts to the country. Moreover,
+the McKinley Act of 1890 and the political reversal which followed
+brought renewed attention to the tariff message of 1887 and to its
+author. In February, 1891, Cleveland was asked to address a meeting of
+New York business men which had been called by the Reform Club to
+express opposition to the free coinage of silver. The question of the
+increased use of silver as a circulating medium, as has been seen, was
+a controverted one; neither party was prepared to take a definite
+stand, and, indeed, division of opinion had taken place on sectional
+rather than partisan lines. While the subject was in this unsettled
+condition Cleveland received his invitation to the Reform Club, and was
+urged by some of his advisors not to endanger his chances of
+renomination by taking sides on the issue. The counsel had no more
+effect than similar advice had produced in 1887 when the tariff was in
+the same unsettled condition. Although unable to attend, Cleveland
+wrote a letter in which he characterized the experiment of free coinage
+as "dangerous and reckless." Whether right or wrong, he was definite;
+people who could not understand the intricacies of currency standards
+and the arguments of the experts understood exactly what Cleveland
+meant. Little doubt now existed but that the name of the ex-president
+would be a powerful one before the nominating convention, for he would
+have the populous East with him on the currency issue--unless David B.
+Hill should upset expectations.
+
+Hill was an example of the shrewd politician. Like Platt, whom he
+resembled in many ways, he was absorbed in the machinery and
+organization of politics, rather than in issues and policies. Beginning
+in 1870, when he was but twenty-seven years of age, he had held public
+office almost continuously. In the state assembly, as Mayor of Elmira,
+as Lieutenant-Governor with Cleveland and later as Governor, he
+developed an unrivalled knowledge of New York as a political arena. In
+1892 he was at the height of his power and the presidency seemed to be
+within his grasp. The methods which he used were typical of the
+man--the manipulation of the machinery of nomination.
+
+The national Democratic nominating convention was called for June 21,
+but the New York state Democratic committee announced that the state
+convention for the choice of delegates would meet on February 22. So
+early a meeting, four months before the national convention, was
+unprecedented, and at once it became clear that a purpose lay behind
+the call. It was to procure the election of members to the state
+convention who would vote for Hill delegates to the nominating
+convention, before Cleveland's supporters could organize in opposition.
+Furthermore, it was expected that the action of New York would
+influence other states where sentiment for Cleveland was not strong.
+Hill's plan worked out as he had expected--at least in so far as the
+state convention was concerned--for delegates pledged to him were
+chosen. Cleveland's supporters, however, denounced the "snap
+convention" and a factional quarrel arose between the "snappers" and
+the "anti-snappers"; outside of New York it was so obvious that the
+snap convention was a mere political trick that the Hill cause was
+scarcely benefited by it. Delegates were chosen in other parts of the
+country who desired the nomination of Cleveland.
+
+The convention met in Chicago on June 21 and proceeded at once to adopt
+a platform of principles. The silver plank was hardly distinguishable
+from that of the Republicans, except that it was enshrouded with a
+trifle more of ambiguity. The adoption of a tariff plank elicited
+considerable difference of opinion, but the final result was an extreme
+statement of Democratic belief. Instead of adopting the cautious
+position taken in 1884, the convention declared that the constitutional
+power of the federal government was limited to the collection of tariff
+duties for purposes of revenue only, and denounced the McKinley act as
+the "culminating atrocity of class legislation."
+
+Although it was evident when the convention met, that the chances of
+Hill for the nomination were slight indeed, the battle was far from
+over. Hill was a "straight" party man, a fact which he reiterated again
+and again in his famous remark, "I am a Democrat." Cleveland was not
+strictly regular, a fact which Hill apparently intended to emphasize by
+constant reference to his own beliefs. The oratorical champion of the
+Hill delegation was Bourke Cockran, an able and appealing stump
+speaker. For two hours he urged that Cleveland could not carry the
+pivotal state, New York, and that it was folly to attempt to elect a
+man who was so handicapped. Eloquence, however, was of no avail. The
+first ballot showed that the Hill strength was practically confined to
+New York, and Cleveland was easily the party choice. For the
+vice-presidency Adlai E. Stevenson, a partisan of the old school, was
+chosen.
+
+Among the smaller parties there appeared for the first time the
+"People's Party," later and better known as the "Populists." Their
+nominee was James B. Weaver, who had led the Greenbackers in 1880.
+Their platform emphasized the economic burdens under which the poorer
+classes were laboring and listed a series of extremely definite
+demands.
+
+The campaign was a quiet one as both Cleveland and Harrison had been
+tried out before. So unenthusiastic were the usual political leaders
+that Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll declared that each party would like
+to beat the other without electing its own candidates. Although the
+financial issue was kept in the background, the tariff was fought out
+again somewhat as it had been in 1888. The New York _Sun_ shed some
+asperity over the contest by calling the friends of Cleveland "the
+adorers of fat witted mediocrity," and the nominee himself as the
+"perpetual candidate" and the "stuffed prophet"; and then added a ray
+of humor by advocating the election of Cleveland. The adoption of the
+Australian ballot, before the election, in thirty-four states and
+territories constituted an important reform; thereafter it was
+impossible for "blocks of five" to march to the polls and deposit their
+ballots within the sight of the purchaser. The Homestead strike near
+Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, somewhat aided the Democrats. The Carnegie
+Steel Company, having reduced wages, precipitated a strike which was
+settled only through the use of the state militia. As the steel
+industry was highly protected by the tariff, it appeared that the wages
+of the laboring man were not so happily affected as Republican orators
+had been asserting.[2]
+
+The result of the election was astonishing. Cleveland carried not
+merely the South but Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Indiana,
+Illinois, Wisconsin and California, while five of Michigan's fourteen
+electoral votes and one of Ohio's twenty-three went to him. In the
+last-named state, which had never gone against the Republicans, their
+vote exceeded that of the Democrats by only 1,072. For the first time
+since Buchanan's day, both Senate and House were to be Democratic. More
+surprising and more significant for the future, was the strength of the
+People's Party. Over a million ballots, twenty-two electoral votes, two
+senators and eleven representatives were included among their trophies.
+It was an important fact, moreover, that twenty-nine out of every
+thirty votes cast for the People's Party were cast west of Pennsylvania
+and south of Maryland. Something apparently was happening, in which the
+East was not a sharer. The politician, particularly in the East, was
+quite content to dismiss the Populists as "born-tired theorists,"
+"quacks," "a clamoring brood of political rainmakers," and "stump
+electricians," but the student of politics and history must appraise
+the movement less provincially and with more information.
+
+It was in the nature of things that the Populist movement should come
+out of the West. From the days of Clay and Jackson the westerner had
+been characterized by his self-confidence, his assertiveness and his
+energy. He had possessed unlimited confidence in ordinary humanity,
+been less inclined to heed authority and more ready to disregard
+precedents and experience. He had expressed his ideals concretely, and
+with vigor and assurance. He had broken an empire to the plow, suffered
+severely from the buffetings of nature and had gradually worked out his
+list of grievances. One or another of his complaints had been presented
+before 1892 in the platforms of uninfluential third parties, but not
+until that year did the dissenting movement reach large proportions.
+
+It has already been seen that the people of the West were in revolt
+against the management of the railroads. They saw roads going bankrupt,
+to be sure, but the owners were making fortunes; they knew that lawyers
+were being corrupted with free passes and the state legislatures
+manipulated by lobbyists; and they believed that rates were
+extortionate. The seizure and purchase of public land, sometimes
+contrary to the letter of the law, more often contrary to its spirit,
+was looked upon as an intolerable evil. Moreover, the westerner was in
+debt. He had borrowed from the East to buy his farm and his machinery
+and to make both ends meet in years when the crops failed. In 1889 it
+was estimated that seventy-five per cent. of the farms of Dakota were
+mortgaged to a total of $50,000,000. Boston and other cities had scores
+of agencies for the negotiation of western farm loans; Philadelphia
+alone was said to absorb $15,000,000 annually. The advantage to the
+West, if conditions were right, is too manifest to need explanation.
+But sometimes the over-optimistic farmer borrowed too heavily;
+sometimes the rates demanded of the needy westerners were usurious;
+often it seemed as if interest charges were like "a mammoth sponge,"
+constantly absorbing the labor of the husbandman. The demand of the
+West for a greater currency supply has already been seen, for it
+appeared in the platforms of minor parties immediately after the Civil
+War. Sometimes it seemed as if nature, also, had entered a conspiracy
+to increase the hardships of the farmer. During the eighties a series
+of rainy years in the more arid parts of the plains encouraged the idea
+that the rain belt was moving westward, and farmers took up land beyond
+the line where adequate moisture could be relied upon. Then came drier
+years; the corn withered to dry stalks; farms were more heavily
+mortgaged or even abandoned; and discontent in the West grew fast.
+
+The complaints of the westerner naturally found expression in the
+agricultural organizations which already existed in many parts of the
+country. The Grange had attacked some of the farmer's problems, but
+interest in it as a political agency had died out. The National
+Farmers' Alliance of 1880 and the National Farmers' Alliance and
+Industrial Union somewhat later were both preceded and followed by many
+smaller societies. Altogether their combined membership began to mount
+into the millions. When, therefore, the Alliances began to turn away
+from the mere discussion of agricultural grievances and toward the
+betterment of conditions by means of legislation, and when their
+principles began to be taken up by discontented labor organizations, it
+looked as if they might constitute a force to be reckoned with.
+
+The remedies which the Alliances suggested for current ills were
+definite. Fundamentally they believed that the government, state and
+federal, could remedy the economic distresses of the people and that it
+ought to do so. At the present day such a suggestion seems commonplace
+enough, but in the eighties the dominant theory was individualism--each
+man for himself and let economic law remedy injustices--and the
+Alliance program seemed like dreaded "socialism." The counterpart of
+the demand for larger governmental activity was a call for the greater
+participation of the people in the operation of the machinery of
+legislation. This lay back of the demand for the initiative, the
+referendum, and the popular election of senators. Currency ills could
+be remedied, the farmers believed, by a national currency which should
+be issued by the federal government only--not by national banks. They
+desired the free coinage of silver and gold until the amount in
+circulation should reach fifty dollars per capita. Lesser
+recommendations were for an income tax and postal savings banks. In
+relation to the transportation system, they declared that "the time has
+come when the railroad corporations will either own the people or the
+people must own the railroads." In order to prevent the waste of the
+public land and to stop its being held for speculative purposes, they
+urged that none be allowed to remain in the hands of aliens and that
+all be taken away from the railroads and corporations which was in
+excess of actual needs.
+
+The power of the new movement first became evident in 1890 and
+distinctly disturbed both the Republican and the Democratic leaders.
+Determined to right their wrongs, the farmers deserted their parties in
+thousands, flocked to conventions and crowded the country schoolhouses
+for the discussion of methods and men. Perhaps it was true, as one of
+their critics asserted, that they put a "gill of fact and grievance
+into a gallon of falsehood and lurid declamation" so as to make an
+"intoxicating mixture." If so, the mixture took immediate effect.
+Alliance governors were elected in several southern states; many state
+legislatures in the South and West had strong farmer delegations; and
+several congressmen and senators were sent to Washington. Success in
+1890 made the Alliances jubilant and they looked to the possibility of
+a countrywide political organization and a share in the campaign of
+1892. The first national convention was held in Omaha in July, 1892, at
+which many of the farmers' organizations together with the Knights of
+Labor and other groups were represented. The name "People's party" was
+adopted, the principles just mentioned were set forth in a platform and
+candidates nominated. In the ensuing election the party exhibited the
+surprising strength which has been seen.
+
+It has taken more time to describe the Populist movement than its
+degree of success in 1892 would justify. But it deserves attention for
+a variety of reasons. Its reform demands were important; it was a
+striking indication of sectional economic interests; it gave evidence
+of an effective participation in politics by the small farmers, the
+mechanics and the less well-to-do professional people--the "middle
+class," in a word; it was a long step toward an expansion of the
+activities of the central government in the fields of economic and
+social legislation; and finally it emphasized the significance of the
+West, as a constructive force in American life. If the Populists should
+capture one of the other parties or be captured by it, nobody could
+foresee what the results would be on American political history.
+
+The second administration of Grover Cleveland, from 1893 to 1897, was
+the most important period of four years for half a century after the
+Civil War. For twenty-five years after 1865 American politicians had
+been sowing the wind. Issues had rarely been met man-fashion, in direct
+combat; instead, they had been evaded, stated with skilful ambiguity,
+or beclouded with ignorance and prejudice. Politics had been concerned
+with the offices--the plunder of government. It could not be that the
+whirlwind would never be reaped.
+
+The situation in 1893 was one that might well have shaken the stoutest
+heart. International difficulties were in sight that threatened unusual
+dangers; labor troubles of unprecedented complexity and importance were
+at hand; the question of the currency remained unsettled, the treasury
+was in a critical condition, and an industrial panic had already begun.
+Each of these difficulties will demand detailed discussion at a later
+point.[3]
+
+To no small degree, the settlement of the political and economic issues
+before the country was complicated by the unmistakable drift toward
+sectionalism, and by the particular characteristics of the President.
+If the administration pressed a tariff reduction policy, it would
+please the South and West but bring hostility in the East. The demands
+of the West, so far as the Populists represented them, were for the
+increased use of the powers of the federal government and the
+application of those powers to social and economic problems; but the
+party in power was traditionally attached to the doctrine of restricted
+activity on the part of the central authority. The sectional aspects of
+the silver question were notorious; and only the eastern Democrats
+fully supported their leader in his stand on the issue.
+
+The personal characteristics of President Cleveland have already
+appeared.[4] He had a burdensome consciousness of his own individual
+duty to conduct the business of his office with faithfulness; a
+courageous sense of justice which impelled him to fight valiantly for a
+cause that he deemed right, however unimportant or hopeless the cause
+might be; a reformer's contempt for hypocrisy and shams, and a blunt
+directness in freeing his mind about wrong of every kind. He had the
+faults of his virtues, likewise. Sure of himself and of the right of
+his position, he had the impatience of an unimaginative man with any
+other point of view; he was intransigent, unyielding, rarely giving
+way a step even to take two forward. It seems likely that his political
+experience had accentuated this characteristic. For years he had thrown
+aside the advice of his counsellors and had shown himself more nearly
+right than they. As Mayor of Buffalo he had used the veto and had been
+made Governor of the state; as Governor he had ruggedly made enemies
+and had become President; as President he had flown in the face of
+caution with his tariff message and his Reform Club letter and had
+three times received a larger popular vote than his competitor. And
+each time his plurality was greater than it had been before. If he
+tended to become over-sure of himself, it should hardly occasion
+surprise. Furthermore he looked upon the duties and possibilities of
+the presidential office as fixed and stationary, rather than elastic
+and developing. He was a strict constructionist and a rigid believer in
+the checks and balances of the Constitution. Although constantly aware
+of the needs and rights of the common people, such as composed the
+Populist movement, his adherence to strict construction was so complete
+that he was unable to advocate much of the federal legislation desired
+by them. It was only with hesitation and constitutional doubts, for
+example, that he had been able to sign even the Interstate Commerce
+Act. In brief, then, the western demand for social and economic
+legislation on a novel and unusual scale was to take its chances with
+an honest, dogged believer in a restricted federal authority.
+
+The experience of the administration with the patronage question
+illustrates how much progress had been made in the direction of reform
+since the beginning of Cleveland's first term in 1885. In the earlier
+year it had required a bitter contest to make even the slightest
+advance; in his second term he retained Roosevelt, a Republican
+reformer, on the Commission and gradually extended the rules so as to
+cover the government printing office, the internal revenue service, the
+pension agencies, and messengers and other minor officials in the
+departments in Washington. Finally on May 6, 1896, he approved an order
+revising the rules, simplifying them and extending them to great
+numbers of places not hitherto included, "the most valuable addition
+ever made at one stroke to the competitive service." The net result was
+that the number of positions in the classified service was more than
+doubled between 1893 and 1897, making a total of 81,889 in a service of
+somewhat over 200,000.[5] By the latter year the argument against
+reform had largely been silenced. The dismal prediction of opponents
+who had feared the establishment of an office-holding aristocracy had
+turned out to have no foundation. Agreement was widespread that the
+government service was greatly improved. There were still branches of
+the service for the reformers to work upon but the great fight was over
+and won.[6]
+
+Although the Democrats came into power in 1893 largely on the tariff
+issue, Cleveland felt that the most urgent need at the beginning of the
+administration was the repeal of the part of the Sherman silver law
+that provided for the purchase of 4,500,000 ounces of silver each
+month. The financial and monetary aspects of this controversy demand
+relation at another point.[7] Politically its results were important.
+Western and southern Democrats, friendly to silver, fought bitterly
+against the repeal, and became thoroughly hostile to Cleveland whom
+they began to distrust as allied to the "money-power" of the East. At
+the time, then, when the President was most in need of united partisan
+support, he found his party crumbling into factions.
+
+Other circumstances which have been mentioned combined to make the time
+inauspicious for a revision of the tariff--the slight Democratic
+majority in the Senate, the deficit caused by rising expenditure and
+falling revenue, the imminent industrial panic and the prevailing labor
+unrest. Nevertheless it seemed necessary to make the attempt. If the
+results of the election of 1892 meant anything, they meant that the
+Democrats were commissioned to revise the tariff.
+
+The chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means was William L.
+Wilson, a sincere and well-read tariff reformer who had been a lawyer
+and a college president, in addition to taking a practical interest in
+politics. The measure which he presented to the House on December 19,
+1893, was not a radical proposal, but it provided for considerable
+tariff reductions and a tax on incomes over $4,000. There was a slight
+defection in party support, but it was unimportant because of the large
+majority which the Democrats possessed, and the bill passed the House
+without unusual difficulty.
+
+In the Senate a different situation presented itself. The Democratic
+majority over the Republicans, provided the Populists voted with the
+former, was only nine; and in case the Populists became disaffected,
+the Democrats could outvote the opposition only by the narrow margin of
+three, even if every member remained with his party. Such a degree of
+unanimity, in the face of prevailing conditions, was extremely
+unlikely. The Louisiana senators were insistent upon protection for
+their sugar; Maryland, West Virginia and Alabama senators looked out
+for coal and iron ore; Senator Hill of New York was unalterably opposed
+to an income tax; Senator Murphy, of the same state, obtained high
+duties on linen collars and cuffs; and Senators Gorman and Brice were
+ready to aid the opposition unless appeased by definite bits of
+protection which they demanded. Many years later Senator Cullom, a
+Republican, explained the practical basis on which the Senate
+proceeded: "The truth is, we were all--Democrats as well as
+Republicans--trying to get in amendments in the interest of protecting
+the industries of our respective States."
+
+The 634 changes made in the Senate were, therefore, mainly in the
+direction of lessening the reductions made by the House. After the bill
+had passed the Senate, it was put into the hands of a conference
+committee, where further changes were made. At this stage of the
+proceedings, Wilson read to the House a letter from the President
+condemning the form which the bill had taken under Senate management,
+and branding the abandonment of Democratic principles as an example of
+"party perfidy and party dishonor." The communication had no effect
+except to intensify differences within the party, and senators made it
+evident that they would have their way or kill the measure. The House
+thereupon capitulated and accepted what became known as the
+Wilson-Gorman act--a law which was only less protectionist than the
+McKinley act. The President, chagrined at the breakdown of the party
+program, allowed the act to pass without his signature, but expressed
+his mingled disappointment and disgust in a letter to Representative
+T.C. Catchings:
+
+    There are provisions in this bill which are not in line with honest
+    tariff reform.... Besides, there were ... incidents accompanying the
+    passage of the bill ... which made every sincere tariff reformer
+    unhappy.... I take my place with the rank and file of the Democratic
+    party ... who refuse to accept the results embodied in this bill as
+    the close of the war, who are not blinded to the fact that the
+    livery of Democratic tariff reform has been stolen and worn in the
+    service of Republican protection, and who have marked the places
+    where the deadly blight of treason has blasted the counsels of the
+    brave in their hour of might.
+
+A few phases of the attempt at tariff reduction indicate the extent to
+which political decay and especially Democratic demoralization had
+gone. As it passed the House, the Wilson bill left both raw and refined
+sugar on the free list. This was unsatisfactory to the Louisiana sugar
+growers, who desired a protective duty on the raw product, and was
+objected to by the Louisiana senators. On the other hand, the American
+Sugar Refining Company, usually known as the "Sugar Trust," desired
+free raw materials but sought protective duties on refined sugar. In
+the Senate, a duty was placed on raw sugar, partly for revenue and
+partly to satisfy the Louisiana senators. On refined sugar, rates were
+fixed which were eminently satisfactory to the Trust. Rumors at once
+began to be spread broadcast over the country that the sugar interests
+had manipulated the Senate. The people were the more ready to believe
+charges of this sort because of experience with previous tariff
+legislation and because the Sugar Trust had been one of the earliest
+and most feared of the monopolies which had already caused so much
+uneasiness. A Senate committee was appointed, composed of two
+Democrats, two Republicans and a Populist, to investigate these and
+other rumors. Their report, which was agreed to by all the members,
+made public a depressing story. It appeared that one lobbyist had
+offered large sums of money for votes against the tariff bill on
+account of the income tax provision. Henry O. Havermeyer, president of
+the American Sugar Refining Company, testified that the company was in
+the habit of contributing to the campaign funds of one political party
+or the other in the states, depending on which party was in the
+ascendancy; that these contributions were carried on the books as
+expense; and that they were given because the party in power "could
+give us the protection we should have." Further, one or more officers
+of the company were in Washington during the entire time when the
+tariff act was pending in the Senate and had conferred with senators
+and committees. Senator Quay testified that he had bought and sold
+sugar stocks while the Senate was engaged in fixing the schedules and
+added: "I do not feel that there is anything in my connection with the
+Senate to interfere with my buying or selling the stock when I please;
+and I propose to do so." Finally the committee summarized the results
+of its investigation, taking the occasion to
+
+    strongly deprecate the importunity and pressure to which Congress
+    and its members are subjected by the representatives of great
+    industrial combinations, whose enormous wealth tends to suggest
+    undue influence, and to create in the public mind a demoralizing
+    belief in the existence of corrupt practices.
+
+Yet one more drop remained to fill the cup of Democratic humiliation to
+overflowing. The constitutionality of the income tax had been assumed
+to have been settled by previous decisions of the Supreme Court,
+especially that in the case Springer _v._ United States, which had been
+decided in 1880, and in which the Court had upheld the law. The new tax
+was brought before the Court in 1894, in Pollock _v._ Farmers' Loan and
+Trust Company. The argument against the tax was pressed with great
+vigor, not merely on constitutional grounds, but for evident social and
+economic reasons. Important financial interests engaged powerful legal
+talent and it became clear that the question to be settled was as much
+a class and sectional controversy as a constitutional problem. Counsel
+urged the Court that the tax scattered to the winds the fundamental
+principles of the rights of private property. Justice Field, deciding
+against the tax, declared it an "assault upon capital" and a step
+toward a war of the poor against the rich. There was fear among some
+that the exemption of the smaller incomes might result in placing the
+entire burden of taxation on the wealthy. Justice Field, for example,
+felt that taxing persons whose income was $4,000 and exempting those
+whose income was less than that amount was like taxing Protestants, as
+a class, at one rate and Catholics at another. The sectional aspects of
+the controversy were brought out in objections that the bulk of the tax
+would fall on the Northeast. The most important point involved was the
+meaning of the word "direct" as used in the Constitution in the phrase
+"direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States ... according
+to their respective Numbers." If an income tax is a direct tax, it must
+be apportioned among the states according to population. Unhappily the
+framers of the Constitution were not clear as to what they meant by
+the word direct, and specifically they could not have told whether an
+income tax was direct or not, because no such tax existed in England
+or America at that time. Hence the Supreme Court was placed in the
+awkward position of defining a word which the framers themselves could
+not define, although the uniform practice hitherto had been to regard
+the income tax as indirect and therefore constitutional, even if not
+apportioned according to population.
+
+The Pollock case was heard twice. The result of the first trial was
+inconclusive and on the central point the Court divided four to four.
+After a rehearing, Justice Jackson, who had been ill and not present at
+the first trial, gave his vote in favor of constitutionality, but in
+the meantime another justice had changed his opinion and voted against
+it. By the narrow margin of five to four, then, and under such
+circumstances, the income tax provision of the Wilson-Gorman act was
+declared null and void. Probably no decision since the Dred Scott case,
+with the single exception of the Legal Tender cases, has put the
+Supreme Court in so unfortunate a light. Certainly in none has it
+seemed more swayed by class prejudice, and so insecure and vacillating
+in its opinion.
+
+Before the question regarding the constitutionality of the income tax
+was settled, the Democrats reaped the political results of the
+Wilson-Gorman tariff act. The law went into force on August 27, 1894;
+the congressional elections came in November. The Democrats were almost
+utterly swept out of the House, except for those from the southern
+states, their number being reduced from 235 to 105. Reed was replaced
+in the speaker's chair; tariff reform had turned out to be
+indistinguishable from protection; and the Democracy, after its only
+opportunity since 1861 to try its hand at government, was demoralized,
+discredited, and in opposition again.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The election of 1892 is described in the standard histories of the
+period, and especially well in Peck.
+
+The rise and growth of the Populist movement resulted in a considerable
+literature of which the following are best: S.J. Buck, _The Agrarian
+Crusade_ (1920), is founded on wide knowledge of the subject and
+contains bibliography; F.J. Turner in _The Atlantic Monthly_ (Sept.,
+1896), gives a brief but keen account; other articles in periodicals
+are F.E. Haynes, in _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, X, 269, W.F.
+Mappin, in _Political Science Quarterly_, IV, 433, and F.B. Tracy, in
+_Forum_, XVI, 240; F.E. Haynes, _Third Party Movements_ (1916), is
+detailed; M.S. Wildman, _Money Inflation in the United States_ (1905),
+presents the psychological and economic basis of inflation; J.A.
+Woodburn, _Political Parties and Party Problems_ (1914); F.L. Paxson,
+_New Nation_ (1915).
+
+Cleveland's administration is well discussed by D.R. Dewey, _National
+Problems_ (1907), and by H.T. Peck, who also presents an unusual
+analysis of Cleveland in _The Personal Equation_ (1898). The income tax
+is best handled by E.R.A. Seligman, _The Income Tax_ (1914).
+Cleveland's own account of the chief difficulties of the administration
+are in his _Presidential Problems_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Blaine died on Jan. 27, 1893.
+
+[2] Below, p. 320, for an account of the strike as an industrial
+dispute.
+
+[3] Below, Chaps. XIII, XIV, XV.
+
+[4] Above, Chap. VIII.
+
+[5] The sweeping reform order of Cleveland late in his second term
+illustrated the most common and effective method of making advance.
+Late in his administration the President adds to the classified
+service; his successor withdraws part of the additions, but more than
+makes up at the end of his term,--a sort of two steps forward and one
+backward process.
+
+[6] Cleveland's second cabinet was composed of the following: W.Q.
+Gresham, Ill., Secretary of State; J.G. Carlisle, Ky., Secretary of
+the Treasury; D.S. Lamont, N.Y., Secretary of War; R. Olney, Mass.,
+Attorney-General; W.S. Bissell, N.Y., Postmaster-General; H.A. Herbert,
+Ala., Secretary of the Navy; Hoke Smith, Ga., Secretary of the
+Interior; J.S. Morton, Neb., Secretary of Agriculture.
+
+[7] Below, pp. 336-340.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+THE TREND OF DIPLOMACY
+
+After the international issues arising from the Civil War were settled,
+and before foreign relations began to become more important late in the
+nineties, our diplomatic history showed the same lack of definiteness
+and continuity that stamped the history of politics during the same
+years. Eleven different men held the post of Secretary of State during
+the thirty-four years from 1865 to 1898, one of them, Blaine, serving
+at two separate times. The political situation in Washington changed
+frequently, few men of outstanding capacity as diplomatists were in the
+cabinets, and most of the problems which arose were not such as would
+excite the interest of great international minds. That any degree of
+unity in our foreign relations was attained is due in part to the
+continuous service of such men as A.A. Adee, who was connected with the
+state department from 1878, and Professor John Bassett Moore, long in
+the department and frequently available as a counselor.[1]
+
+Even before the Civil War, Americans had been interested in the affairs
+of the nations whose shores were touched by the Pacific Ocean.
+Missionaries and traders had long visited China and Japan. During the
+years when the transcontinental railroads were built, as has been seen,
+the construction companies looked to China for a labor supply, and
+there followed a stream of Chinese immigrants who were the cause of
+a difficult international problem. Our relations with Japan were
+extremely friendly. Until the middle of the nineteenth century the
+Japanese had been almost completely cut off from the remainder of the
+world, desiring neither to give to the rest of humanity nor to take
+from them. In 1854 Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the United States
+Navy had succeeded in obtaining permission for American ships to take
+coal and provisions at two Japanese ports. Townsend Harris shortly
+afterwards had been appointed consul-general to Japan and his knowledge
+of the East and his tactful diplomacy had procured increased trade
+rights and other privileges. In 1863 a Japanese prince had sought to
+close the strait of Shimonoseki which connects the inland sea of Japan
+with the outside ocean. American, French and Dutch vessels had been
+fired upon, and eventually an international expedition had been sent to
+open the strait by force. Seventeen ships of war had quickly brought
+the prince to terms. An indemnity had been demanded, of which the
+United States had received a share. The fund remained in the treasury
+untouched until 1883 when it was returned to Japan. The latter received
+the refund as "a strong manifestation of that spirit of justice and
+equity which has always animated the United States in its relations
+with Japan."
+
+The purchase of Alaska in 1867, stretched a long, curved finger out
+towards the Asiatic coast, but there was little interest in the new
+acquisition and no knowledge of its size or resources.[2]
+
+The first tangible and permanent indication that the United States
+might extend its interests into the sphere of the Pacific Ocean
+appeared as early as 1872, when an arrangement with a Samoan chief gave
+us the right to use the harbor of Pagopago on the island of Tutuila.
+Tutuila is far from American shores, being below the equator on the
+under side of the world, but the harbor of Pagopago is an unusually
+good one and its relation to the extension of American commerce in the
+South Pacific was readily seen. Not long afterward, similar trading
+privileges were granted to Germany and Great Britain. Conditions in the
+islands had by no means been peaceful even before the advent of the
+foreigners with their intrigues and jealousies, and in 1885 the
+Germans, taking advantage of a native rebellion, hauled down the Samoan
+flag on the government building in Apia and seemed about to take
+control. In the following year, at the request of the Samoan king, the
+American consul Greenebaum proclaimed a protectorate and hoisted the
+United States flag. The act was unauthorized and was disavowed at once
+by the government at Washington. In the hope of establishing order in
+the islands, Bayard, Secretary of State in President Cleveland's first
+administration, suggested a triple conference of Germany, Great Britain
+and the United States in Washington. During a recess in the conference
+a native rebellion overturned the Samoan government and Germany assumed
+virtual control. While civil war raged among native factions, the
+Germans landed armed forces for the protection of their interests. The
+American and British governments, fearful of danger to their rights,
+already had war vessels in the harbor of Apia and armed conflict seemed
+almost inevitable when a sudden hurricane on March 16, 1889, destroyed
+all the vessels except one. The _Calliope_, (English), steamed out to
+sea in the teeth of the great storm and escaped in safety. In the face
+of such a catastrophe all smaller ills were forgotten and peace reigned
+for the moment in Samoa.
+
+Meanwhile, just as Cleveland was retiring from office for the first
+time, another conference of the three powers was arranged which
+provided a somewhat complicated triple protectorate. After a few years
+of quiet, another native insurrection called attention to the islands.
+Cleveland was again in the presidential chair, and in a message to
+Congress he expressed his belief that the United States had made a
+mistake in departing from its century-old policy of avoiding entangling
+alliances with foreign powers. A year later he returned to the subject
+more earnestly than ever. A report from the Secretary of State
+presented the history of our Samoan relations and ventured a judgment
+that the only fruits which had fallen to the United States were
+expense, responsibility and entanglement. The President thereupon
+invited an expression of opinion from Congress on the advisability of
+withdrawing from our engagements with the other powers. For the time
+nothing came of Cleveland's recommendation, but the continuance of
+native quarrels later necessitated another commission to the islands.
+The American member reported that the harbor of Apia was full of war
+vessels and the region about covered with armed men, but that "not the
+sail or smoke of a single vessel of commerce was to be seen there or
+about the coasts of these beautiful islands." In 1899, the triple
+protectorate was abandoned, as it had complicated the task of governing
+the islands. The United States received Tutuila with the harbor of
+Pagopago, Germany took the remainder of the group, and England retired
+altogether. The trend of Samoan relations was significant: our
+connection with the islands began with the desire to possess a coaling
+station; the possession first resulted in entanglements with other
+nations, and later in the question whether we ought not to withdraw;
+and eventually we withdrew from some of the responsibilities, but not
+from all. Despite its traditional policy of not contracting entangling
+alliances, the United States was in the Pacific to stay.
+
+When Cleveland came into power the first time, he found a long-standing
+disagreement with Canada over the fisheries of the northeastern coast.
+An arrangement which had resulted from the Treaty of Washington in 1871
+came to an end in 1885, and the rights of American fishermen in
+Canadian waters then rested upon a treaty of 1818. This treaty was
+inadequate owing to various changes which had taken place during the
+nearly seventy years that had elapsed since it was drawn up. Several
+difficulties lay in the way of the arrangement of a new treaty, an
+important one being the readiness of the Republican Senate to embarrass
+the President and thus discredit his administration. Matters came to a
+critical point in 1886 when Canadian officials seized two American
+vessels engaged in deep-sea fishing. Cleveland then arranged a treaty
+which provided for reciprocal favors, and when the Senate withheld its
+assent the administration made a temporary agreement, (_modus
+vivendi_), under which American ships were allowed to purchase bait and
+supplies and to use Canadian bays and harbors by paying a license
+fee.[3]
+
+The peculiar geographical configuration of Alaska was, meanwhile,
+bringing the United States into another diplomatic controversy. An arm
+or peninsula of the possession extends far out into the Pacific and is
+continued by the Aleutian Islands, which resemble a series of
+stepping-stones reaching toward Siberia.[4] The Bering Sea is almost
+enclosed by Alaska and the Islands. Within the Sea and particularly on
+the islands of St. Paul and St. George in the Pribilof group, large
+numbers of seals gathered during the spring and summer to rear their
+young. In the autumn the herds migrated to the south, passing out
+through the narrow straits between the members of the Aleutian group,
+and were particularly open to attack at these points. As early as 1870
+the United States government leased the privilege of hunting fur seals
+on St. Paul and St. George to the Alaska Commercial Company, but the
+business was so attractive that vessels came to the Aleutian straits
+from many parts of the Pacific, and it looked as if the United States
+must choose between the annihilation of the herds and the adoption of
+some means for protecting them. The revenue service thereupon began the
+seizure in 1886 of British sealing vessels, taking three in that year
+and six during the next. The British government protested against the
+seizures on the ground that they had taken place more than three miles
+from shore--three miles being the limit to the jurisdiction of any
+nation, according to international law. The Alaskan Court which upheld
+the seizures justified itself by the claim that the whole Bering Sea
+was part of the territory of Alaska and thus was comparable to a harbor
+or closed sea (_mare clausum_), but Secretary Blaine disavowed this
+contention. The United States then requested the governments of several
+European countries, together with Japan, to cooperate for the better
+protection of the fisheries, but no results were reached.
+
+Continuance of the seizures in 1889 brought renewed protests from Lord
+Salisbury, who was in charge of foreign affairs. Blaine retorted that
+the destruction of the herds was _contra bonos mores_ and that it was
+no more defensible even outside the three mile limit than destructive
+fishing on the banks of Newfoundland by the explosion of dynamite would
+be. Lord Salisbury replied that fur seals were wild animals, _ferae
+naturae_, and not the property of any individual until captured. An
+extended diplomatic correspondence ensued, which resulted in a treaty
+of arbitration in 1892.[5]
+
+A tribunal of seven arbitrators was established, two appointed by the
+Queen of England, two by the President, and one each by the rulers of
+France, Italy and Sweden and Norway, the last two being under one
+sovereign at that time. Several questions were submitted to the
+tribunal. What exclusive rights does the United States have in the
+Bering Sea? What right of protection or property does the United States
+have in the seals frequenting the islands in the Sea? If the United
+States has no exclusive rights over the seals, what steps ought to be
+taken to protect them? Great Britain also presented to the arbitrators
+the question whether the seizures of seal-hunting ships had been made
+under the authority of the government of the United States.
+
+The decisions were uniformly against the American contention. It was
+decided that our jurisdiction in the Bering Sea did not extend beyond
+the three mile limit and that therefore the United States had no right
+of protection or property in the seals. A set of regulations for the
+protection of the herds was also drawn up. Another negotiation resulted
+in the payment of $473,000 damages by the United States for the illegal
+seizures of British sealers.[6]
+
+Relations with the Latin American countries south of the Mexican border
+had been unstable since the Mexican War, an unhappy controversy that
+left an ineradicable prejudice against us. John Quincy Adams and Henry
+Clay had hoped for a friendly union of the nations of North and South
+America, led by the United States, but this ideal had turned out to
+have no more substance than a vision. Moreover, the increasing trade
+activity of Great Britain and later of Germany had made a commercial
+bond of connection between South America and Europe which was, perhaps,
+stronger than that which the United States had established. Yet some
+progress was made. Disputes between European governments and the
+governments of Latin American countries were frequently referred to the
+United States for arbitration. An old claim of some British subjects,
+for example, against Colombia was submitted for settlement in 1872 to
+commissioners of whom the United States minister at Bogota was the most
+important. The problem was studied with great care and the award was
+satisfactory to both sides. In 1876 a territorial dispute between
+Argentina and Paraguay was referred to the President of the United
+States. In the case of a boundary controversy between Costa Rica and
+Nicaragua, President Cleveland appointed an arbitrator; Argentina and
+Brazil presented a similar problem which received the attention of
+Presidents Harrison and Cleveland.
+
+It fell to James. G. Blaine to revive the idea of a Pan-American
+conference which had been first conceived by Adams and Clay. As a
+diplomat, Blaine was possessed of outstanding patriotism and
+enthusiastic imagination, even if not of vast technical capacity or of
+an international mind. As Secretary of State under President Garfield
+in 1881 he invited the Latin American countries to share with the
+United States in a conference for the discussion of arbitration. The
+early death of Garfield and the ensuing change in the state department
+resulted in the abandonment of the project for the time being. Blaine,
+however, and other interested persons continued to press the plan and
+in 1888 Congress authorized the President to invite the governments of
+the Latin American countries to send delegates to a conference to be
+held in Washington in the following year. By that time President
+Harrison was in power. Blaine was again Secretary of State and was
+chosen president of the conference. Among the subjects for discussion
+were the preservation of peace, the creation of a customs union,
+uniform systems of weights, measures and coinage, and the promotion of
+frequent inter-communication among the American states. Little was
+accomplished, beyond a few recommendations, except the establishment of
+the International Bureau of American Republics. This was to have no
+governmental power, but was to be supported by the various nations
+concerned and was to collect and disseminate information about their
+laws, products and customs. The Bureau has become permanent under the
+name Pan American Union and is a factor in the preservation of friendly
+relations among the American republics. The reciprocity measure which
+Blaine pressed upon Congress during the pendency of the McKinley tariff
+bill was designed partly to further Pan-American intercourse.
+
+In the case of a disagreement with Chile, Blaine was less successful. A
+revolution against the Chilean President, Balmaceda, resulted in the
+triumph of the insurgents in 1891. The American minister to Chile was
+Patrick Egan, an Irish agitator who sympathized with President
+Balmaceda against the revolutionists and who was _persona non grata_ to
+the strong English and German colonies there. While Chilean affairs
+were in this strained condition, the revolutionists sent a vessel, the
+_Itata_, to San Diego in California for military supplies, and American
+authorities seized it for violating the neutrality laws. While the
+vessel was in the hands of our officers, the Chileans took control of
+it and made their escape. The cruiser _Charleston_ was sent in pursuit
+and thereupon the revolutionists surrendered the _Itata_. Not long
+afterward, however, a United States Court decided that the pursuit had
+been without justification under international law and ordered the
+release of the _Itata_. The result was that the United States seemed to
+have been over-ready to take sides against the revolutionists, and the
+latter became increasingly hostile to Americans.
+
+Relations finally broke under the strain of a street quarrel in the
+city of Valparaiso in the fall of 1891. A number of sailors from the
+United States ship _Baltimore_ were on shore leave and fell in with
+some Chilean sailors in a saloon. A quarrel resulted--just how it
+originated and just who was the aggressor could not be determined--but
+at any rate the Americans were outnumbered and one was killed. The
+administration pressed the case with vigor, declining to look upon the
+incident as a sailors' brawl and considering it a hostile attack upon
+the wearers of an American uniform. For a time the outbreak of war was
+considered likely, but eventually Chile yielded, apologized for its
+acts and made a financial return for the victims of the riot. Later
+students of Chilean relations have not praised Egan as minister or
+Blaine's conduct of the negotiations, but it is fair to note that the
+Chileans were prejudiced against the American Secretary of State
+because of an earlier controversy in which he had sided against them,
+and that the affair was complicated by the presence of powerful
+European colonies and by the passions which the revolution had aroused.
+
+Blaine was compelled to face another embarrassing situation in dealing
+with Italy in 1891-1892. In October, 1890, the chief of police of New
+Orleans, D.C. Hennessy, had been murdered and circumstances indicated
+that the deed had been committed by members of an Italian secret
+society called the Mafia. A number of Italians were arrested, of whom
+three were acquitted, five were held for trial and three were to be
+tried a second time. One morning a mob of citizens, believing that
+there had been a miscarriage of justice, seized the eleven and killed
+all of them. The Italian government immediately demanded protection for
+Italians in New Orleans, as well as punishment of the persons concerned
+in the attack, and later somewhat impatiently demanded federal
+assurance that the guilty parties would be brought to trial and an
+acknowledgment that an indemnity was due to the relatives of the
+victims of the mob. Failing to obtain these guarantees, the Italian
+government withdrew its minister. When a grand jury in New Orleans
+investigated the affair it excused the participants and none of them
+was brought to trial.
+
+The government at Washington was hampered by the fact that judicial
+action in such a case lies with the individual state under our form of
+government, whereas diplomatic action is of course entirely federal. If
+the states are tardy or derelict in action, the national government is
+almost helpless. President Harrison urged Congress to make offenses
+against the treaty rights of foreigners cognizable in the federal
+courts, but this was never done. Diplomatic activity, however, brought
+better results, and an expression of regret on the part of the United
+States, together with the payment of an indemnity of $24,000 closed the
+incident.
+
+Among the many troublesome questions that faced President Cleveland
+when he entered upon the Presidency in 1893 for the second time, the
+status of the Hawaiian Islands was important. Since the development of
+the Pacific Coast of the United States in the forties and fifties,
+there had been a growing trade between the islands and this country.
+Reciprocity and even annexation had been projected. In 1875 a
+reciprocity arrangement was consummated, a part of which was a
+stipulation that none of the territory of Hawaii should be leased or
+disposed of to any other power. In this way a suggestion was made of
+ultimate annexation. Moreover the commercial results of the treaty were
+such as to make a friendly connection with the United States a matter
+of moment to Hawaii. The value of Hawaiian exports had increased,
+government revenues enlarged, and many public improvements had been
+made. In 1884 the grant of Pearl Harbor to the United States as a naval
+station made still another bond of connection between the islands and
+their big neighbor.
+
+The King of Hawaii during this period of prosperity was Kalakaua.
+During a visit to the United States, and later during a tour of the
+world he was royally received, whereupon he returned to his island
+kingdom with expanded theories of the position which a king should
+occupy. Unhappily he dwelt more on the pleasures which a king might
+enjoy than upon the obligations of a ruler to his people. At his death
+in 1891 Princess Liliuokalani became Queen and at once gave evidence of
+a disposition to rule autocratically. Because of her attempts to revise
+the Hawaiian system of government so as to increase the power of the
+crown, the more influential citizens assembled, appointed a committee
+of public safety and organized for resistance. On January 17, 1893, the
+revolutionary elements gathered, proclaimed the end of the monarchical
+regime and established a provisional government under the leadership of
+Judge S.B. Dole. The new authorities immediately proposed annexation to
+the United States and a treaty was promptly drawn up in accord with
+President Harrison's wishes, and presented to the Senate. At this point
+the Harrison administration ended and Cleveland became President.
+
+Cleveland immediately withdrew the treaty for examination and sent
+James H. Blount to the islands to investigate the relation of American
+officials to the recent revolution. The appointment of Blount was made
+without the advice and consent of the Senate and was denounced by the
+President's enemies, although such special missions have been more or
+less common since the beginning of our history.[7] Blount reported
+that the United States minister to Hawaii, J.L. Stevens, had for some
+time been favorably disposed to a revolution in the islands and had
+written almost a year before that event asking how far he and the naval
+commander might deviate from established international rules in the
+contingency of a rebellion. "The Hawaiian pear is now fully ripe,"
+Stevens had written to the State Department, early in 1893, "and this
+is the golden hour for the United States to pluck it." Blount also
+informed the President that the monarchy had been overturned with the
+active aid of Stevens and through the intimidation caused by the
+presence of an armed naval force of the United States.
+
+The blunt language which Cleveland employed in his message to Congress
+on the subject, left no doubt about his opinion of the transaction.
+"The control of both sides of a bargain acquired in such a manner is
+called by a familiar and unpleasant name when found in private
+transactions." Believing that an injustice had been done and that the
+only honorable course was to undo the wrong, he sent A.S. Willis as
+successor to Stevens to express the President's regret and to attempt
+to make amends. One of the conditions however which President Cleveland
+placed upon the restoration of the Queen was a promise of amnesty to
+all who had shared in the revolution. The Queen was at first unwilling
+to bind herself and when she later agreed, a new obstacle appeared in
+the refusal of the provisional government to surrender its authority.
+Indeed it began to appear that the President's sense of justice was
+forcing him to attempt the impossible. The provisional government had
+already been recognized by the United States and by other powers, the
+deposition of the Queen was a _fait accompli_ and her restoration
+partook of the nature of turning back the clock. Moreover, force would
+have to be used to supplant the revolutionary authorities,--a task for
+which Americans had no desire. The President, in fact, had exhausted
+his powers and now referred the whole affair to Congress. The House
+condemned Stevens for assisting in the overturn of the monarchy and
+went on record as opposed to either annexation or an American
+protectorate. Sentiment was less nearly uniform in the upper chamber.
+The Democrats tended to uphold the President, the Republicans to
+condemn him. Although a majority of the committee on foreign relations
+exonerated Stevens, yet no opposition appeared to a declaration which
+passed the Senate on May 31, 1894, maintaining that the United States
+ought not to intervene in Hawaiian affairs and that interference by any
+other government would be regarded as unfriendly to this country.
+
+In the outcome, these events merely delayed annexation; they could not
+prevent it. In Hawaii the more influential and the propertied classes
+supported the revolution and desired annexation. In the United States
+the desire for expansion was stimulated by the fear that some other
+nation might seize the prize. The military and naval situation in 1898
+increased the demand for annexation, and in the summer of that year the
+acquisition was completed by means of a joint resolution of the two
+houses of Congress.[8] While negotiations were in progress Japan
+protested that her interests in the Pacific were endangered. Assurances
+were given, however, that Japanese treaty rights would not be affected
+by the annexation and the protest was withdrawn. The United States was
+now "half-way across to Asia."
+
+Most dangerous in its possibilities was the controversy with Great
+Britain over the boundary between British Guiana and Venezuela. British
+Guiana lies on the northern coast of South America, next to Venezuela
+and extends inland, with its western boundary roughly parallel to the
+valley of the Orinoco River. A long-standing disagreement had existed
+about the exact position of the line between the two countries--a
+disagreement which harked back to the claims of the Dutch, who had
+acquired Guiana in 1613 and had turned it over to the British in 1814.
+In 1840 England commissioned a surveyor named Schomburgk to fix the
+boundary but his decision was objected to by the Venezuelans who
+claimed that he included a great area that rightfully belonged to them.
+Gradually the British claims included more and more of the territory
+claimed by Venezuela, and the discovery of gold in the disputed region
+not only drew attention to the necessity of a settlement of the
+boundary but also attracted prospectors who began to occupy the land.
+In 1876 Venezuela began negotiations for some means of deciding the
+dispute and came to the conclusion that arbitration was her only
+recourse. On the refusal of Great Britain to heed her protests, the
+Venezuelan government suspended diplomatic relations in 1887, although
+the United States attempted to prevent a rupture by suggesting the
+submission of the difference to an arbitral tribunal. This offer was
+not accepted by Great Britain, and repeated exertions on the part of
+both Venezuela and the United States at later times failed to produce
+better results. When Cleveland returned to the presidency in 1893 he
+again became interested in the Venezuelan matter and Secretary of State
+Gresham urged the attention of the British government to the
+desirability of arbitration.
+
+President Cleveland was a man of great courage and had a very keen
+sense of justice. In his opinion a great nation was playing the bully
+with a small one, and the injustice stirred his feelings to the depths.
+With the President's approval Secretary Olney, who had succeeded
+Gresham on the death of the latter, drew up an exposition of the Monroe
+doctrine which was communicated to Lord Salisbury. This despatch, which
+was dated July 20, 1895, brought matters to a climax. In brief the
+administration took the position that under the Monroe doctrine the
+United States adhered to the principle that no European nation might
+deprive an American state of the right and power of self-government.
+This had been established American policy for seventy years. The
+Venezuelan boundary controversy was within the scope of the doctrine
+since Great Britain asserted title to disputed territory, substantially
+appropriating it, and refused to have her title investigated. At the
+same time Secretary Olney disclaimed any intention of taking sides in
+the controversy until the merits of the case were authoritatively
+ascertained, although the general argument of the despatch seemed to
+place the United States on the side of Venezuela. Moreover, Secretary
+Olney adopted a swaggering and aggressive, not to say truculent tone.
+He drew a contrast between monarchical Europe and self-governing
+America, particularly the United States, which "has furnished to the
+world the most conspicuous ... example ... of the excellence of free
+institutions, whether from the standpoint of national greatness or of
+individual happiness." The United States, he asserted, is "practically
+sovereign on this continent" because "wisdom and justice and equity are
+the invariable characteristics" of its dealings with others and because
+"its infinite resources combined with its isolated position render it
+master of the situation ... as against any or all other powers."
+
+Lord Salisbury did not reply to Secretary Olney for more than four
+months. He then asserted that President Monroe's message of 1823 had
+laid down two propositions: that America was no longer to be looked
+upon as a field for European colonization; and that Europe must not
+attempt to extend its political system to America, or to control the
+political condition of any of the American communities. In Lord
+Salisbury's opinion Olney was asserting that the Monroe doctrine
+conferred upon the United States the right to demand arbitration
+whenever a European power had a frontier difference with a South
+American community. He suggested that the Monroe doctrine was not a
+part of international law, that the boundary dispute had no relation to
+the dangers which President Monroe had feared and that the United
+States had no "apparent practical concern" with the controversy between
+Great Britain and Venezuela. He also raised some objections to
+arbitration as a method of settling disputes and asserted the
+willingness of Great Britain to arbitrate her title to part of the
+lands claimed. The remainder, he declared, could be thought of as
+Venezuelan only by extravagant claims based on the pretensions of
+Spanish officials in the last century. This area he expressly refused
+to submit to arbitration. The language of the Salisbury note was
+diplomatically correct, a fact which did not detract from the effect of
+the patronizing tone which characterized it.
+
+President Cleveland doggedly proceeded with his demands. On December
+17, (1895), he laid before Congress the correspondence with Lord
+Salisbury, together with a statement of his own position on the matter.
+Disclaiming any preconceived conviction as to the merits of the
+dispute, he nevertheless deprecated the possibility that a European
+country, by extending its boundaries, might take possession of the
+territory of one of its neighbors. Inasmuch as Great Britain had
+refused to submit to arbitration, he believed it incumbent upon the
+United States to take measures to determine the true divisional line.
+He suggested therefore that Congress empower the executive to appoint a
+commission to investigate and report. His closing words were so grave
+as to arouse the country to a realization of the dangerous pitch to
+which negotiations had mounted:
+
+    When such report is made and accepted it will in my opinion be the
+    duty of the United States to resist ... the appropriation by Great
+    Britain of any ... territory which after investigation we have
+    determined of right belongs to Venezuela. In making these
+    recommendations I am fully alive to the responsibility incurred,
+    and keenly realize all the consequences that may follow. I am
+    nevertheless firm in my conviction that while it is a grievous thing
+    to contemplate the two great English-speaking peoples ... as being
+    otherwise than friendly ... there is no calamity ... which equals
+    that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice.
+
+Congress at once acceded to Cleveland's wishes and appropriated
+$100,000 for the proposed investigation. For a brief moment neither
+Great Britain nor America quite realized the meaning of the President's
+warlike utterance. In America it had generally been felt previously
+that his foreign policy was conciliatory rather than aggressive and,
+besides, the Venezuelan dispute had but little occupied popular
+attention. When it became evident that war was a definite possibility,
+public interest followed every step with anxiety. Newspaper sentiment
+divided. The press generally judged Cleveland's stand strong and
+"American." On the other hand, a few periodicals like the _Nation_
+insinuated that the President was actuated by the desire to make
+political capital for a third term campaign and characterized his
+action as "criminally rash and insensate," "ignorant and reckless,"
+"impudent and insulting." Influential citizens in both countries made
+energetic attempts to prevent anything that might make war inevitable.
+The Prince of Wales and Lord Roseberry threw their influence on the
+side of conciliation. A.J. Balfour declared that a conflict with the
+United States would carry something of the "horror of civil war" and
+looked forward to the time when the country would "feel that they and
+we have a common duty to perform, a common office to fulfill among the
+nations of the world."
+
+The President appointed a commission which set to work to obtain the
+information necessary for a judicial settlement of the boundary, and
+both Great Britain and Venezuela tactfully expressed a readiness to
+cooperate. Their labors, however, were brought to a close by a treaty
+between the two disputants providing for arbitration. A prominent
+feature of the treaty was an agreement that fifty years' control or
+settlement of an area should be sufficient to constitute a title, a
+provision which withdrew from consideration much of the territory to
+which Venezuela had laid claim. In October, 1899, the arbitration was
+concluded. The award did not meet the extreme claims of either party,
+but gave Great Britain the larger share of the disputed area, although
+assigning the entire mouth of the Orinoco River to Venezuela.
+
+Besides giving new life to the Monroe doctrine as an integral part of
+our foreign policy, the incident served to illustrate the dangers of
+settling international disputes in haphazard fashion. In January, 1897,
+therefore, Secretary Olney and the British Ambassador at Washington,
+Sir Julian Pauncefote, negotiated a general treaty for the settlement
+of disputes between the two countries by arbitration. Even with the
+example of the possible consequences of the Venezuelan controversy
+before it, however, the Senate failed to see the necessity for such an
+expedient, defeated the treaty by a narrow margin and left the greatest
+problem of international relations--the settlement of controversies on
+the basis of justice rather than force--to the care of a future
+generation.
+
+On the whole, as has already been noted, the history of American
+diplomacy from 1877 to 1897 is scarcely more than an account of a
+series of unrelated incidents. Not only did the foreign policy of
+Blaine differ sharply from that of Cleveland, but there was no great
+question upon which public interest came to a focus, except temporarily
+over the Venezuelan matter, and no lesser problems that continued long
+enough to challenge attention to the fact that they remained unsolved.
+There were visible, nevertheless, several important tendencies. Our
+attitude toward Samoa and Hawaii indicated that the instinctive desire
+to annex territory had not disappeared with the rounding out of the
+continental possessions of the United States; American interest in
+arbitration as a method of settling disputes was expressed again and
+again; the place of the Monroe doctrine in American international
+policy was clearly shown; and the determination of the United States to
+be heard in all affairs that touched her interests was demonstrated
+without any possibility of doubt.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The most complete and reliable authority is J.B. Moore, _A Digest of
+International Law_ (8 vols. 1906), by one who was intimately connected
+with many of the incidents of which he wrote; the text of the treaties
+is in W.M. Malloy, _Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, etc.,
+between the United States of America and other Powers_ (2 vols., 1910).
+Valuable single volumes are: J.B. Moore, _American Diplomacy_ (1905);
+and C.B. Fish, _American Diplomacy_ (1915). W.F. Johnson, _America's
+Foreign Relations_ (2 vols., 1916), is interesting but somewhat marred
+by the author's tendency to take sides on controversial points; see
+also J.B. Henderson, _American Diplomatic Questions_ (1901). J.S.
+Bassett, _Short History of the United States_ (1913), contains a brief
+and compact chapter.
+
+Essential material on particular incidents is found in the following.
+On Japan, "Our War with One Gun" in _New England Magazine_, XXVIII,
+662; J.M. Callahan, _American Relations in the Pacific and the Far
+East_ (1901); W.E. Griffis, _Townsend Harris_ (1896). On Samoa, J.W.
+Foster, _American Diplomacy in the Orient_ (1903); R.L. Stevenson,
+_Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa_ (1892). On the seal fisheries, J.W.
+Foster, _Diplomatic Memoirs_ (2 vols., 1909). On Hawaii, Cleveland's
+message in J.D. Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the Presidents_,
+IX, 460. On Venezuela, Grover Cleveland, _Presidential Problems_,
+Chap. IV.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The development of the United States as a commercial power was
+seen in the increased use of consuls as agents for procuring and
+publishing industrial and commercial information.
+
+[2] Cf. Fish, _American Diplomacy_, 398.
+
+[3] For later aspects of the controversy, see below, pp. 532-533.
+
+[4] Cf. map p. 10.
+
+[5] J.W. Foster, who was intimately connected with the case, suggests
+that the defects in the American argument were due partly to following
+briefs prepared by an agent of the Alaska Commercial Company in
+Washington. The agent was interested in getting everything possible for
+his company but his knowledge of the law in the case was slight. Cf.
+Foster, _Memoirs_, II, 26 f.; Moore, _American Diplomacy_, 97-104.
+
+[6] The attempts to protect the herds by government regulation failed
+to have any important results. An international arrangement was made in
+1911, but the slaughter had proceeded so far that grave question arose
+whether any agreement would be effective short of absolute prohibition.
+In 1912 Congress passed a law forbidding any killing on the land for a
+term of five years; in 1917 when the restrictions were released the
+herds had greatly increased. In 1918 the seals numbered 530,480.
+_American Year Book_, 1918, 503-4.
+
+[7] Cf. _Political Science Review_, Aug., 1916, 481-499.
+
+[8] Cf. below, p. 387 ff. Hawaii was brought into the Union as a
+territory in 1900.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+THE RISE OF THE WAGE EARNER
+
+In their handling of the labor problem, the governments of the states
+and the nation showed greater ignorance and less foresight than
+characterized their treatment of any of the other issues of the
+quarter century following the Civil War. Yet the building of the
+railroads and their consolidation into great systems, the development
+of manufacturing and its concentration into large concerns, and the
+growth of an army of wage earners brought about a problem of such size
+and complexity as to demand all the information and vision that the
+country could muster.
+
+The phenomenal accumulation of wealth in the fields of mining,
+transportation and manufacturing which characterized the new
+industrial America formed the basis of a powerful propertied class.
+Some of the wealth was amassed by such unscrupulous methods as those
+which caused the popular demand for government regulation of the
+railroads and trusts. The prizes of success were big. The men who made
+their way to the top--men like Gould, Fisk, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller
+and Carnegie--were pioneers whose courage, foresight, and daring were
+combined with sufficient ruthlessness to enable them to triumph where
+others failed. A few of them, like Carnegie, had some slight
+conception of the meaning of the labor problem; most of them did not.
+Linked to the industrial pioneer by community of interest was the
+holder of the war bonds of the federal government. These securities
+were purchased with depreciated paper currency but increased very
+greatly in value after the successful outcome of the struggle, and
+formed an investment whose value it is extremely difficult to
+estimate. The owners of the stocks and bonds of the railroads and
+manufacturing combinations further swelled the ranks of the propertied
+class. Stability, continuous business and large earnings were the
+immediate considerations to this group. Anything which interfered was,
+naturally, a thing to be fought. Never before, unless in the South in
+slavery days, had a more powerful social class existed in the United
+States. A large fraction of the group was composed of men who had
+risen from poverty to wealth in a short time. From one point of view
+such a man is a "self-made" man, industrious, frugal, able, energetic,
+bold. From another point of view he is a _parvenu_, narrow,
+overbearing, ostentatious, proud, conceited, uncultivated. The
+relatively small size of the propertied class and an obvious community
+of interest tended to make its members reach a class consciousness
+even during the Civil War. The success of the group in preventing all
+tariff reduction after 1865 was a striking example of the solidarity
+of its membership and its readiness for action.
+
+Class consciousness among the wage earners developed much more slowly,
+and in the nature of things was much less definite. Nevertheless the
+history of the industrial turmoil of the quarter century after the
+Civil War is the history of a class groping for political, social and
+economic recognition.
+
+At the close of the war the labor situation was confused and
+complicated. A million and a half of men in the North and South had to
+be readmitted to the ranks of industry. Approximately another million
+had died or been more or less disabled during the conflict. A stream
+of immigrants, already large and constantly increasing, was pouring
+into the North and seeking a means of livelihood. As has been seen,
+most of these settled in the manufacturing and mining sections of the
+northern and eastern states, helped to crowd the cities, and
+overflowed into the fertile, free lands of the mid-West. Nearly
+800,000 of them reached the United States in one year, 1882. Most of
+them were men--an overwhelming portion of them men of working age,
+unskilled, frequently illiterate and hence compelled to seek
+employment in a relatively small number of occupations. Both the
+chances of unemployment and the danger of a lowered standard of living
+were increased by the immigrants.
+
+The greater use of machinery during the progress of the war has
+already been alluded to, but some of its results demand further
+mention.[1] Most evident was the huge increase in the volume and
+value of the products of the factories. The labor of a single worker
+increased in effectiveness many times; in other words, the labor cost
+of a unit of production greatly diminished with the improvement of
+mechanical devices. The labor cost of making nails by hand in 1813 was
+seventy fold the cost of making them by machinery in 1899; loading ore
+by hand was seventy-three times as expensive in 1891 as machine
+loading was in 1896. Increased production encouraged greater
+consumption, enhanced competition for markets, and opened the world to
+the products of American labor. Moreover, the introduction of
+machinery emphasized the importance of capital. When iron was rolled
+by hand, when cloth was produced by the use of the spinning wheel and
+hand-loom, when fields were tilled by inexpensive plow and hoe,
+relatively small amounts of capital were needed by the man who started
+in to work. Mechanical inventions revolutionized the situation. A
+costly power-loom enabled its owner to eliminate handworking
+competitors. If a workman could raise sufficient money or credit to
+purchase a supply of machines he could "set up in business," employ a
+number of "hands" and merely direct or manage the enterprise. Under
+such a system the employer must make enough profit to pay interest on
+his investment and to repair and replace his equipment. His attention
+was fixed on these elements of his industrial problem and the
+well-being of the laborer sank to a lower plane of importance. If the
+employer found the labor supply plentiful he had the upper hand in
+setting the wage-scale; the unorganized employee was almost completely
+at his mercy, because the employer could find another workman more
+easily than the workman could find another job. Meanwhile the workman
+knew the increased product which he was turning out, and became
+discontented because he did not see a corresponding increase in his
+remuneration.
+
+From about 1830, when the rapid development of the use of mechanical
+appliances began, to the late eighties and early nineties when the new
+regime was meeting its sternest conflicts in the trust problem and the
+militant labor unions, the army of the wage earner was growing faster
+than the population. Between 1870 and 1890, for example, the
+population increased 63 per cent., while the number of laborers
+engaged in manufacturing increased nearly 130 per cent. By the latter
+year, 6,099,058 persons, about a tenth of the total population, were
+employed in transportation, mining and manufacturing.
+
+It was noticeable, also, that the wage earners tended to concentrate.
+The laborers engaged in manufacturing were to be found, for the most
+part, in the Northeast, and especially in such leading industrial
+cities as New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. Furthermore, the
+development of the factory system and the consolidation of many small
+companies into a few great ones tended to localize the labor problem
+still further--in a relatively small number of plants. The
+concentration of industry in great factories where large numbers of
+workers labored side by side ended the paternal care which the
+old-time employer had expended upon his employees. With the
+introduction of machinery, the danger of accidents due to the
+ignorance or carelessness of fellow workmen increased. The use of
+mechanical appliances also gave opportunity for the employment of
+women and children, and thus raised the question whether any
+restrictions ought to be placed upon the employment of these classes
+of people. The construction of factories, their ventilation, sanitary
+appliances, and safe-guards for health and comfort became subjects of
+importance.
+
+With the example of consolidation before them that was presented by
+the railroads and the corporations, it was inevitable that the wage
+earners should organize for their protection and advancement. Labor
+organizations of wage earners have existed in the United States since
+1827, and between that time and 1840 came a considerable awakening
+among the laboring classes which was part of a general humanitarian
+movement throughout the country. Robert Owen, an English industrial
+idealist, had visited this country about 1825 and provided the
+initiative for a short-lived communistic settlement at New Harmony,
+Indiana. Similar enterprises were established at other points; the
+most famous of these was that at Brook Farm in Massachusetts, which
+enlisted the interest and support of many of the literary people of
+New England. The expanding humanitarian and idealistic movement was
+cut short by the Civil War, but the development of industrialism went
+on uninfluenced by the spirit of social progress which might have
+permeated it. After reconstruction was over, a new generation had to
+become impressed with the evils which needed correction and to set
+itself to the task which civil strife had thrust aside.
+
+The need of a responsible organization of wage earners was indicated
+by the career of the Molly Maguires. The Molly Maguires constituted an
+inner circle of Irish Catholics who controlled the activities of the
+branches of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in the hard-coal counties
+of eastern Pennsylvania. During the war and immediately after it the
+group gained a little power in local politics, and also undertook to
+punish mine owners, bosses and superintendents who offended members of
+the Order. Intimidation became common, and even murder was resorted to
+until the region was fairly terrorized. It seemed impossible to combat
+the Mollies because their activities were shrouded in secrecy.
+Usually, for example, when a murder was to be committed, a member
+would be brought in from an outside district in order that he might
+not be recognized if discovered, and he would be aided in escaping
+after the crime. Finally the president of the Philadelphia and Reading
+Railroad procured a Pinkerton detective named James McParlan who went
+into the region and remained for two years. During this time he posed
+as a fugitive from justice and as a counterfeiter, became a member of
+the Order, a confidant of the Molly Maguires, and collected evidence.
+Armed with the knowledge acquired by McParlan, the officials were able
+to arrest and convict twenty-four criminals, of whom ten were
+executed, and the career of the Mollies came to an end.
+
+The activities of the Molly Maguires were symptomatic of what might
+occur throughout the ranks of labor during the confused period of
+adjustment after the war, and yet they were temporary and local in
+their effect on the development of the labor movement. The history of
+the great labor controversies after the war properly begins with the
+Knights of Labor, an association which originated in Philadelphia in
+1869 as the result of the efforts of a garment cutter named Uriah S.
+Stephens.[2] In the beginning, the affairs of the Knights were veiled
+in dense secrecy; even the name of the society was never mentioned but
+was indicated by five stars--*****. As the number of members increased,
+however, all manner of disquieting and untruthful rumors spread
+concerning its purposes, so that the element of secrecy was done away
+with in 1881 and a declaration of principles was made public. The
+fundamental purpose of the Knights was the formation of an order which
+should include all branches of the wage earners and which should aim
+to improve their economic, moral, social and intellectual condition.
+Emphasis was placed, that is to say, on the welfare of the laboring
+classes as a whole, rather than upon that of any particular trade or
+craft. The organization was centralized and the interests of the group
+were developed on a national scale. The growth of the association was
+extremely rapid at times, reaching a climax in the middle eighties
+when about 700,000 members, both men and women, made it a power in
+industrial disputes. Some of the members taken in at this time were
+extremists--European anarchists, for example--who urged a violent
+policy and got almost if not quite out of control of the officers
+during 1886. In the late eighties the membership dwindled rapidly,
+owing to the failure of strikes instituted by the order, and its place
+and influence were largely taken by the American Federation of Labor.
+
+The latter body was the outgrowth of a convention held in Pittsburg in
+1881, but it did not adopt its final name until 1886. Its purpose was
+to group labor organizations of all kinds, leaving the government of
+each affiliated body with the body itself. Each of the members of the
+Federation is composed of workers in a given trade or industry, like
+the International Typographical Union, the United Mine Workers, and
+many others. The annual convention is composed of delegates from the
+constituent societies. The growth of the organization was rapid and
+continuous. Coincidently with the expansion of the Knights of Labor
+and the growth of the American Federation came the great development
+of the labor press. Professor Ely estimated late in the eighties that
+possibly five hundred newspapers were devoted to the needs of the
+labor movement. The numerous farmers' organizations, typified by the
+Patrons of Husbandry, are other examples of the growing tendency
+toward cohesion among the less powerful classes. Indeed, the Grange
+originated only a year earlier than the Knights of Labor, and like it
+was a secret order.
+
+The wage earners, then, were rapidly becoming class-conscious. They
+had found conditions which seemed to them intolerable, had formed
+organizations on a national scale and had drawn up a definite program
+of principles and reforms. The exact grievances which inspired the
+Knights, the Federation and other less important organizations are
+therefore of immediate importance.
+
+In order to secure for the wage earner a sufficient money return for
+his work, and sufficient leisure for the education of his intellectual
+and religious faculties, and to enable him to understand and perform
+his duties as a citizen, the Knights demanded the establishment of
+bureaus of labor for the collection of information; the reservation of
+the public lands for actual settlers; the abrogation of laws that did
+not bear equally on capital and labor; the adoption of measures for
+the health and safety of the working classes; indemnity for injuries
+due to the lack of proper safeguards; the recognition of the
+incorporation of labor unions; laws compelling corporations to pay
+laborers weekly; arbitration in labor disputes; and the prohibition of
+child labor. The Knights of Labor also favored state ownership of
+telegraphs and railroads, as well as an eight hour working day. The
+purposes of the American Federation scarcely differed from this
+program, although its methods and its form of organization were quite
+distinct.
+
+At the present time, when most of these demands have been met in one
+degree or another, it is difficult to see why there should have been
+delay and contention in agreeing to a program which, so far as it
+deals with labor problems pure and simple, appears both modest and
+reasonable. But the state of mind of a large fraction of the nation
+was not in accord with ambitions which doubtless seemed excessively
+radical. Fundamentally a great portion of the propertied classes held
+a low estimate of the value and rights of the laboring people, as well
+as of the possibilities of their development, and feared that evil
+results would follow from attempts to improve their condition. The
+employment of children in factories, it was thought, would inculcate
+in them the needed habits of industry, and the reduction of the
+working hours would merely provide time which would be spent in the
+acquirement of vicious practices. If, in addition, the employers
+opposed such changes as the abolition of child labor and the reduction
+of the working day to eight hours on the ground of the financial
+sacrifice which seemed to be involved, their attitude was in keeping
+with the ruthless exploitation of the human resources of the country
+which was common during this period. It should be remembered, too,
+that the lofty conception which most Americans held of the
+opportunities and customs of their country stood in the way of a frank
+study of conditions and an equally frank admission of abuses. For
+decades we had reiterated that America was the land of opportunity,
+that economic, political and social equality were the foundations of
+American life and that the American workingman was the best fed and
+the best clothed workingman in the world. In the face of this view of
+industrial affairs it was difficult to be alert to manifold abuses and
+needed reforms. To one holding this view of affairs--and it was a
+common view--the laborer who demanded better conditions was
+unreasonable and unappreciative of how "well off" he was. Hence the
+blame for the labor unrest was frequently laid on the foreigner, who
+was supposed to bring to America the opposition to government which
+had been fostered in him by less democratic institutions abroad.
+Undoubtedly immigration greatly complicated industrial conditions, as
+has been indicated, yet essentially the labor question arose from the
+upward progress of a class in American society and was as inevitable,
+foreigner or no foreigner, as the coming of a new century.
+
+Two illustrations will throw light upon some of the demands which the
+wage earners frequently presented. Writing in August, 1886, Andrew
+Carnegie, the prominent steel manufacturer, discussed the proper
+length of the working day. Every ton of pig-iron made in the world,
+with the exception of that made in two establishments, he asserted,
+was made by men working twelve hours a day, with neither holiday nor
+Sunday the year round. Every two weeks it was the practice to change
+the day workers to the night shift and at that time the men labored
+twenty-four hours consecutively. Moreover, twelve to fifteen hours
+constituted a day's work in many other industries. Working hours for
+women and children had almost equally slight reference to their
+physical well-being.
+
+The "truck-system" was a less widespread abuse, but one that caused
+serious trouble at certain points. Under this plan, a corporation
+keeps a store at which employees are expected to trade, or are
+sometimes forced to do so. Obviously such a store might be operated to
+the great benefit of the workman and without loss to the employer, but
+the temptation to make an unfair profit and to keep the laborer always
+in debt to the company was very great. A congressional committee which
+investigated conditions in Pennsylvania in 1888 found that prices
+charged in company stores ran from ten per cent. to 160 per cent.
+higher than prices in other stores in the vicinity, and that a workman
+was more likely to keep his position if he traded with the company.
+
+The most insistent cause of industrial conflict was the question of
+wages. Forty-one per cent. of all the strikes between 1881 and 1900
+were for more pay; twenty-six per cent., for shorter hours. Between
+the close of the war and the early nineties, industrial prosperity was
+widespread except for the period of prostration following 1873 and the
+less important depression of 1884. Not unnaturally the laborer desired
+to have a larger share of the product of his work. The individual,
+however, was impotent before a great corporation, when the wage-scale
+was being determined; hence workmen found it advantageous to combine
+and bargain collectively with their employer, in the expectation that
+he would hesitate to risk the loss of all his laboring force, whereas
+the loss of one or a few would be a matter of indifference.
+
+In the meanwhile, a little ameliorative labor legislation was being
+passed by state legislatures and by Congress. A Massachusetts law of
+1866 forbade the employment of children under ten years of age in
+manufacturing establishments, prohibited the employment of children
+between the ages of ten and fourteen for more than eight hours per
+day, and provided that children who worked in factories must attend
+school at least six months in the year. In 1868 a federal act
+constituted eight hours a day's work for government laborers, workmen
+and mechanics, but some doubt arose as to the intent of part of it and
+the law was not enforced. In many states eight-hour bills were
+introduced, but were defeated in all except six, of which Connecticut,
+Illinois and California were examples, and even in these cases the
+laws were not properly drawn up or were not enforced. In 1869 a Bureau
+of Statistics of Labor was established in Massachusetts which led the
+way for similar enterprises in other states. It collected information
+concerning labor matters and reported annually to the legislature. In
+1874 a Massachusetts ten-hour law forbade the employment of women and
+minors under eighteen for more than sixty hours a week, although
+refraining from the regulation of working hours for men. In 1879, in
+imitation of English factory acts, Massachusetts passed a general law
+relating to the inspection of manufacturing establishments. It
+provided that dangerous machinery must be guarded, proper ventilation
+secured, elevator wells equipped with protective devices and
+fire-escapes constructed. Other states followed slowly, but
+legislation was frequently negatived by lack of effective
+administration. In brief, then, agitation previous to 1877 had
+resulted in the passage of a few protective acts, but even these were
+restricted to a few states and were not well enforced. It was,
+therefore, more than a mere coincidence that the first general strike
+movement spread over the country in this same year, 1877.
+
+It will be remembered that the great railroad strikes of that year
+extended over many of the northern roads but caused most trouble in
+Martinsburg, West Virginia, Pittsburg and other railway centers. Much
+property was destroyed, lives were lost, and the strikers failed to
+obtain their ends.[3] Other effects of the controversy, moreover,
+made it an important landmark in the history of the labor question.
+The inconvenience and suffering which the strike caused in cities far
+distant from the scene of actual conflict indicated that the
+transportation system was already so essential a factor in welding the
+country together that any interruption to its operation had become
+intolerable. The hostility of some of the railway managers to union
+among their laborers and the rumors that they were determined to crush
+such organizations augured ill for the future. The hordes of
+unemployed workmen and the swarms of tramps which had resulted from
+the continued industrial depression of 1873 insured rioting and
+violence during the strike, whether the strikers themselves favored it
+and shared in it or not. The destruction of property which resulted
+from the strike caused many state legislatures to pass conspiracy laws
+directed against labor; more attention was paid to the need of trained
+soldiers for putting down strikes, and the construction of many
+armories followed; and the courts took a more hostile attitude toward
+labor unions. Equally important was the effect on the workmen
+themselves. When the strike became violent and the state militia
+failed to check it, the strikers found themselves face to face with
+federal troops. President Hayes could not, of course, refuse to
+repress the rioters; nevertheless his action aligned the power of the
+central government against the strikers, and seemed to the latter to
+align the government against the laborers as a class. Of a sudden,
+then, the labor problem took on a new and vital interest; workingmen's
+parties "began to spring up like mushrooms"; and the laboring men saw
+more clearly than ever the essential unity of their interests.
+
+Industrial unrest increased rather than diminished during the
+prosperous eighties; for the first five years of the decade, strikes
+and lockouts together averaged somewhat over five hundred annually.
+The climax came in "the great upheaval" of 1884 to 1886.[4] In the
+latter year nearly 1600 controversies involved 610,024 men and a
+financial sacrifice estimated at $34,000,000. Early in May, 1886,
+occurred the memorable Haymarket affair in the city of Chicago. The
+city was a center of labor agitation, some of it peaceful, some of it
+in the hands of radical European anarchists whose methods were shown
+in a statement of one of their newspapers, _The Alarm_, on February
+21, 1885:
+
+    Dynamite! Of all the good stuff, this is the stuff. Stuff several
+    pounds of this sublime stuff into an inch pipe ... plug up both
+    ends, insert a cap with a fuse attached, place this in the
+    immediate neighborhood of a lot of rich loafers ... and light
+    the fuse. A most cheerful and gratifying result will follow.
+
+On May 1 strikes began for the purpose of obtaining an eight hour day.
+During the course of the strike some workmen gathered near the
+McCormick Reaper Works; the police approached, were stoned, and
+retorted by firing upon the strikers, killing four and wounding many
+others. Thereupon the men called a meeting in Haymarket Square to
+protest against the action of the police; in the main they were
+orderly, for Mayor Carter Harrison was present and found nothing
+objectionable. Later in the evening, when the Mayor and most of the
+audience had left, remarks of a violent nature seem to have been made,
+and at this point a force of 180 police marched forward and ordered the
+meeting to disperse. Just then a bomb was thrown into the midst of the
+police, killing seven and wounding many others. The entire nation was
+shocked and terrified by the event, as hitherto anarchy had seemed to
+be a far-away thing, the product of autocratic European governments.
+The thrower of the bomb could not be discovered, but numerous
+anarchists were found who themselves possessed such weapons or had
+urged violence in their speeches or writings. Eight of them, nearly all
+Germans, were tried for murder on the ground that the person who threw
+the bomb must have read the speeches or writings of the accused
+anarchists and have been thereby encouraged to do the act. The
+presiding judge, Joseph E. Gary, was of the opinion that the
+disposition in the guilty man to throw the bomb was the result of the
+teaching and advice of the prisoners. The counsel for the accused
+declared that since the guilty person could not be found it was
+impossible to know whether he had ever heard or read anything said or
+written by the prisoners, or been influenced by their opinions.
+Eventually seven anarchists were convicted, of whom four were hanged,
+one committed suicide, and three were imprisoned. In 1893 the Governor
+of Illinois, John P. Altgeld, pardoned the three prisoners, basing his
+action mainly on the ground that no proof had been brought forward to
+show that they were in any way acquainted with the unknown
+bomb-thrower. The result of the conviction was the break-up of the
+radical anarchistic movement and also the temporary discrediting of the
+general agitation for an eight hour day, although neither the Knights
+of Labor nor the Federation of Labor had any connection with the
+anarchists, and both deprecated violence.
+
+In the meanwhile, Congress had concerned itself slightly with the labor
+problem. In 1884 a Bureau of Labor had been established to collect
+information on the relation of labor and capital. Two years later, just
+before the Haymarket affair, President Cleveland had sent a message to
+Congress in which he adverted to the many disputes which had recently
+arisen between laborers and employers, and urged legislation to meet
+the exigency. Considerations of justice and safety, he thought,
+demanded that the workingmen as a class be looked upon as especially
+entitled to legislative care. Although Cleveland deprecated violence
+and condemned unjustifiable disturbance, he believed that the
+discontent among the employed was due largely to avarice on the part of
+the employing classes and to the feeling among workmen that the
+attention of the government was directed in an unfair degree to the
+interests of capital. On the other hand, he suggested that federal
+action was greatly limited by constitutional restrictions. He
+accordingly urged that the Bureau of Labor be enlarged and that
+permanent officers be appointed to act as a board of arbitration in
+industrial disputes. The legislative branch was not inclined to follow
+Cleveland's lead, although he returned to the subject after the
+Haymarket affair, for it was commonly felt that his suggestion was too
+great a step in the direction of centralization of government. Two
+years later, in 1888, a modest act was passed which provided for the
+investigation of differences between railroads and their employees, but
+only when agreed to by both parties, and no provision was made for the
+enforcement of the decision of the investigators. The practical results
+were not important. Similar action had already been taken in a few
+states. By 1895 fifteen states had laws providing for voluntary
+arbitration, but the results were slight in most cases.
+
+Very little progress was being made in the states in the passage of
+other industrial legislation. In Alabama and Massachusetts in the
+middle eighties acts extended and regulated the liability of employers
+for personal injuries suffered by laborers while at work.[5] At the
+same time the attitude of the legislatures and the courts in some
+states toward strikes underwent a slight modification. In many states
+where the legislatures had not passed definite statutes to the
+contrary, it had been held by the courts that strikers could be tried
+and convicted for conspiracy. In a few cases, states passed acts
+attempting to define more exactly the legal position of strikers. A New
+York court in 1887, for example, held that the law of the state
+permitted workmen to seek an increase of wages by all possible means
+that fell short of threats or violence. Before the close of Cleveland's
+second administration, considerable progress had been made in state
+legislation concerning conditions and hours of labor for women and
+children, protection of workers from dangerous machinery, the payment
+of wages, employer's liability for accidents to workmen, and other
+subjects. On the other hand, in some cases unreasonable or
+ill-considered actions on the part of the unions or their active
+agents--the "walking delegates"--turned popular sentiment against them.
+Particularly was this true in cases of violence and of strikes or
+boycotts by unions in support of workmen in other trades at far distant
+points.
+
+During the presidential campaign of 1892 a violent strike at the
+Carnegie Steel Company's works in Homestead, Pennsylvania, arose from a
+reduction in wages and a refusal of the Company to recognize the Iron
+and Steel Workers' Union. An important feature of this disturbance was
+the use of armed Pinkerton detectives by the Company for the protection
+of its buildings. Armed with rifles they fell into conflict with the
+workmen, a miniature military campaign was carried on, lives were lost
+and large amounts of property destroyed. Eventually the entire militia
+of the state had to be called out to maintain peace.
+
+It remained, however, for Chicago and the year 1894 to present one of
+the most far-reaching, costly and complex labor upheavals that has ever
+disturbed industrial relations in America. So ill understood at the
+time were the real facts of the controversy that it is doubtful whether
+it is possible even now to distinguish between truth and rumor in
+regard to some of its aspects.
+
+The town of Pullman, near Chicago, was the home of the Pullman Palace
+Car Company, a prosperous corporation with a capital of $36,000,000. It
+provided houses for its employees, kept up open stretches of lawn,
+flower beds and lakes. In 1893 and 1894, when general business
+conditions were bad, the Company reduced the wages of its workmen about
+twenty-five per cent. A committee of the men asked for a return to
+former rates, but they were refused, three members of the committee
+were laid off, and the employees then struck. Late in June, 1894, the
+American Railway Union, to which many of the workmen belonged, took up
+the side of the men, and the General Managers' Association, comprising
+officials of twenty-four roads entering Chicago, took the side of the
+Company. Through the entry of the Union and the Association, the
+relatively unimportant Pullman affair expanded to large proportions.
+Violence followed; cars were tipped over and burned; property was
+stolen and tracks ruined; and eventually the United States government
+was drawn into the controversy.
+
+Numerous complaints having reached Washington that the mails were being
+obstructed and interstate commerce interfered with, President Cleveland
+decided to send troops to Chicago. The Constitution requires that the
+United States protect states against domestic violence on the application
+of the legislature, or of the executive when the legislature is not
+in session. Moreover the statutes of the United States empower the
+President to use federal force to execute federal laws. The position
+taken by the Governor of Illinois, John P. Altgeld, was expressed in
+his telegram to President Cleveland protesting against the action of
+the executive:
+
+    Should the situation at any time get so serious that we cannot
+    control it with the State forces, we will promptly and freely ask
+    for Federal assistance; but until such time I protest with all due
+    deference against this uncalled-for reflection upon our people,
+    and again ask for the immediate withdrawal of these troops.
+
+The President replied that troops were being sent in accordance with
+federal law upon complaint that commerce and the passage of the mails
+were being obstructed. A somewhat acrimonious correspondence between
+the Governor and the President resulted but the troops were retained
+and assisted in bringing the strike to a conclusion.
+
+The attitude of the courts, meanwhile, had brought up a serious
+situation. On July 2 a "blanket injunction" was issued by the United
+States District Court of Illinois and posted on the sides of the cars.
+It forbade officers, members of the Union and all other persons to
+interfere in any way with the operation of trains or to force or
+persuade employees to refuse to perform their duties. Under existing
+law, anybody who disobeyed the injunction could be brought before the
+Court for contempt, and sentenced by the judge without opportunity to
+bring witnesses and to be tried before a jury. When Eugene V. Debs, the
+president of the Union, and other officers continued to direct the
+strike they were arrested for contempt of court and imprisoned.[6]
+With federal troops against them and their officers gone, the strikers
+could hardly continue and gave up in defeat. The loss in property and
+wages had already reached $80,000,000.
+
+The apportionment of the blame for so appalling a controversy was not a
+simple task. On the one hand, a writer in the _Forum_ declared that
+
+    The one great question was of the ability of this Government to
+    suppress insurrection. On the one, side was the party of lawlessness,
+    of murder, of incendiarism, and of defiance of authority. On the
+    other side was the party of loyalty to the United States.
+
+But this was a superficial view. A commission of investigation
+appointed by President Cleveland looked into the matter more deeply.
+Its unanimous report made important assertions: the Pullman Company,
+while providing a beautiful town for its employees, charged rents
+twenty to twenty-five per cent. higher than were charged in surrounding
+towns for similar accommodations, and the men felt a compulsion to
+reside in the houses if they wished to retain their positions; when
+wages were reduced, the salaries of the better paid officers were
+untouched, so that the burden of the hard times was placed on the
+poorest paid employees; there was no violence or destruction of
+property in Pullman, and much of the rowdyism in Chicago, but not all
+of it was due to the lawless adventurers and professional criminals who
+filled the city at that time;[7] when various public officials and
+organizations attempted to get the Company to arbitrate the dispute,
+the uniform reply was that the points at issue were matters of fact and
+hence not proper subjects for arbitration; and the Managers'
+Association selected, armed and paid 3,600 federal deputy marshals who
+acted both as railroad employees and as United States officers, under
+the direction of the Managers.
+
+In view of the amount of labor disturbance after the Civil War, it was
+noteworthy that it attracted the interest of political parties to so
+slight a degree previous to 1896. In general the national platforms of
+the two large parties reflected an indefinite if not remote concern
+with the welfare of the wage earner. It was urged, to be sure, by both
+protectionists and tariff reformers that customs duties should be
+framed with the welfare of the laborer in mind, but the sincerity of
+this concern was sometimes open to question. The smaller parties, as
+usual, were far less vague in their demands. The Labor Reformers in
+1872 demanded the eight-hour day, for example; the Greenbackers had a
+definite program for relief in 1880; the Anti-Monopolists in 1884 and
+the Union Labor and the United Labor parties in 1888. By 1892 the great
+parties found themselves face to face with a growing labor vote. The
+labor planks in the two platforms of that year were strikingly similar.
+Each called for federal legislation to protect the employees of
+transportation companies, but looked to the states for the relief of
+employees engaged in manufacturing. Neither the Socialist Labor party
+nor the Populists, however, were greatly troubled by the question of
+the proper distribution between state and nation of the responsibility
+for the welfare of the wage earner. Both proposed definite action; both
+urged the reduction in length of the working day. The Populists
+condemned the use of Pinkertons in labor disputes and the Socialists
+urged arbitration, the prohibition of child labor, restrictions on the
+employment of women in unhealthful industries, employers' liability
+laws and the protection of life and limb.
+
+In brief, then, the situation of the wage-earning classes in the middle
+nineties was becoming accurately defined. The strike as a weapon was
+open to serious objections. The leaders of the two large parties had
+given no evidence of an effective and immediate interest in labor
+unrest. The other political parties were too small to afford chances of
+success. If less reliance was to be placed upon the strike and more
+upon political action, either a third party must be constructed or the
+leadership in one of the old ones must be seized. When the conference
+of labor officials met in Chicago and concluded that the Pullman strike
+was lost, it issued an address to the members of the American Railway
+Union advising a return to work, closer organization of the laboring
+class and the correction of industrial wrongs at the ballot box. If
+this advice should be taken, and if the wage earner should attempt to
+control legislation for his economic interest, as the propertied class
+had long been doing for its benefit, the struggle might be shifted to
+the political arena. The interest of the workers in the South and West
+in the Populist movement suggested the possibility that such a shift
+might occur.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+Surprisingly little attention has been paid to the social aspects of
+the growth of the laboring classes before 1896. There is ample
+material, however, on the more obvious sides of the labor movement,
+such as the growth of the organizations and the use of the strike.
+
+The _Documentary History of American Industrial Society_ (10 vols.,
+1910-1911), contains a little documentary material on the period after
+1865; J.R. Commons and others, _History of Labour in the United States_
+(2 vols., 1918), is the best and most recent historical account; T.S.
+Adams and H.L. Sumner, _Labor Problems_ (1905), is useful; consult also
+R.T. Ely, _Labor Movement in America_ (3rd ed., 1890); C.D. Wright,
+_The Industrial Evolution of the United States_ (1897), by a practical
+expert; G.E. McNeill, _The Labor Movement_ (1887); J.R. Buchanan,
+_Story of a Labor Agitator_ (1903); S.P. Orth, _The Armies of Labor_
+(1919), contains a good bibliography; John Mitchell, _Organized Labor_
+(1903); T.V. Powderly, _Thirty Years of Labor_ (1890); _Quarterly
+Journal of Economics_ (Jan., 1887), Knights of Labor; J.H. Bridge,
+_Inside History of the Carnegie Steel Co._ (1903). On the Haymarket
+affair, compare _Century Magazine_ (Apr., 1893), and J.P. Altgeld,
+_Reasons for Pardoning Fielden, Neebe and Schwab_; on the Pullman
+strike, Grover Cleveland, _Presidential Problems_, and the report of
+the commission of investigation in Senate Executive Documents, 53rd
+Congress, 3rd session, vol. 2 (Serial Number 3276). Edward Stanwood,
+_History of the Presidency_, contains political platform planks on
+labor. The reports of the Commissioner of Labor (1886-), and of the
+state bureaus of statistics of labor in such states as Massachusetts
+(1870-), and New York (1884-), are essential for the investigator.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Cf. above, p. 64
+
+[2] Two earlier organizations had a brief existence, the National
+Labor Union and the Industrial Brotherhood.
+
+[3] Above, pp. 133-134.
+
+[4] For the effect on the Knights of Labor, see p. 310.
+
+[5] For the legal side of this matter, consult Wright, _Industrial
+Evolution_, 278-282.
+
+[6] The Court based its action mainly on the provisions of Section 2
+of the Sherman anti-trust law, which thus had an unforeseen effect. The
+Supreme Court upheld the action, although on broader grounds. Above, p.
+256, cf. 159 _U.S. Reports_, 564.
+
+[7] In 1893 the "World's Fair" in Chicago had celebrated the four
+hundredth anniversary of the landing of Columbus, and many of the
+criminals attracted by the event had remained in the city.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+MONETARY AND FINANCIAL PROBLEMS
+
+The critical monetary and financial situation during Cleveland's second
+administration is understandable only in the light of a series of acts
+which were passed between 1878 and 1893. It will be remembered that in
+the former year the Bland-Allison act had provided for the purchase and
+coinage of two million to four million dollars' worth of silver bullion
+per month, and that the force behind the measure had been found chiefly
+among westerners who wished to see the volume of the currency increased
+and among mine owners who were producing silver.
+
+The passage of the law did not end all opposition to the greater use of
+silver, nor did it solve all our monetary difficulties. In the first
+place, the United States sent delegates to an International Monetary
+Conference in Paris, in conformity with one of the provisions of the
+Bland-Allison act, to discuss a project for the utilization of silver
+through an agreement among the commercial nations of the world. No
+tangible results were obtained, however, so that it was plain that for
+the time, at least, the United States would be alone in its attempt to
+bring about the greater use of the white metal. In the meantime the law
+was put into operation, and the secretary of the treasury exercised his
+option by purchasing the minimum amount, two million dollars' worth of
+bullion. It was impossible to keep the coins in circulation, however,
+mainly because of their weight, and the policy was therefore adopted
+of storing part of the silver in the government vaults and issuing
+paper "silver certificates" in its place. As these were of small
+denominations and circulated on a par with gold, no immediate
+difficulty was experienced in making them part of the currency supply
+of the country.
+
+The currency question, nevertheless, remained as complicated as ever
+and the differences of opinion upon it as diverse as before. The market
+price of silver steadily declined through the eighties and the bullion
+value of the metal in a dollar sank from ninety-three cents in 1878 to
+less than seventy-one cents in 1889. Both Republican and Democratic
+secretaries of the treasury gave warning that the inflow of silver into
+the currency supply was too great. President Arthur urged the repeal of
+the Bland-Allison act in his first annual message; President Cleveland
+again and again reiterated the same advice, warning Congress of the
+danger that silver would be substituted for gold. The argument of the
+opponents of silver could hardly be stated in more concise or complete
+terms. As soon as the supply of currency became too great, he asserted,
+the unnecessary portion would go out of circulation;[1] it was the
+experience of nations that the more desirable coin--gold, in this
+case--would be hoarded by banks and speculators; it would then become
+apparent that the bullion value of the gold dollar was greater than
+that of the silver dollar and the two coins would part company; those
+who, in such a contingency, could get gold dollars would demand a
+premium for them, while the laboring man, unable to demand gold, would
+find his silver dollar sadly shrunken in value.
+
+Although the coinage of silver in the twelve years during which the
+Bland-Allison act was in force amounted to $378,000,000, the danger
+that Cleveland's prophecy would come to pass was lessened by several
+facts. The country was, in the first place, passing through a period of
+industrial expansion that required an enlarged circulating medium; the
+revenues of the government were exceeding expenditures, and part of the
+surplus was being stored in the vaults in Washington; and the volume of
+the national bank notes shrank more than $158,000,000 between 1880 and
+1890. Falling prices for agricultural products continued to keep
+western discontent alive and far from being convinced by Cleveland's
+warnings, western conventions and representatives in Congress continued
+to urge legislation to increase the amount of silver to be coined, and
+free-coinage bills were constantly introduced and frequently near
+passage. Manifestly the demand that something more be done for silver
+was not at an end.
+
+Although agitation over the use of silver currency resulted in no
+further important legislation for the time being, the general financial
+situation was complicated by a series of important acts. During the
+eighties the federal revenues mounted to an unprecedented height and as
+expenses did not increase proportionately, a surplus of large and
+finally of embarrassing and dangerous size appeared.
+
+[Illustration:
+Financial Operations, 1875-1897 in millions]
+
+Between 1880 and 1890 it averaged more than $100,000,000 annually.
+Although part of it was used to reduce the public debt, the remainder
+began to accumulate in the treasury and thereby seriously reduced the
+amount of currency available for the ordinary needs of business. In
+1888, for example, the surplus in the treasury was one-fourth as great
+as the entire estimated sum outside. The one device for doing away with
+the surplus upon which all leaders could unite was the reduction of the
+national debt. Between 1879 and 1890 over $1,000,000,000 were thus
+disposed of. Yet even this process raised difficulties. Although a
+portion of the debt came due in 1881 and could be redeemed at the
+pleasure of the government, other bonds were not redeemable until 1891
+and 1907, unless the federal authorities chose to go into the market
+and buy at a premium. Eventually this was done for a time, although
+prices were thereby forced up to 130 in 1888, and as a result the
+redemption of $95,000,000 during the year cost more than $112,000,000.
+The treasury also adopted the expedient of depositing surplus funds in
+banking institutions, but the plan was open to serious objections. In
+order to qualify for receiving government deposits the banks had to
+present United States bonds as security, but these were already at a
+high premium because of purchase by the treasury itself. There
+remained, therefore, two general policies which might be
+followed--reduction of revenue or enlargement of expenditure.
+
+Both parties were theoretically committed to the economical conduct of
+the nation's business, but Republican advocacy of a high tariff tended
+to restrict that party's answer to the surplus problem. The revenue
+came largely from tariff and internal taxes. The latter were reduced,
+as has been seen, by the tariff act of 1883, but the redundant income
+continued. The Republicans then faced the alternative of lowering the
+customs or turning to the policy of increased expenditure. The latter
+policy would delay the reduction of duties and was in line with the
+Republican tendency toward increased federal activity. For the
+Democrats the problem was easier. Since the party was tending toward
+advocacy of low customs duties, had constantly condemned Republican
+extravagance in administration and was traditionally the party of a
+restricted national authority, it was logical to turn to severe
+reduction of revenue in order to solve the problem of the surplus.
+
+President Cleveland's political and personal philosophy led toward
+economy in expenditure and therefore toward revenue reduction. By
+nature he was frugal; in politics, a strict constructionist. In vetoing
+an appropriation bill he succinctly set forth his creed:
+
+    A large surplus in the Treasury is the parent of many ills, and
+    among them is found a tendency to an extremely liberal, if not
+    loose, construction of the Constitution. It also attracts the gaze
+    of States and individuals with a kind of fascination, and gives
+    rise to plans and pretensions that an uncongested Treasury never
+    could excite.
+
+The Republicans were becoming committed to the policy of large
+expenditures. President Harrison, to be sure, in his first annual
+message urged the reduction of receipts, declaring that the collection
+of money not needed for public use imposed an unnecessary burden upon
+the people and that the presence of a large surplus in the treasury was
+a disturbing element in the conduct of private business. Nevertheless
+such party leaders as Reed and McKinley, who effectively controlled the
+legislation of the Harrison administration, acted on the philosophy of
+Senator Dolph:
+
+    If we were to take our eyes off the increasing surplus in the
+    Treasury and stop bemoaning the prosperity of the country, ... and
+    to devote our energies to the development of the great resources
+    which the Almighty has placed in our hands, to increasing (our
+    products) ... to cheapening transportation by the improving of our
+    rivers and harbors, ... we would act wiser than we do.
+
+Congress was more inclined to follow the policy suggested by Dolph than
+that proposed by Cleveland. One project was the return of the direct
+tax which had been levied on the states at the outbreak of the Civil
+War. At that time Congress had laid a tax of $20,000,000 apportioned
+among the states according to population. About $15,000,000 had been
+collected, mainly, of course, from the northern states. It was
+suggested that the levy be returned, a plan which would give the
+northern states a return in actual cash and the southern states "the
+empty enjoyment of the remission from a tax which no one now dared to
+suggest was ever to be made good." President Cleveland had vetoed such
+a bill, during his first administration, believing it unconstitutional
+and also objectionable as a "sheer, bald gratuity." Under the Harrison
+administration the scheme was revived and carried to completion, March
+2, 1891.
+
+Pension legislation was even more successful as a method of reducing
+the unwieldy surplus. Garfield had declared in 1872, when introducing
+an appropriation bill in the House of Representatives, "We may
+reasonably expect that the expenditures for pensions will hereafter
+steadily decrease, unless our legislation should be unwarrantably
+extravagant," and in fact the cost of pensions for 1878 had been lower
+by more than $7,000,000 than in 1871. The Arrears act of 1879 had given
+a decided upward tendency to pension expense, which amounted to over
+$20,000,000 more in 1880 than in 1879. The surplus was a constant
+invitation to careless generosity. Liberality to the veteran was a
+patriotic duty which lent itself to the fervid stump oratory of the
+time and presented an opportunity to the undeserving applicant to place
+his name on the rolls of pensioners along with his more worthy
+associates. Besides, an administration which seemed niggardly in its
+attitude toward the veterans was certain to lose the soldier vote, and
+neither party was willing to incur such a risk. Hence, despite
+Cleveland's vetoes of private pension legislation, hundreds of such
+measures passed during his first term. The Harrison administration
+proceeded upon the President's theory that it "was no time to be
+weighing the claims of old soldiers with apothecary's scales." A
+dependent pension bill like that which President Cleveland vetoed in
+1887 was passed in 1890. The list of pensioners more than doubled in
+length; the number of applications for aid increased tenfold in two
+years. It became necessary for President Harrison to displace his
+over-liberal commissioner of pensions, but the mischief was already
+done. The total yearly pension expenditure quickly mounted beyond the
+one hundred million mark, where it has remained ever since. Indeed, the
+cost of pensions in 1872 when Garfield made his prophecy was less than
+one-sixth as great as in 1913. Large pension expenditure was clearly a
+permanent charge.
+
+The improvement of the rivers and harbors of the country has always
+been a ready means of disposing of any embarrassing surplus and of
+assisting Congressmen to get money into their districts. "Promoters of
+all sorts of schemes, beggars for the widening of rivulets, the
+deepening of rills" clustered about the treasury during the eighties.
+During the early seventies expenditure on this account had not reached
+$6,500,000 annually, although in 1879 it exceeded $8,000,000. In 1882,
+the year of the mammoth surplus, Congress passed over Arthur's veto a
+bill carrying appropriations which amounted to almost nineteen million
+dollars.[2] Expenditures were somewhat reduced in the years
+immediately following, and Cleveland continued the repressive policy of
+his predecessor. Harrison in his first message to Congress in December,
+1889, recommended appropriations for river and harbor improvement,
+although deprecating the prosecution of works not of public advantage.
+The recommendation fell upon willing ears and appropriations for
+undertakings of this sort at once increased again. Expenditure for
+rivers and harbors, like that for pensions, remained at a high level,
+the wise and necessary portions of such measures being relied upon to
+carry the unwise and unnecessary ones.
+
+A project which lacked many of the unpleasant features of river and
+harbor legislation was the Blair educational bill, which proposed to
+distribute a considerable portion of the surplus among the states. As
+discussion of the Blair bill proceeded, it became clear that its
+results might be more far-reaching than had been anticipated. A gift
+from the national government seemed sure to retard local efforts at
+raising school funds and would initiate a vicious tendency to rely on
+federal bounty. Hence although the Senate passed the bill in 1884, 1886
+and 1888, it never commended itself sufficiently to the House and
+eventually was dropped.
+
+A small portion of the increased expenditure in the eighties was due to
+improvements in the navy, in which both parties shared. Presidents
+Arthur and Cleveland urged upon Congress the need of modern defences.
+Progress was slow and difficult. Although the day of steel ships had
+come, the American navy was composed of wooden relics of earlier days.
+The manufacture of armor and of large guns had to be developed, and
+skill and experience accumulated. Results began to appear in the late
+eighties when the number of modern steel war vessels increased from
+three to twenty-two in four years. Expenditures mounted from less than
+$14,000,000 in 1880 to over $22,000,000 in 1890.
+
+As effective as new expenditure was the McKinley tariff act of 1890,
+the details of which from the point of view of tariff history have
+already been noted.[3] The extremely high rates levied under that
+legislation caused a slight reduction in customs revenue in 1891 and a
+sharp decline in 1892. Moreover the coincidence of instability in the
+currency system, business depression and the relatively high
+Wilson-Gorman tariff schedules of 1894 continued the decline of income
+from customs during the middle nineties.
+
+In the meantime the silver agitation, which had been somewhat repressed
+by the well-known attitude of Cleveland during his first administration
+revived with increased vigor. The election of 1888, it will be
+remembered, had turned wholly on the tariff and had been a victory for
+the Republicans. The western states had almost uniformly supported
+Harrison in the election and during 1889 four more were admitted to the
+Union. Their representatives in Congress were mainly silver advocates.
+In his first message to Congress the President declared that the evil
+anticipations which had accompanied the use of the silver dollar had
+not been realized but he feared nevertheless that either free coinage
+or any "considerable increase" of the present rate of coinage would be
+"disastrous" and "discreditable." He announced that a plan would be
+presented by the Secretary of the Treasury, to which he had been able
+to give only a hasty examination. The scheme for expanding the silver
+coinage which the Secretary, William Windom, presented was not
+acceptable to Congress, but the result of the agitation was the law
+generally known as the Sherman silver purchase act, which was passed on
+July 14, 1890. It directed the secretary of the treasury to purchase
+4,500,000 ounces of silver bullion per month and to issue in payment
+"Treasury notes of the United States." These notes were legal tender
+for all debts and were receivable for customs and all public dues.
+Further, the secretary was directed to redeem the notes in gold or
+silver at his discretion, "it being the established policy of the
+United States to maintain the two metals on a parity with each other."
+
+[Illustration:
+Total Silver Coinage, 1873-1894, in millions of dollars]
+
+The silver to be purchased was substantially the total output of the
+American mines. Fearing the strength of the silver element in the
+Senate and doubtful of the position which the President might take,
+former Secretary Sherman, now in the Senate, supported the act,
+although confessing that he was ready to vote for repeal at any time
+when it could be done without substituting free coinage. The provision
+for the purchase of four and one-half million ounces instead of four
+and one-half million dollars' worth was introduced at Sherman's
+suggestion. This clause kept the amount to be absorbed at a uniform
+level, whereas the purchase of a fixed number of dollars' worth would
+have increased the coinage when the price of bullion fell. The vote on
+the Sherman act was strictly partisan--no Republicans opposing it and
+no Democrats favoring it when the measure was finally passed, although
+116 members of the House failed to answer to their names on the
+roll-call.
+
+In view of the fact that the industrial and commercial countries of
+Europe were almost universally reducing their silver coinage, the
+passage by the United States of an act which substantially doubled
+the amount of silver purchased under the Bland-Allison law seems
+extraordinary. Moreover, only six years later a presidential campaign
+was fought almost wholly on the silver issue and at that time the
+Republican party resolutely opposed free coinage. It is obvious that
+powerful forces must have been at work to align the party so unitedly
+in behalf of the Sherman law. It was to be expected that western
+Republicans would support it, but the eastern members were found
+voting for it as well. Doubtless many things contributed to the
+result. Some perhaps agreed with Sherman that the silver advocates
+were so strong that free coinage would result in case Congress refused
+to pass legislation of any kind. Some may have feared with Platt of
+Connecticut, that a party split would ensue unless the wishes of the
+westerners were acceded to--hence an act which gave liberal assistance
+to silver to please the West and South but stopped short of free
+coinage so as to please the East. That opportunist politics had an
+influence with certain members is indicated by the remarks of a
+Massachusetts Republican representative who later favored the gold
+standard:
+
+    It is pure politics, gentlemen; that is all there is about it.
+    We Republicans want to come back and we do not want you (to
+    the Democratic side) to come back in the majority, because,
+    on the whole, you must excuse us for thinking we are better
+    fellows than you are. That is human nature, that is all there
+    is in this silver bill (laughter on the Republican side); pure
+    politics.
+
+A Democrat who favored free coinage denounced the act as "Janus-Faced,"
+moulded so as to look like silver to the West and gold to the East.
+Important, also, seems to have been the attitude of the western members
+on the tariff. The party had returned to power on the tariff issue and
+it seemed necessary to pass some sort of legislation on the subject.
+Yet the party majority in Senate and House was slight and the
+westerners were understood to be ready to defeat the McKinley bill
+which was then pending, unless something was done for silver. Harrison
+seems to have been unwilling to endanger successful tariff legislation
+by opposing the considerable extension of the coinage of silver.[4]
+
+Contrary to the expectations of the proponents of the act, the price of
+silver fell gradually until the value of the bullion in a dollar was
+sixty cents in 1893 and forty-nine cents in 1894. They who had opposed
+the law saw their fears verified; as they had prophesied, silver began
+to replace gold in circulation; the latter was hoarded and used for
+foreign shipments; customs duties, which had hitherto been paid largely
+in gold, were now paid in paper currency; since gold was now more
+desired than silver, large amounts of paper were presented to the
+government for redemption in the more valuable metal. To be sure, the
+Sherman law allowed the secretary of the treasury to redeem the
+treasury notes of 1890 in gold or silver at his discretion, but it
+contained a proviso that the established policy of the United States
+was to maintain the two metals on a parity or equality. The secretary
+believed that if he refused to redeem the treasury notes in whatever
+coin the holder desired, that is if he insisted on redemption in silver
+only, a discrimination would be made in favor of gold and the equality
+of the two metals would be destroyed. Parity would be maintained, the
+government held, only when any kind of money could be exchanged for any
+other kind, at the option of the holder.
+
+For the redemption of the greenbacks, the government had since 1879
+maintained a fund known as the gold reserve. No law fixed its amount,
+but custom had set $100,000,000 as the minimum. Hitherto a negligible
+amount of paper had been presented for redemption, but as soon as the
+Sherman law came into effective operation the demand for gold became
+increasingly great and the level of the reserve promptly fell. Between
+July 1, 1890, and July 15, 1893, the supply of gold in the treasury
+decreased more than $132,000,000, while the stock of silver increased
+over $147,000,000. Evidently silver was replacing gold in the treasury,
+and it was equally clear that a continuation of the process would
+result in forcing the government to pay its obligations in silver and
+to refuse to redeem paper in gold--in other words, go upon a silver
+standard.
+
+The situation when Cleveland's second administration began on March 4,
+1893, was complex and critical. The annual expenditures had increased
+by $119,000,000 between 1880 and 1893, while the revenue had expanded
+by only half that amount; the surplus had decreased every year during
+Harrison's administration and a deficit had been avoided only by the
+cessation of payments on the public debt; the supply of currency in
+circulation was being heavily increased by the operation of the Sherman
+law; and the gold reserve had been kept at the traditional amount only
+through extraordinary efforts on the part of Harrison's Secretary of
+the Treasury as the administration came to a close.
+
+Cleveland's attitude toward the Sherman law was well-known. He had long
+urged the repeal of the Bland-Allison act; before the election of 1892
+he had predicted disaster in case the nation entered upon "the
+dangerous and reckless experiment of free, unlimited, and independent
+silver coinage"; it was his belief that the distresses under which the
+country labored were due principally to the Sherman silver purchase
+law. He therefore called a special session of Congress for August 7,
+(1893), sent a message giving a succinct account of the operation of
+the law and urged its immediate repeal.[5] In the House, repeal was
+voted with surprising promptness, although a strong free-silver element
+fought vigorously to prevent it. That party lines were broken was
+indicated by the fact that two-thirds of the Democrats and four-fifth
+of the Republicans voted in accord with the President's request.
+
+In the Senate the silver advocates were stronger. The entire history of
+coinage was discussed at length. Members who favored repeal disliked to
+overturn the tradition of the Senate which allowed unlimited debate,
+and the silver senators therefore filibustered through the summer and
+early fall. Senator Jones of Nevada made a single speech that filled a
+hundred dreary pages of the _Congressional Record_. Senator Allen of
+Nebraska quoted more than thirty authorities, ranging from the Pandects
+of Justinian to enlivening doggerel poetry. Feeling ran high. In the
+West, Jones, Allen and others were looked upon as heroes; in the East,
+as villains. To a satirical onlooker it seemed that the nation had
+become insanely obsessed with the question of repeal:
+
+    All men of virtue and intelligence know that all the ills of
+    life--scarcity of money, baldness, the comma bacillus, Home
+    Rule, ... and the Potato Bug--are due to the Sherman Bill. If it
+    is repealed, sin and death will vanish from the world, ... the
+    skies will fall, and we shall all catch larks.
+
+Not until October 30 were the silver supporters overcome. Including
+members who were paired, twenty-two Democrats and twenty-six
+Republicans favored repeal, and twenty-two Democrats, twelve
+Republicans and three Populists opposed. Again the West and South were
+aligned against the North and East. The Democratic party was divided
+and charges and countercharges had been made that augured ill for party
+success, as has been seen, in dealing with the tariff and other
+important problems.[6] Worst of all, the chief question--the volume
+and content of the currency--was still unanswered. Something had been
+done for silver--and undone--but there was no scientific settlement of
+the problem.
+
+The disastrous financial and industrial crisis of 1893 made yet more
+complex the already tangled skein of economic history during President
+Cleveland's second administration. The catastrophe has been ascribed to
+a variety of causes but the relative importance of the various factors
+is still a matter of disagreement. Rash speculation on the part of
+industrial interests here and abroad seems to have made weak links in
+the international commercial chain; financial conditions both in
+Germany and in Great Britain were precarious during the early part of
+1890; the collapse of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad in
+February, 1893, and of the National Cordage Company soon afterwards
+were warnings of what was to follow; the silver purchase law produced
+widespread fear that the United States would not be able to continue
+the redemption of paper currency; and the change of political control
+had produced the usual feeling of uncertainty. The dwindling of the
+gold reserve, which has already been mentioned, assisted in causing a
+critical situation. Foreign investors, fearful of financial conditions
+here, sold their American railroad and other securities and received
+payment in gold. The one place where the yellow metal could be readily
+obtained was the United States treasury and upon it the strain
+centered. People attempted to turn property of all kinds into gold
+before the existing standard should change to a depreciated silver
+basis. At the same time there was a rush to the banks to withdraw
+funds, and the visible supply of currency therefore was seriously
+reduced. "Under these conditions gold seemed scarce. In reality gold
+was only relatively scarce in comparison with the abnormal offering of
+property for sale on account of the fear of the silver standard." In an
+incredibly short time, currency became so scarce as to create a genuine
+panic and was purchased like any commodity at premiums ranging from one
+to three per cent. In order to enable their families to pay the running
+expenses of every day at the summer resorts, business men were
+compelled to buy bills and coin and send them in express packages. The
+national banks were unable to supply the demand for currency so
+quickly, and 158 of them failed in 1893 and hundreds of state and
+private financial institutions were forced to close their doors.
+Industrial firms were affected by the uncertainty and panic and over
+15,000 failures resulted, with liabilities amounting to $347,000,000 in
+the single year. Production of coal and iron fell sharply; railway
+construction nearly ceased and the value of securities shrank to a
+fraction of their former value. The distress among the wage-earners
+became extreme; unemployment was common; strikes, like that beginning
+in Pullman in 1894, were bitter and prolonged. "Coxey's army," composed
+of unemployed workmen, marched to Washington with a petition for
+relief.
+
+As is usually the case in our politics, the blame for the industrial
+disturbance was laid at the door of the party in power. The argument of
+an Ohio congressman in the debate over the repeal of the Sherman law
+typified the political use made of the crisis of 1893. Until November,
+1892, the orator declared, prosperity was undimmed. "Iron furnaces
+throughout the country were in full blast, and their cheerful light was
+going up to heaven notifying the people of the United States of
+existing prosperity and warning them against change of conditions."
+Then came the election of the party "which had declared war on the
+system upon which our whole industrial fabric had been erected." "One
+by one the furnaces went out, one by one the mines closed up, one after
+another the factories shortened their time." Business interests, he
+asserted, were fearful of Democratic rule and especially of tariff
+reform; hence prosperity and confidence could be renewed only by
+leaving the Sherman law intact and by refusing to undertake any
+sweeping revision of the protective tariff.
+
+[Illustration:
+Net Gold in the Treasury, by months,
+Jan., 1883 to Feb., 1896, in millions of dollars]
+
+Further to complicate the financial trials of the burdensome mid-nineties,
+the depletion of the gold reserve demanded immediate attention. During
+the closing months of President Harrison's administration, in fact, the
+Secretary of the Treasury had ordered the preparation of plates for
+engraving an issue of bonds by which to borrow sufficient gold to
+replenish the redemption fund. By a personal appeal to New York bankers,
+however, he was able to exchange paper for gold and so keep the level
+above the one hundred million mark, and when Cleveland succeeded to
+the chair, the reserve was $100,982,410. In the meantime the scarcity
+of gold continued, and the combination of large expenditures and
+slender income severely embarrassed the government in its attempts to
+obtain a sufficient supply of gold to keep the reserve intact. The
+administration, indeed, was all but helpless. Paper presented for
+redemption in gold had to be paid out to meet expenses and was then
+turned in for gold again. Hence, as Cleveland ruefully reminded
+Congress, "we have an endless chain in operation constantly depleting
+the Treasury's gold and never near a final rest." On April 22, 1893,
+the reserve fell momentarily below $100,000,000 and later in the year
+it was apparent that the reduction was likely to become permanent.
+By January, 1894, the reserve was less than $70,000,000, while
+$450,000,000 in paper which might be presented for redemption were in
+actual circulation. Only one resource seemed available--borrowing gold.
+The treasury therefore sold bonds to the value of $50,000,000. Even
+this, however, did not remedy the ill. Bankers obtained gold to
+purchase bonds by presenting paper currency to the government for
+redemption. Relief was temporary. On the last day of May the reserve
+amounted to only $79,000,000; in November, to $59,000,000. Another
+issue of bonds was resorted to in November, but the results were not
+better than before. At the same time the Pullman strike during the
+summer months, the Wilson-Gorman tariff fiasco and an unfortunate
+harvest seemed to indicate that man and nature were determined to make
+1894 a year of ill-omen.
+
+By February, 1895, the treasury found itself confronted with a reserve
+of only $41,000,000. It seemed useless to attempt borrowing under the
+usual conditions, and Cleveland therefore resorted to a new device. A
+contract was made with J.P. Morgan and a group of bankers for the
+purchase of 3,500,000 ounces of gold to be paid for with United States
+four per cent. bonds. In order to protect the reserve from a renewed
+drain, the bankers agreed that at least half the gold should be
+obtained abroad, and they promised to exert all their influence to
+prevent withdrawals of gold from the treasury while the contract was
+being filled. The terms of the contract were favorable to the bankers,
+but the President defended the agreement on the ground that the
+promise to protect the reserve entitled the bankers to a favorable
+bargain. The fact, however, that the Morgan Company was able to market
+the bonds with the public and make a large profit, increased the
+demand that the administration sell directly to the people and make
+the profit itself. In January, 1896, occurred a fourth sale--to the
+public, this time--and 4,640 bids were received, for a total several
+times greater than the $100,000,000 called for. By this time, business
+conditions were improving, confidence was restored among the financial
+classes and gold again began to flow out of hiding and into the
+treasury. The endless chain was broken.
+
+The denunciation which Cleveland received for the untoward monetary and
+industrial events of his administration was unusual even for American
+politics in the middle nineties. Such extreme silver men as Senator
+Stewart of Nevada declared that Cleveland's second administration was
+probably the worst administration that ever occurred in this or any
+other country; that he was a bold and unscrupulous stock-jobber; that
+he deliberately caused the panic of 1893 and that he sent the Venezuela
+message in order to divert the attention of the people from the silver
+question. The New York _World_ described the transaction between the
+government and the Morgan Company as a "bunco" game, and charged that
+Cleveland had dishonest, dishonorable and immoral reasons for bringing
+about the transaction and that he did it for a "consideration."
+Representative W.J. Bryan, who belonged to the President's party and
+who ordinarily was chivalrous to his opponents, declared that Cleveland
+could no more escape unharmed from association with the Morgan
+syndicate than he could expect to escape asphyxiation if he locked
+himself up in a room and turned on the gas. The Democratic party, he
+thought, should feel toward its leader as a confiding ward would feel
+toward a guardian who had squandered a rich estate, or as a passenger
+would feel toward a trainman who opened a switch and precipitated a
+wreck.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The standard works, mentioned under Chapter V, by Dewey, Hepburn and
+Noyes continue valuable. The attitude of Hayes and of succeeding
+Presidents is found in J.D. Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the
+Presidents_; F.W. Taussig, _The Silver Situation in the United States_
+(1892), is concise; _Political Science Quarterly_, III, 226, discusses
+the surplus revenue; _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, III, 436, on the
+direct tax; W.H. Glasson, _Federal Military Pensions_, has already been
+mentioned. W.J. Lauck, _Causes of the Panic of 1893_ (1907), lays the
+blame for the industrial distress of 1893 wholly on the silver law of
+1890. On the gold reserve, consult Grover Cleveland, _Presidential
+Problems_; D.R. Dewey, _National Problems_ (1907); _Political Science
+Quarterly_, X, 573; and _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, XIII, 204.
+"The Silver Debate of 1890," in _Journal of Political Economy_, I, 535,
+contains a detailed account of the discussion in Congress. W.J. Bryan,
+_First Battle_ (1897), should be consulted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] According to the principle known as Gresham's law, bad money tends
+to drive out good; or overvalued money to drive out undervalued money.
+If the face value of a coin is more than its worth as bullion, it is
+"overvalued." Thus, if coins of equal face value, but of different
+bullion value, circulate side by side, there will be a tendency for the
+possessors of the coins to pass on the currency with the smaller
+bullion value and to withdraw the others for sale as bullion and for
+use in the arts.
+
+[2] Above, p. 164.
+
+[3] Above, pp. 238-240.
+
+[4] The law remained in force about three years. During that interval
+nearly $156,000,000 worth of silver bullion was purchased with the new
+treasury notes. The government began retiring these notes in 1900.
+
+[5] The call for the extra session, together with news of the
+suspension of free-coinage in India, sent the bullion price of silver
+down twenty-one cents per ounce in two weeks. The President was
+seriously handicapped at this time by a cancerous growth in the jaw,
+necessitating an operation, news of which was withheld from the public
+for fear of its ill effect on the financial situation. Cf. _Saturday
+Evening Post_, 22 Sept., 1917.
+
+[6] Above, p. 274.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+1896
+
+The political situation in 1896, when the parties began to prepare for
+the presidential election, was more complex than it had been since
+1860. The repeal, in 1893, of the purchase clause of the Sherman silver
+act had divided the Democrats into factions; the financial and
+industrial distress in the same year had been widely attributed to fear
+of Democratic misgovernment; the Wilson-Gorman tariff act of 1894 had
+discredited the party and aroused ill-feeling between the President and
+Congress; the Pullman strike and the use of the injunction had aroused
+bitterness in the labor element against the administration; the income
+tax decision of 1895 had done much to shake popular confidence in the
+Supreme Court; the Hawaiian and Venezuelan incidents had caused minor
+dissent in some quarters; and the bond sales had made Cleveland
+intensely unpopular in the West and South. The Democratic party was
+demoralized and leaderless. The Republicans were better off because
+they had been out of power during the years of dissension and panic,
+but they had been without a leader since the death of Blaine in 1893
+and were far from united in regard to the most pressing issues. Indeed,
+the sectional differences in both parties, and the unexpected strength
+of the Populist movement caused no little anxiety among the political
+leaders. And finally, the volume and character of the currency was
+still undetermined. The Democrats had divided on the question. The
+Republicans were almost as little united; they had played politics in
+passing the Sherman silver act and three years later had assisted a
+President of the opposite party in accomplishing the repeal of its most
+important provision. From the standpoint of the silver supporters
+neither party organization was to be trusted. The outstanding political
+questions of 1896, therefore, were whether the supporters of silver
+could capture the machinery of one of the parties and whether the other
+unsettled issues could ride into the campaign on the strength of the
+financial agitation. The answers to these questions gave the campaign
+and election its peculiar significance.
+
+The background of 1896 is to be found in the South and West, where the
+farmers' alliances and the Populist party continued their success in
+arousing and directing the ambitions of the discontented classes. In
+1892, it will be remembered, the Populists had cast more than a million
+ballots and had chosen twenty-two presidential electors, two senators,
+and eleven representatives. In 1894, at the time of the congressional
+election, they had increased their voting strength more than forty per
+cent., and had elected six senators and six members of the House,
+besides several hundreds of state officials. In the Senate it happened
+that the two great parties had been almost equally strong, after the
+election of 1894, so that the Populist group had held the balance of
+power. The insistence of the South and West that Congress do something
+further for silver had not lessened. A measure providing for the
+coinage of a portion of the silver bullion in the treasury had been
+defeated in 1894 only through the President's veto. Indeed the only
+hope of the East and of the supporters of the gold standard was the
+unflinching determination of the head of a party to which the East and
+the gold supporters were, in the main opposed.
+
+The growing enthusiasm for silver which was sweeping over the South and
+West and rapidly developing into something resembling frenzy was
+difficult for the more stolid East to comprehend. Not merely the
+politician, but the man on the street and in the store, the
+school-teacher, the farmer and the laborer, in those portions of the
+country, fell to discussing the virtues of silver as currency and the
+effect of a greater volume of circulating medium upon prices and
+prosperity. The two metals became personified in the minds of the
+people. Gold was the symbol of cruel, snobbish plutocracy; silver of
+upright democracy. Gold deserted the country in its hour of need;
+silver remained at home to minister to the wants of the people. Such
+arguments as those presented in _Coin's Financial School_, published in
+1894, brought financial policy within the circle of the emotions of its
+readers even if they did not satisfy the more critical student of
+monetary problems. This influential little volume, written by W.H.
+Harvey, acted as a hand-book of free coinage, cleverly setting forth
+the major arguments for the increased use of silver and bringing
+forward objections which were triumphantly demolished. Simple
+illustrations enforced the lessons taught by its pages: a wood-cut of a
+cripple with one leg indicated how handicapped the country was without
+the free coinage of two metals; in another, Senator Sherman and
+President Cleveland were depicted digging out the silver portion of the
+foundations of a house which had been erected on a stable basis of both
+gold and silver; in a third, western farmers were seen industriously
+stuffing fodder into a cow which capitalists were milking for the
+benefit of New York and New England.[1] With the enthusiasm and the
+sincerity of the early crusaders, the people assembled in ten thousand
+schoolhouses to debate the absorbing subject of the currency. Indeed
+the South and West had become convinced that the miseries inflicted
+upon mankind by war, pestilence and famine had been less "cruel,
+unpitying, and unrelenting than the persistent and remorseless
+exaction" which the contraction of the volume of the currency had made
+upon society. Low prices, the stagnation of industry, empty and idle
+stores, workshops and factories, the increase of crime and
+bankruptcy--all were laid at the door of the gold standard.
+
+The East looked upon the rising in the West at first with amusement,
+and was quite ready to accept the diagnosis of a western newspaper man,
+quoted by Peck in his _Twenty Years of the Republic_:
+
+    What's the matter with Kansas?
+
+    We all know; yet here we are at it again. We have an old
+    moss-back Jacksonian who snorts and howls because there is a
+    bath-tub in the State House. We are running that old jay for
+    Governor.... We have raked the ash-heap of failure in the State
+    and found an old human hoop-skirt who has failed as a business
+    man, who has failed as an editor, who has failed as a preacher,
+    and we are going to run him for Congressman-at-large.... Then we
+    have discovered a kid without a law practice and have decided to
+    run him for Attorney-General.
+
+Later the East looked upon tendencies in the West with more concern:
+Roosevelt, although admitting the honesty of the Populists, characterized
+their ignorance as "abysmal"; others were more inclined to doubt their
+sincerity; their conventions were supposed to be made up of cranks and
+unsexed women; and their principles were looked upon as "wild and crazy
+notions."
+
+In fact it was no simple task to distinguish between the legitimate
+grievances and ambitions of the westerners, and their eccentricities
+and errors. Nor was this difficulty lessened by the reputation with
+which some of the proponents of silver were justly or unjustly
+credited. "Sockless Jerry" Simpson and Mrs. Lease were among them--the
+Mrs. Lease to whom was ascribed the remark "Kansas had better stop
+raising corn and begin raising hell!"[2] Benjamin R. Tillman was
+another--a rough, forceful character, leader of the poor whites and
+small farmers of South Carolina, organizer of the "wool hats" against
+the "silk hats" and the "kid gloves"--Governor of the state and later
+member of the federal Senate. Although a Democrat, he was thoroughly at
+odds with Cleveland, and publicly declared it was his ambition to stick
+his pitchfork into the President's sides.[3] Richard P. Bland, of
+Missouri, had the disadvantage of having been one of the earliest of
+the silver supporters, since he had initiated the bill which resulted
+in the Bland-Allison act, and was looked upon in the East as a
+thorough-going, free-silver radical. Governor Altgeld, of Illinois,
+leader of the Democrats of that state from 1892 to 1896, was a
+successful lawyer who was looked upon by his friends as a
+liberal-minded humanitarian, the friend of
+
+    The mocked and the scorned and the wounded,
+    the lame and the poor,
+
+whose sympathies with the laboring classes had given him the support of
+the reformers and the wage earners. But his pardon of the Haymarket
+anarchists and his attitude during the Pullman strike had led the East
+to regard him as a dangerous revolutionist and an enemy to society.[4]
+
+The free-silver movement nevertheless continued to gather momentum. For
+some years influential silver advocates had been associated in the
+Bimetallic League, an organization which supported the free coinage
+of both gold and silver. Among its members were prominent Democrats,
+Republicans and Populists, especially from the western states, and some
+of the foremost labor leaders. At one of its meetings in 1893 it was
+determined to invite every labor and industrial organization in the
+country to send delegates. A few experts, even in the East, gave some
+scientific support to the argument for the greater use of silver.
+Eastern Republicans like Senator Henry Cabot Lodge proposed free coinage
+of both metals by an international agreement, which, they thought,
+might be brought about through threats of tariff discrimination against
+nations refusing to adhere to the arrangement. A silver convention in
+Nebraska in 1894 was attended by a thousand delegates. From the point of
+view of party harmony the subject was a nuisance. Democratic state
+conventions were badly divided. Thirty of them adopted resolutions
+distinctly favorable to free coinage and fourteen opposed. Ten of the
+latter committed themselves definitely to the gold standard. The
+fourteen included all the northeastern states, together with Michigan,
+Wisconsin and Minnesota. Such gold Democrats as President Cleveland
+sought to stem the tide, but Cleveland's control over his followers was
+rapidly dwindling, and it seemed likely that the silver element of the
+party might reach out to seize the organization and displace the former
+leaders.
+
+The Republican professional politicians were as ignorant of technical
+monetary problems as the Democrats, and moreover did not wish to risk
+popular disapproval in any section by utterances which might be
+offensive to that part of the country. The first Republican state
+convention during 1896 was that in Ohio. Its financial plank was
+awaited with interest, because of the early date of the meeting and
+because its proceedings were in the hands of friends of the most
+prominent candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. The
+convention dodged the issue by demanding that all our currency be
+"sound as the Government and as untarnished as its honor," and that
+both metals be used as currency and kept at parity by legislative
+restrictions. The New York _Tribune_ thought that this could mean
+nothing but a gold standard; the _Times_ was fearful that it would lead
+to silver; the _Springfield Republican_ condemned it as "chock full of
+double-dealing." Its ambiguity, however, was in line with the purposes
+and ambitions of two men who were actively preparing for the campaign
+of 1896--Marcus A. Hanna and Major William McKinley.
+
+Marcus A. Hanna, or "Mark" Hanna as he was universally known, was an
+Ohioan, born in 1837.[5] As a young man he entered upon a business
+career in Cleveland, first in a wholesale grocery company, later in a
+coal and iron firm and finally in a variety of industrial and
+commercial enterprises which his energy and ability opened to him. The
+expansion of industrial America after the Civil War was coincident with
+the greater part of Hanna's career and he was a typical product of that
+period in his political, economic and social philosophy. After he had
+attained a degree of business success he became actively interested in
+politics and took a prominent part in placing Joseph B. Foraker in the
+governor's chair in Ohio in 1885. Strained relations between the two
+turned Hanna's attention to the fortunes of John Sherman. When it
+became apparent in 1888 that the presidential campaign would turn upon
+President Cleveland's tariff principles, Hanna, who looked upon the
+protective tariff as synonymous with industrial expansion and even of
+industrial safety, threw his weight upon the side of Sherman, who was
+again seeking the Republican nomination. The failure of Sherman was a
+blow to Hanna, but it called to his attention the pleasing personality
+of a more prominent protectionist, William McKinley. He was an
+important agent in McKinley's successful campaign for the governorship
+of Ohio in 1891. Two years later the Governor met serious financial
+reverses, and again Hanna proved to be a firm friend. Aided by other
+men of means he rescued McKinley from bankruptcy. Between the two there
+sprang up a mutual admiration of unusual strength, and finally, in
+1894-1895, Hanna withdrew from his business enterprises in order to
+devote his entire time to the political fortunes of his friend.
+
+Mark Hanna had extraordinary capacity for leadership. Sociable,
+open-handed, full of energy, direct, aggressive, shrewd, daring, a hard
+fighter, a loyal friend, an organizer and a man of his word, he was
+essentially a man of action. In politics he was practical and
+straight-forward. He wanted results, not reforms, and results meant
+accepting the prevailing methods and using them. When he wished a
+street-railway franchise in Cleveland, he bought enough influence with
+the city government to get what he wanted, as others of his day did. He
+was a strict party man; good government and safety to industry, he
+believed, were dependent upon Republican control. Patriotism therefore
+demanded his utmost energy in getting Republicans elected. In political
+campaigns his counsel, his energy and his money were always available.
+A protective customs tariff, a "sound" currency system and a free hand
+in the conduct of business were the things which he most desired from
+the government.
+
+William McKinley would have been a formidable competitor for the
+presidential nomination in 1896 even without the assistance of his
+rugged friend. His personality was attractive, in a pleasing, soothing,
+tactful, ingratiating way. His military career had been honorable even
+if not famous. For most of the time from 1877 to 1891 he had been a
+member of the House of Representatives, becoming identified
+particularly with the high protective tariff and acting as sponsor for
+the McKinley act of 1890. After being defeated for re-election, just
+subsequent to the passage of the tariff law, he had become Governor of
+Ohio for two terms. The panic of 1893 and the ill-fated Wilson-Gorman
+tariff act during the time when he was Governor caused the tide of
+popular favor to swing away from the Democrats; McKinley, as the
+apostle of protection, appeared in a more favorable light; and his
+partisans began to press him forward as the logical nominee for 1896
+and as "the advance agent of Prosperity." The fact that his home was in
+a populous state in the Middle West was also in his favor, because the
+Republicans had frequently chosen their candidate from this debatable
+ground rather than from the Northeast, where success was to be had
+without a struggle.
+
+Hanna's first care upon determining to devote himself to the interests
+of McKinley was to keep the candidate before the people as the one man
+who could rescue the nation from industrial depression. To that end he
+widely circulated the Cleveland _Leader_, a strong McKinley organ, for
+eighteen months at his own expense; he rented a house in Georgia,
+entertained Governor McKinley there and brought numbers of southern
+politicians to meet the candidate; and experienced political workers
+were sent all over the country and especially to the South to prepare
+the way for the election of delegates to the nominating convention.
+Hanna himself went to the East to discover on what terms the support of
+some of the states in that section could be obtained. On his return he
+reported that aid would be assured by a guarantee that the patronage of
+the administration would go to certain powerful politicians; Hanna
+thought the bargain a desirable one, but the candidate objected and
+Hanna acquiesced. The campaign of publicity and of personal canvass for
+delegates and influence continued. First and last, it is estimated,
+Hanna contributed over $100,000 for this purpose, urging his assistants
+always to use funds only for legitimate ends, although promising
+McKinley partisans who aided in the work that they would be "consulted"
+in the disposition of patronage.
+
+Two difficulties stood in the way of completely ensuring the choice of
+McKinley as the candidate by the convention. Several states had
+"favorite sons" whom they would be sure to present, and if so many of
+these should appear as to prevent McKinley's nomination on the first
+ballot or at least on an early one, there might be a stampede to an
+unknown man--a "dark horse"--and then Hanna's ambitions would be
+frustrated. Thomas B. Reed of Maine was an especial source of anxiety
+as he possessed considerable strength throughout New England. To guard
+against such a danger, Hanna sedulously cultivated the popular demand
+for Governor McKinley and also fought in the state conventions for
+delegates even against favorite sons. A crucial state was Illinois,
+where Senator Cullom was powerful. The Senator says that a
+representative of McKinley offered him "all sorts of inducements" to
+withdraw, but McKinley's biographer mentions no such attempt at a
+bargain. Eventually Cullom made the fight and was defeated, and from
+then on, the nomination of McKinley seemed sure unless he should be
+tripped by the currency issue.
+
+The silver question was the second obstacle in the way of success. Not
+only was the party divided, but McKinley's record on the subject was
+far from consistent. He had voted for the Bland free-silver bill in
+1877, for the Bland-Allison act in 1878 and for the passage of that act
+over President Hayes's veto. In 1890 he had urged the passage of the
+Sherman silver purchase law, intimating that he would support a free
+coinage measure if it were possible to pass it. Hardly more than a year
+later he was campaigning for the governorship of Ohio, and there he
+denounced the free coinage of silver and advocated international
+bimetallism. In 1896 McKinley feared that a definite public utterance
+on the one side or the other of the question would widen the division
+in the party, prevent his nomination and lose the election. Hence the
+ambiguous currency plank in the Ohio state convention and hence, also,
+the refusal of the candidate to commit himself openly. Nevertheless he
+commissioned a friend to go to the East and explain his attitude
+privately to certain leaders and prominent business men, urging them
+not to force a declaration for gold before the convention met. In this
+way, he thought, the currency issue might be subordinated, the tariff
+emphasized and the party held together. In this state of uncertainty
+the currency situation was allowed to rest until the convention met at
+St. Louis on June 16.
+
+The platform adopted was, for the most part, of the usual sort. It
+urged popular attention to the matchless achievements of thirty years
+of Republican rule and contrasted that period of "unequalled success
+and prosperity" with the "unparalleled incapacity, dishonor, and
+disaster" of Democratic government; it promised the "most ample
+protection" to the products of mine, field and factory; generous
+pensions, American control of Hawaii, a Nicaragua canal, the Monroe
+doctrine, restricted immigration and the arbitration of labor disputes
+affecting interstate commerce received the support of the party.
+
+It was the currency plank, however, that differentiated the platform of
+1896 from that of other campaigns. Many Republican leaders and business
+men, particularly in the East, were disposed to call for a definite
+party statement in favor of a gold standard and had reached the point
+where they could not be put off by the usual meaningless straddle.
+Thomas C. Platt, Henry Cabot Lodge, Joseph B. Foraker, Charles W.
+Fairbanks and other party chiefs were among them. Hanna was ready to
+declare for gold after he had been assured of the nomination of his
+candidate. McKinley was willing to stand for gold, although he
+preferred not to mention that word in the plank and hoped to make the
+contest on the tariff. Moreover so many silver delegates had already
+been elected to the Democratic convention, which was soon to be held,
+that a definite utterance from that party seemed a certainty. The
+Prohibitionists had already divided into halves over the dominant
+issue. It was almost imperative, therefore, for the Republican
+convention to be more explicit than it had hitherto ventured to be. As
+leader after leader arrived who was insistent upon a gold standard, it
+became increasingly evident to Hanna that he must proceed with caution.
+If McKinley committed himself to gold, the silver advocates would balk
+at his candidacy, and perhaps unite on somebody else; if he committed
+himself to silver, he would lose the eastern leaders. The astute Hanna
+therefore allowed sentiment in favor of the gold plank to gather force,
+although holding the discussion as far as possible under cover, and
+kept McKinley from making a definite statement. Then at the last
+minute, when the McKinley delegates were numerous enough to ensure the
+nomination of the Major and when it was too late for the silver forces
+to agree upon an opposition candidate, Hanna gave way to the pressure
+for gold and agreed to the plank which he had always favored.[6]
+
+Despite the canny management of Hanna a defection took place over the
+decision on the currency issue. As soon as the platform was read,
+Senator Henry M. Teller, of Colorado, moved to replace the gold plank
+by one advocating the free coinage of silver. The earnestness with
+which Teller urged the adoption of the substitute was an indication of
+the sincerity of the western wing of the party. He had been a strict
+Republican since the formation of the party in the mid-fifties, yet he
+now found himself forced to accept a policy which he believed to be
+pernicious or break the political bonds which had held him for forty
+years. The majority of the convention, however, was determined to adopt
+the gold plank and overwhelmingly defeated the Teller amendment,
+whereupon the Senator and thirty-three other silver supporters solemnly
+withdrew from the hall.
+
+The way was now clear for the nomination of a candidate. Thomas B.
+Reed, Senator Quay and other favorite sons received but scant support,
+and McKinley was nominated by an overwhelming majority on the first
+ballot. Garrett A. Hobart, a lawyer and business man whose reputation
+was confined to New Jersey, his home state, was nominated for the
+vice-presidency. The platform and the candidate were generally hailed
+with favor in the East. To be sure, critical newspapers were inclined
+to look askance upon McKinley's past. The New York _Evening Post_, for
+example, favored a gold standard but decried the candidate's "absence
+of settled convictions about leading questions of the day, and his want
+of clear knowledge on any subject." Yet on the whole, the platform and
+the candidate were popular, and, in view of the serious factional
+disputes among the Democrats, the Republicans seemed likely to make
+good their boast that victory would be so easy that they could nominate
+and elect a "rag baby" if they chose. The redoubtable Hanna was
+appointed chairman of the National Republican Committee, from which
+office he was to direct the campaign. McKinley still believed that the
+contest would be of the old-fashioned sort and that it would turn on
+the tariff, despite the platform utterance of the party. And so it
+might have proved had it not been for an important change of purpose
+and leadership in the opposition.
+
+The friends of free silver coinage went to the Democratic convention at
+Chicago on July 7 with the same determination to get a definite
+statement on the currency question that had characterized the eastern
+leaders at the Republican convention. Without the loss of a moment they
+wrested the control of the organization from the former leaders by
+defeating Senator Hill of New York, a gold Democrat, for the temporary
+chairmanship and electing Senator Daniel of Virginia, a recognized
+proponent of free silver. Hill's support came mainly from the
+Northeast; Daniel's, from the West and South. Senator White of
+California, a representative of the silver wing, was then chosen
+permanent chairman and the convention was ready for the contest over
+the platform. While it awaited that document, however, it listened to
+several favorite leaders, of whom Senator Tillman and Governor Altgeld
+of Illinois were the best known. From the sentiments expressed by these
+men it was clear that the radical Democrats believed that they were
+speaking for the masses of the people and that they were bent upon
+making far-reaching changes both in the organization and the creed of
+the party.
+
+A disquieting feature was a degree of turbulence beyond that which
+usually characterizes our nominating conventions. The official
+proceedings record the following, for example, while Senator Tillman
+was addressing the delegates:
+
+    I hope that when this vast assembly shall have dispersed to its home
+    the many thousands of my fellow-citizens who are here will carry
+    hence a different opinion of the pitchfork man from South Carolina
+    to that which they now hold. I come to you from the South--from the
+    home of secession--from that State where the leaders of--(the
+    balance of the sentence of the speaker was drowned by hisses). Mr.
+    Tillman (resuming): There are only three things in the world that
+    can hiss--a goose, a serpent, and a man....
+
+    In the last three or four or five years the Western people have come
+    to realize that the condition of the South and the condition of the
+    West are identical. Hence we find to-day that the Democratic party
+    of the West is here almost in solid phalanx appealing to the South,
+    and the South has responded--to come to their help.... Some of my
+    friends from the South and elsewhere have said that this is not a
+    sectional issue. I say it is a sectional issue. (Long prolonged
+    hissing.)
+
+At length, the platform was presented. It was a summary of the
+complaints against the East which had been forming in the West and
+South ever since the days of the Greenbackers and the "Ohio idea." It
+recognized first that the money question was paramount to all others;
+laid hard times at the door of the gold standard, which it denounced as
+a British policy; and demanded the free coinage of both metals at the
+existing legal ratio, under which sixteen parts of silver by weight
+were declared equivalent to one part of gold in minting coins. Nor
+would the party wait for the consent of any other nation. It opposed
+the issuance of interest-bearing bonds in time of peace, condemned the
+bond transactions of the Cleveland administration and denounced the
+national bank-note system. The McKinley tariff was declared a prolific
+breeder of trusts which enriched the few at the expense of the many.
+The plank concerning the income tax, which had so recently been
+declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, excited much
+condemnation among Republicans and conservative Democrats, who
+denounced it as an attack on the Court. It noted that the Court had
+uniformly sustained income taxes for nearly a hundred years and
+declared it to be the duty of Congress
+
+    to use all the constitutional power which remains after that
+    decision, or which may come from its reversal by the court as
+    it may hereafter be constituted, so that the burdens of taxation
+    may be equally and impartially laid, to the end that wealth may
+    bear its due proportion of the expenses of the government.
+
+The reaction of the party on the labor disputes of recent years and
+especially the Pullman strike was clearly in evidence. Arbitration of
+such controversies was called for; "interference" by federal
+authorities in local affairs was condemned; government by injunction
+was objected to; and the passage of such laws was demanded as would
+protect all the interests of the laboring classes.
+
+A minority of the platform committee now presented the opposing point
+of view. It objected to many of the planks; complained that some were
+ill-considered, others revolutionary; and offered two amendments,
+one advocating the gold standard, the other expressing commendation
+of Cleveland's administration. The contest was then on. Tillman
+excoriated Cleveland and declared that the East held the West and
+South in economic bondage; Hill denounced the currency, income tax and
+Supreme Court planks as furiously as any Republican could have wished.
+The currency plank, he thought, was unwise, that on the income tax
+unnecessary, that on the Court assailed the supreme tribunal, and the
+entire program was "revolutionary."
+
+As yet, nobody had quite expressed the feelings of the convention.
+Tillman was too crude; Hill had no remedy for long-standing ills. At
+this juncture William J. Bryan stepped upon the platform. He was a
+young man--only thirty-six years of age--and known but slightly as a
+representative from Nebraska who possessed many of the arts and
+abilities of an orator. Bryan began with a modest and tactful
+declaration that his opposition to the gold wing of the party was
+based solely on principles and not at all on personalities. The
+convention had met, he insisted, not to debate but to register a
+judgment already rendered by the people. Old leaders had been cast
+aside because they had refused to express the desires of those whom
+they aspired to lead. Briefly he outlined the reply of the radicals
+to the objections made by Hill and the gold wing to the proposed
+platform. The conservatives, Bryan declared, had complained that
+free silver coinage would disturb business:
+
+    We say to you that you have made the definition of a business man
+    too limited in its application. The man who is employed for wages is
+    as much a business man as his employer; the attorney in a country
+    town is as much a business man as the corporation counsel in a great
+    metropolis; the merchant at the cross-roads store is as much a
+    business man as the merchant of New York; the farmer who goes forth
+    in the morning and toils all day--who begins in the spring and toils
+    all summer--and who by the application of brain and muscle to the
+    natural resources of the country creates wealth, is as much a
+    business man as the man who goes upon the board of trade and bets
+    upon the price of grain; the miners who go down a thousand feet into
+    the earth, or climb two thousand feet upon the cliffs, and bring
+    forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured into
+    the channels of trade are as much business men as the few financial
+    magnates who, in a back room, corner the money of the world. We come
+    to speak for this broader class of business men.
+
+The time was at hand, Bryan insisted, when the currency issue must be
+squarely met:
+
+    We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned; we have
+    entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded; we have
+    begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came. We beg no
+    longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them.
+
+The radical wing of the Democracy had now found its orator. Every word
+was driven straight to the hearts of the sympathetic hearers. The income
+tax law had been constitutional, Bryan complained, until one of the
+judges of the Supreme Court had changed his mind; the tariff was less
+important than the currency because "protection has slain its thousands,
+the gold standard has slain its tens of thousands." Fundamentally, he
+insisted, the contest was between the idle holders of idle capital and
+the struggling masses who produce the capital:
+
+    If they come to meet us on that issue we can present the history of
+    our nation. More than that; we can tell them that they will search
+    the pages of history in vain to find a single instance where the
+    common people of any land have ever declared themselves in favor of
+    the gold standard. They can find where the holders of fixed
+    investments have declared for a gold standard, but not where the
+    masses have....
+
+    You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the
+    gold standard; we reply that the great cities rest upon our broad and
+    fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your
+    cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and
+    the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country....
+
+    Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world,
+    supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and
+    the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold
+    standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow
+    of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a
+    cross of gold.
+
+The frenzy of approval which this brief speech aroused was proof that
+the West and South had found a herald. Whether wisely or not, the
+radicals acclaimed their leader and the party was embarked upon a
+program that made the campaign of 1896 a memorable one. Without further
+ado, the amendments of the conservatives were voted down--the vote
+being sectional, as before. Proposals that changes in the monetary
+standard should not apply to existing contracts and that if free
+coinage should not effect a parity between gold and silver at a ratio
+of 16 to 1 within a year, it should be suspended, were both voted down
+without so much as a division. The platform was then adopted by an
+overwhelming majority and radical democracy had the bit in its teeth.
+In the East the platform was viewed with amazement. The New York
+_World_, a Democratic newspaper, expressed the opinion that the only
+doubt about the election would be the size of McKinley's victory. The
+Republican _Tribune_ thought that the party was afflicted with
+"lunacy"; that it had become the "avowed champion of the right of
+pillage, riot and trainwrecking"; that the platform was an anarchist
+manifesto and a "call to every criminal seeking a chance for outrage."
+
+Before Bryan's speech it had been impossible to foretell who the party
+candidate for the presidency would be, although the veteran free silver
+leader, Richard P. Bland, had been looked upon as a logical choice in
+case his well-known principles should become those of the convention.
+After the speech, however, it was clear that Bryan embodied the
+feelings of many of his colleagues and on the fifth ballot he was
+chosen as the candidate. The vice-presidential choice was Arthur
+Sewall, of Maine, a shipbuilder and banker who believed in the free
+coinage of silver.
+
+The gold Democrats were now in a quandary. Many of them had refrained
+from voting at all in the convention after the silver element had
+gained control. Strict partisans, however, adopted the position of
+Senator Hill who was asked after the convention whether he was a
+Democrat still. "Yes," he is said to have retorted, "I am a Democrat
+still--very still." Some frankly turned toward the Republican party,
+while others organized the National Democratic party and adopted a
+traditional Democratic platform, with a gold plank. After considering
+the possibility of nominating President Cleveland for a third term, the
+party chose John M. Palmer for the presidency and Simon B. Buckner for
+the vice-presidency. Soon after the Democratic convention, the People's
+party and the Silver party met in St. Louis. Both nominated Bryan for
+the presidency, and thereafter the Democrats and the Populists made
+common cause.
+
+At the opening of the campaign, then, it was evident that class and
+sectional hatreds would enter largely into the contest. The Populists
+and the radical Democrats felt that they were fighting the battle of
+the masses against "plutocracy"--the subtle and corrupting control of
+public affairs by the possessors of great fortunes; they thought that
+they saw arrayed against them the forces of wealth and the
+corporations, seeking to enslave them. The conservative Democrats and
+the gold Republicans saw in their opponents an organized attempt to
+carry out a program of dishonesty and socialism. The one side believed
+that the creditor class desired to scale debts upward; the other, that
+the debtor class wished to scale them down. The radicals believed that
+the Supreme Court was in the control of the wealthy; the conservatives,
+that their opponents sought to assail the highest tribunal in the land.
+The peculiar circumstances preceding the year 1896, however, focussed
+attention on the monetary standard rather than upon the other demands
+of the Populist-Democratic fusion.
+
+Each candidate adopted a plan of campaign that was suited to his
+individual situation. Bryan was relatively unknown and he therefore
+decided to appeal directly to the people, where his powers as a speaker
+would have great effect. The usual "notification" meeting was held in
+Madison Square Garden, in New York City, so as to carry the cause into
+the heart of "the enemy's country." During the few months of the
+campaign the Democratic candidate travelled 18,000 miles, made 600
+speeches and addressed nearly five million people. The effect was
+immediate. The forces of social unrest, hitherto silent in great
+measure, were becoming vocal and nobody could measure their extent.
+McKinley had prophesied that thirty days after the Republican
+convention nothing would be heard about the currency. When the thirty
+days had passed, on the contrary, scarcely anything was heard except
+that very question. Whatever his personal wishes, McKinley must meet
+the problem face to face, and in alarm, Hanna and the Republican
+campaign leaders put forth unparalleled efforts to save the party from
+defeat.
+
+The share of McKinley in these efforts was a novel one. Instead of
+going upon the stump, he remained at his home in Canton, Ohio. A
+constant stream of visiting delegations of supporters from all points
+of the compass came to hear him speak from his front porch. Some of the
+delegations came spontaneously; the visits of others were prearranged;
+but in all cases the speeches delivered were looked over beforehand
+with great care. The candidate memorized or read his own remarks and
+carefully revised those which the spokesman of the visitors planned to
+offer. In this way, any such untoward incident as the Burchard affair
+was avoided and the accounts of the front-porch speeches which went out
+through the press contained nothing which would injure the chances for
+success. The effectiveness of the plan was attested on all sides.
+
+In addition, extraordinary attempts were put forth to instruct the
+people on various aspects of the currency question. A small army was
+organized to distribute literature and address rallies; 120,000,000
+documents were distributed from the Chicago and New York headquarters;
+newspapers were supplied with especially prepared matter; posters and
+buttons were scattered by the carload. At the dinner-table, on the
+street corner, in the railroad train, in store, office and shop, the
+people gave themselves over to a heated discussion of the merits of
+gold and silver as currency and to the feasibility of free coinage at a
+ratio of 16 to 1. The amount of money which these efforts required was
+unusually large. Business men and banking institutions, especially in
+New York, contributed liberally. The Standard Oil Company gave
+$250,000; large life insurance companies helped freely, although the
+fact was well concealed at the time. Business men were fearful that
+Bryan's election would mean a great shrinkage in the value of their
+properties. Many feared that the Democrats would assail the Supreme
+Court and that their leader would surround himself with advisors of a
+reckless and revolutionary character. Funds therefore poured into the
+Republican war-chest to an amount estimated at three and a half million
+dollars.
+
+Before the close of the campaign a feeling akin to terror swept over
+the East; contracts were made contingent upon the election of McKinley;
+employees were paid on the Saturday night before election day and
+notified that they need not return to work in the event of Democratic
+success. Although caution and good manners characterized the utterances
+of the two candidates, their supporters were hardly so restrained. The
+following, for example, is typical of the editorial utterances of the
+New York _Tribune_:
+
+    Let us begin with the Ten Commandments. "Thou shalt not take the
+    name of the Lord thy God in vain." The Bryan campaign from beginning
+    to end has been marked with such a flood of blasphemy, of taking
+    God's name in vain, as this country, at least, has never known
+    before. "Thou shalt not steal." The very foundation of the Bryan
+    platform is wholesale theft. "Thou shalt not bear false witness."
+    In what day have Bryan and his followers failed to utter lies,
+    libels and forgeries? "Thou shalt not covet." Why, almost every
+    appeal made by Bryan, or for him, has been addressed directly to
+    the covetousness, the envy, and all the unhallowed passions of
+    human nature. A vote for Bryan is a vote for the abrogation of
+    those four Commandments.
+
+At the close of the campaign _The Nation_ sagely observed, "Probably no
+man in civil life has succeeded in inspiring so much terror, without
+taking life, as Bryan."
+
+The result of the election was decisive. McKinley and a Republican
+House of Representatives were elected, and the choice of a Republican
+Senate assured. The successful candidate received seven million
+votes--a half million more than his competitor. All the more densely
+populated states, together with the large cities--where the greatest
+accumulations of capital had taken place--were carried by the
+Republicans. Not a state north of the Potomac-Ohio line and east of
+the Mississippi was Democratic, and even Kentucky, by a narrow margin,
+and West Virginia crowded their way into the Republican column. On
+the other hand Bryan's hold on the South and West was almost equally
+strong. Never before had any presidential candidate received so great a
+vote and not for twenty years did a Democratic candidate surpass it.
+Moreover, although the Democratic vote on the Atlantic seaboard was
+less than that received by Cleveland in 1892, Bryan's support in the
+Middle West showed considerable gains over the earlier year, while
+Kansas, Nebraska and all the mining states except California were
+carried by the silver cause. On the whole the election seemed to
+indicate that the voters of the country, after unusual study of the
+issues of the campaign, clearly distrusted the free-silver program, but
+that class and sectional discontent had reached large proportions.
+
+[Illustration:
+The Presidential Election of 1896--the shaded states
+gave Bryan pluralities]
+
+The political results of the election of 1896 were important. It
+definitely fixed the attitude of the Republican party on the currency
+question; it gave the party control of the executive chair and of
+Congress at an important time; and it ensured the domination of the
+propertied classes and the _laissez faire_ philosophy in the party
+organization. On the other hand, the Democratic party had incurred the
+suspicion and hostility of the East, with hardly a compensating
+increase of strength in the West; its principles had become radical for
+that day and had abruptly changed from those of previous years; its
+membership included more of the discontented classes than before; and
+its leadership had been snatched from the hands of an experienced and
+conservative leader and placed in the care of an untried radical. It
+remained to be seen whether the victors would attempt to study and meet
+the complaints of the farmer and the wage earner; whether the new
+Republican leaders would be able to preserve the _laissez faire_
+attitude toward the railroads and the corporations; and whether the
+forces of dissent represented in Populism and radical Democracy had
+received a death blow or only a rebuff.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+Peck contains one of the most illuminating accounts of the rising in
+the West, together with the campaign of 1896. H. Croly, _Marcus A.
+Hanna_ (1912), is one of the few critical biographies of leaders who
+have lived since the Civil War. W.J. Bryan, _The First Battle_ (1897),
+is indispensable; C.S. Olcott, _William McKinley_ (2 vols., 1916), is
+uncritical and eulogistic, but makes important material available; C.A.
+Beard, _Contemporary American History_ (1914), contains a good chapter;
+W.H. Harvey, _Coin's Financial School_ (1894), is mentioned in the
+text; Carl Becker's clever essay in _Turner Essays in American History_
+(1910), throws light on Kansas psychology; S.J. Buck, _Agrarian
+Crusade_ (1920), is excellent. Consult also D.R. Dewey, _National
+Problems_ (1907); J.A. Woodburn, _Political Parties and Party Problems_
+(1914); _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, X, 269; and F.E. Haynes,
+_Third Party Movements_ (1916). The files of _The Nation_, and the New
+York _Tribune_ and _Sun_ well portray eastern opinion. The references
+to the rise of the populist movement under Chap. XII are also of
+service.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] I have drawn at this point upon Peck, _Twenty Years of the
+Republic_, 453-456.
+
+[2] Peck, 451-453.
+
+[3] For brief accounts of Tillman, see Leupp, _National Miniatures_,
+117; N.Y. _Times_, July 4, 1918; N.Y. _Evening Post_, July 3, 1918.
+
+[4] Cf. Whitlock, _Forty Years of It_, 64 ff.; Altgeld, _Live
+Questions_ and _The Cost of Something for Nothing_.
+
+[5] In connection with the following pages, consult Croly, _Marcus A.
+Hanna_, one of the few satisfactory biographies of this period.
+
+[6] As finally adopted, the gold plank asserted: "We are unalterably
+opposed to every measure calculated to debase our currency or impair
+the credit of our country. We are, therefore, opposed to the free
+coinage of silver, except by international agreement with the leading
+commercial nations of the world, which we pledge ourselves to promote,
+and until such agreement can be obtained the existing gold standard
+must be preserved. All our silver and paper currency must be maintained
+at parity with gold, and we favor all measures designed to maintain
+inviolably the obligations of the United States and all our money,
+whether coin or paper, at the present standard, the standard of the
+most enlightened nations of the earth." Several leaders claimed to
+have been the real author of the gold plank. It seems more nearly true
+that many men came to the convention prepared to insist on a definite
+statement and that each thought himself the originator of the party
+policy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+REPUBLICAN DOMINATION AND WAR WITH SPAIN
+
+The ceremonies attendant upon the inauguration of William McKinley on
+March 4, 1897, were typical of the care-taking generalship of Mark
+Hanna. The details of policing the crowds had been foreseen and
+attended to; the usual military review was effectively carried out to
+the last particular; "the Republican party was coming back to power as
+the party of organization, of discipline, of unquestioning obedience to
+leadership."[1]
+
+The political capacity, the characteristics and the philosophy of the
+new President were sufficiently representative of the forces which were
+to control American affairs for the next few years to make them matters
+of some interest. McKinley was a traditional politician in the better
+sense of the word. As an executive he was patient, calm, modest, wary.
+Ordinarily he committed himself to a project only after long
+consideration, and with careful propriety he avoided entangling
+political bargains. His engaging personality, his consummate tact and
+his thorough knowledge of the temper and traditions of Congress enabled
+him to lead that body, where Cleveland failed to drive it. As a speaker
+he seldom rose above an ordinary plane, but he was simple and sincere.
+His messages to Congress breathed an atmosphere of serenity and of
+deferential reliance upon the wise and judicious action of the
+legislative branch. Their smug and genial tone formed a sharp contrast
+with his predecessor's anxious demands for multifarious reforms; while
+Cleveland inveighed against narrow partisanship and selfish aims,
+McKinley benignantly observed: "The public questions which now most
+engross us are lifted far above either partisanship, prejudice, or
+former sectional differences."
+
+The political philosophy of McKinley typified that of his party. The
+possibilities which he saw in protective tariffs, which occupied the
+foremost position among his principles, were well set forth in his
+message to Congress on March 15, 1897. Additional duties should be
+levied on foreign importation, he asserted,
+
+    to preserve the home market, so far as possible, to our own
+    producers; to revive and increase manufactures; to relieve and
+    encourage agriculture; to increase our domestic and foreign
+    commerce; to aid and develop mining and building; and to render
+    to labor in every field of useful occupation the liberal wages
+    and adequate rewards to which skill and industry are justly
+    entitled.
+
+Like most American presidents, McKinley was a peace-lover, pleasantly
+disposed toward the arbitration of international difficulties and
+prepared to welcome any attempt to further that method of preserving
+the peace of the world. His conception of the presidential office
+differed somewhat sharply at several points from that of his
+predecessor. Like Cleveland he looked upon himself as peculiarly the
+representative of the people, but he was far less likely either to lead
+public opinion or to attempt to hasten the people to adopt a position
+which he had himself taken. This fact lay at the bottom of the
+complaints of his critics that he always had his "ear to the ground" in
+order that he might be prepared to go with the majority. On the other
+hand, although he was aware of constitutional limitation upon the
+functions of the executive, he was not so continually hampered by the
+strict constructionist view of the powers of the federal government as
+Cleveland had been. McKinley's attitude toward Congress was far more
+sagacious than Cleveland's. He distributed the usual patronage with
+skill; he approached Congressmen individually with the utmost tact; he
+appointed them to serve on commissions and boards of arbitration, and
+later, when matters upon which the commissions had been engaged came
+before Congress in the form of treaties or legislation, these men found
+themselves in a position to lead in the adoption of the principles
+which the President desired. All this indicated an ability to "touch
+elbows" with Congress that has rarely been exceeded. When coupled with
+the organizing power of Hanna, the harmonizing sagacity of the
+President soon brought about a notable degree of party solidarity. As a
+political organization, the Republican party reached a climax.
+
+McKinley was hardly an idealist, and distinctly not a reformer.
+Although sensitive to pressure from the reform element, he was not
+ahead of ordinary public opinion on matters of economic and political
+betterment. Leaders in federal railroad regulation found the President
+cold toward projects to strengthen the Interstate Commerce law; the
+Sherman Anti-trust Act was scarcely enforced at all during McKinley's
+administration, and the parts of his messages which relate to the
+regulation of industry are vague and lacking in purpose. One searches
+these documents in vain for any indication that the Republican leader
+had either vigorous sympathy with the economic and social unrest which
+had made the year 1896 so momentous or even any thorough understanding
+of it. Even if he had possessed both sympathy and understanding,
+however, it is doubtful whether he could have made real progress in the
+direction of economic legislation and the enforcement of the acts
+regulating railroads and industry, in view of his long-continued and
+close affiliation with business leaders of the Mark Hanna type and his
+deep obligation to them at the time of his financial embarrassments in
+1893.
+
+McKinley's cabinet was composed of men whose advanced age and
+conservative characteristics indicated that his advisers would commend
+themselves to the business world and would instinctively avoid all
+those radical proposals that were coming to be known as "Bryanism." The
+dean of the cabinet in age and experience as well as in reputation and
+ability was John Sherman, who was now almost seventy-four years of age
+and had been occupying a position of dignity and honor in the Senate.
+Two reasons have been given for his appointment to the post of
+Secretary of State. In the first place, important diplomatic affairs
+were on hand, in the settlement of which his long experience as a
+member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations would be of obvious
+advantage. The second reason was the ambition of Hanna to enter the
+Senate. Since Sherman and Hanna were both from Ohio, it was possible to
+call the former to the cabinet and rely upon the Governor of the state
+to appoint the latter to the Senate. The propriety of this course of
+action depended somewhat on the question of Sherman's physical
+condition. Rumor declared that he was suffering from mental decay, due
+to his age, but McKinley believed the rumor to be baseless, summoned
+him to the cabinet, and Hanna was subsequently appointed to the Senate.
+When Sherman took up the duties of his office it appeared that the
+rumor had been all too true, and a serious lapse of memory on his part
+in a diplomatic matter forced his immediate replacement by William R.
+Day. Somewhat more than a year later Day retired and John Hay assumed
+the position. Many critics have asserted that McKinley was aware of the
+precise condition of Sherman and that he made the choice despite this
+knowledge, but it now seems likely that he was guilty only of bad
+judgment and carelessness in failing to inform himself about Sherman's
+infirmities. Another error of judgment was made in the choice of
+Russell A. Alger as Secretary of War. Alger failed to convince popular
+opinion that he was an effective officer and he resigned in 1899. As in
+the case of Sherman, McKinley then somewhat retrieved his mistake by
+appointing a successor of undoubted ability, in the person of Elihu
+Root.[2] It thus came about that the political and economic theories
+which had been characteristic of the leaders of both parties during the
+seventies and eighties, but more particularly of the Republican party,
+were again in the ascendancy. The President and his cabinet were
+uniformly men who had grown up during the heyday of _laissez faire_,
+and Hanna, who would inevitably be regarded as the mouthpiece of the
+administration in the Senate, was the embodiment of that philosophy.
+
+McKinley's experience with the distribution of the offices emphasized
+the progress that had been made since civil service reform had been
+inaugurated. One of the steps which President Cleveland had taken
+during his last administration, it will be remembered, was to increase
+the number of positions under control of the Civil Service Commission.
+The immediate result, of course, was to increase the demand for places
+in the unclassified service. John Hay picturesquely described the
+situation in the State Department a few years later:
+
+    All other branches of the Civil Service are so rigidly provided
+    for that the foreign service is like the topmost rock which you
+    sometimes see in old pictures of the Deluge. The pressure for a
+    place in it is almost indescribable.
+
+Both in his inaugural address and in his message to Congress on
+December 6, 1897, McKinley expressed his approval of the prevailing
+system, but suggested the possibility of exempting some positions then
+in the classified service. President Cleveland had, indeed, admitted
+to the Civil Service Commission that a few modifications might be
+necessary. The Senate promptly ordered an investigation and discovered
+10,000 places which it believed could be withdrawn, but because of
+other events further action was delayed. In 1899 the President returned
+to the subject and promulgated an order authorizing the withdrawal of
+certain positions from competitive examination and the transfer of
+others from the Commission to the Secretary of War--a total of somewhat
+less than 5,000 changes.[3] It appeared, in view of the circumstances
+under which the change had occurred, that a retrograde step had been
+taken, and McKinley received the condemnation of the reformers.
+
+The first legislation undertaken by the administration was that
+relating to the tariff. The election of 1896, to be sure, had been
+fought out on the silver issue, but it was not deemed feasible to
+proceed at once to legislation on the subject, because of the strong
+silver contingent within the party. Several other considerations
+combined to draw attention away from the currency question and toward
+the tariff. The Wilson-Gorman Act of 1894 had been passed under
+circumstances that had caused the Democratic President himself to
+express his shame and disappointment; the period of industrial
+depression following the panic of 1893 had been attributed so widely to
+Democratic tariff legislation that a Republican tariff act could be
+hailed as a harbinger of prosperity; and the annual deficit which had
+continued since 1893 indicated a genuine need of greater revenue, if
+the current scale of expenditures was to be continued. The President
+and the party leaders in Congress were men who were prominently
+identified with the protective system, and it was not likely that the
+business interests which profited from protection, which believed in
+its beneficent operation, and which had contributed generously to the
+Republican war-chest would remain inactive in the presence of an
+opportunity to revise the tariff.
+
+Immediately after his succession to office, therefore, McKinley called
+a special session of Congress to legislate upon the chosen subject. His
+message urged an increase in revenue to be brought about by high import
+duties which, he suggested, should be so levied as to be advantageous
+to commerce, manufacturing, agriculture, mining, building and labor.
+The projected bill was already in hand. Republican success in the
+election had insured the return of Thomas B. Reed to the speaker's
+chair and Nelson Dingley to the Committee on Ways and Means. The latter
+was as devoted to the high-tariff cause as the Speaker and the
+President, and had laboriously constructed a bill which was distinctly
+protective. The legislative history of the Tariff Act of 1897--more
+commonly known as the Dingley act--was in several respects much like
+that of similar measures of earlier years. Its passage through the
+House was expedited by the masterful personality and vigorous tactics
+of the Speaker--a process which consumed less than a fortnight. In the
+Senate, bargain and delay ruled procedure; a few of the silver
+Republicans held the balance of power and demanded a _quid pro quo_ for
+their support; and the Secretary of the Wool Manufacturers' Association
+preserved a suggestively close connection with the Finance Committee
+which had charge of the bill. After amending the House draft in 872
+particulars, the Senate entrusted its interests to the usual conference
+committee, and there, as had happened before, the rates were in many
+cases raised above those desired by either the Senate or the House. The
+bill became law in July, 1897.
+
+The Dingley act added little to the settlement of the tariff problem.
+The ordinary consumer was as little able as before to present his
+demands effectively and at the time and place at which the rates were
+really determined. The requirements of the silver Republicans were met
+by the imposition of high duties on wool. For one reason or another,
+duties were restored or raised upon hides, silks and linens, although
+those on cotton goods were slightly lowered. The duty on sugar was
+retained at a point favorable to the trust. In brief, then, the Act of
+1897 was aggressively protectionist. An abortive section of the act
+empowered the President to conclude treaties providing for reductions,
+as great as twenty per cent., in return for commercial concessions from
+other countries. Such reciprocity arrangements, however, must be made
+within two years of the passage of the law and might not remain in
+force more than five years, and each treaty must be ratified by the
+Senate. The President was favorable to reciprocal adjustments and
+several were arranged but were uniformly rejected in the Senate.
+
+Business was prosperous after the enactment of the Dingley tariff and
+little agitation for a change was observable for a decade. Prosperity,
+being world wide, was doubtless not due in its entirety to the American
+tariff, yet the coincidence of protection and good times gave the
+Dingley act a pleasant reputation. For many years enthusiastic stump
+speakers placed the beneficence of Providence and the tariff of 1897 on
+an equality as causes of American well-being.
+
+The President's first message to Congress had extended congratulations
+upon the fact that peace and good will with all the nations of the
+earth continued unbroken. Nevertheless it was necessary for him to
+devote much attention to the relations between Spain and its most
+valuable American possession--the island of Cuba.
+
+American interest in Cuba was by no means of recent growth. The
+situation of the island--dominating the narrowest point of the waterway
+between the Atlantic seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico--insured the
+importance of Cuba as a strategic position. The traditional attitude of
+Spain toward her colony had been one of exploitation, a policy which
+was sure to be looked upon with suspicion by a nation which had itself
+revolted from oppression. Riots and rebellions in the island, having
+their origin in Spain's colonial policy, had long engaged American
+sympathy and attention. American statesmen--Jefferson, John Quincy
+Adams, Clay and Webster--had pondered upon the wisest and most
+advantageous disposition of Cuba. In 1859 the Senate Committee on
+Foreign Relations had even concluded that "The ultimate acquisition of
+Cuba may be considered a fixed purpose of the United States." From 1868
+to 1878 the "Ten Years' War" between Cuba and Spain had raised American
+feeling to a high pitch. The struggle was characterized by a barbarity
+that rivalled mediaeval warfare; islanders who escaped to the United
+States sent ships to Cuba laden with arms and men; American trade
+rights were interfered with and American citizens seized by the
+Spaniards and shot; the _Virginius_ was captured--a ship carrying the
+American flag--and many of her crew were executed. Indignation meetings
+were held, the navy was put in order and war was in sight. Cautious
+diplomatic negotiations delayed hostilities, however, and subsequently
+exhaustion caused the restoration of peace between Spain and her
+distracted colony.
+
+With the recurrence of insurrection in 1895, interest in the United
+States was renewed, and this time circumstances combined to bring about
+a climax in American relations with Spain. On both sides the contest
+between Spain and her colony was carried on with unutterable cruelty.
+The island leader, Maximo Gomez, conducted guerrilla warfare,
+devastating the country, destroying plantation buildings and forcing
+laborers to cease work, in order to exhaust the enemy or to bring about
+American intervention. Spanish procedure was even more barbaric. A
+"reconcentration" order, promulgated by Valeriano Weyler,
+Governor-general of the island and General-in-chief of the army,
+compelled the rural population to herd together in the garrisoned
+towns. Their buildings were then burned and their cattle driven away or
+killed; hygienic precautions were disregarded and the people themselves
+were insufficiently clothed and fed. The extermination of the
+inhabitants proceeded so rapidly as to promise complete devastation in
+a short time.
+
+President Cleveland had been deeply affected by the Cuban situation.
+His last annual message to Congress had noted the $30,000,000 to
+$50,000,000 of American capital invested in the island, the volume of
+trade amounting yearly to $100,000,000, the use of American soil by
+Cubans and Cuban sympathizers for raising funds and purchasing
+equipment, and the stream of claims for damages done to American
+property in Cuba. In spite of his well-known disinclination to share in
+the internal affairs of other peoples, he had voiced a suggestive
+warning that American patience could not be maintained indefinitely.
+
+The succession of McKinley seemed likely to result in a change in the
+attitude of America toward the Cuban problem. He was more responsive to
+public opinion than his predecessor had been, public opinion was more
+and more coming to favor intervention, and his party had committed
+itself in its platform to Cuban independence through American action.
+Moreover, two events early in 1898 greatly irritated the United States.
+
+On February 9 a New York newspaper published a letter written by Senor
+Enrique Dupuy de Lome, Spanish minister to the United States, to a
+personal friend in Havana. It referred to President McKinley as a
+"would-be politician who tries to leave a door open behind himself
+while keeping on good terms with the jingoes of his party." It further
+revealed the intention of the Minister to carry on a propaganda among
+senators in the interest of a commercial treaty. On all sides it was
+seen that the usefulness of Senor de Lome was at an end and his
+government immediately recalled him. On February 15 the whole world was
+shocked by the destruction of the United States battleship _Maine_ in
+Havana harbor, with the loss of 260 officers and men. News of the
+disaster was accompanied by the appeal of Captain Sigsby, commander of
+the vessel, that popular judgment of the causes of the disaster be
+suspended until a court of inquiry could investigate and report.
+Nevertheless on March 9, Congress placed $50,000,000 at the President's
+disposal for the purposes of national defence and the navy prepared for
+a conflict that seemed inevitable. Both the Spanish and American
+authorities conducted examinations. The American court reported that
+the ship had been destroyed by the explosion of a submarine mine, which
+had caused the partial explosion of two or more of her magazines. No
+evidence could be found which would fix the responsibility on any
+individual. The Spanish court came to the conclusion that the
+catastrophe was due solely to an explosion of the ship's magazines.
+American opinion naturally supported the findings of the American
+court, and feeling ran high; newspapers demanded war; "Remember the
+_Maine_" summarized much of popular discussion.[4]
+
+Under such circumstances, diplomatic negotiations looking toward peace
+were difficult, and resulted only in disagreements and delay.
+Accordingly on April 11 the President laid before Congress a succinct
+account of Cuban affairs and earnestly called for forcible
+intervention. The grounds for this action he found in the sufferings of
+the people of Cuba, the injuries to Americans and to American property
+and trade, and the menace to American peace which was entailed by
+continuous conflict at our very threshold.[5] The transfer of the Cuban
+question from the hands of the President to those of Congress was
+equivalent to a decision in favor of war. On April 19 the Senate and
+House resolved that the people of Cuba were and ought to be
+independent, demanded that Spain withdraw from the island and directed
+the President to use the force of the nation to achieve the results
+desired. The approval of the Executive on the following day completed
+the severance of peaceful relations with Spain. At daylight on April 22
+Admiral Sampson and his fleet were crossing the narrows between Florida
+and Cuba, on the way to establish a blockade of the greater part of the
+island. Within three days more, Commodore George Dewey, who was in
+command of a fleet at Hong-Kong, had been instructed to proceed at once
+to the Philippine Islands and capture or destroy the Spanish fleet
+there. On April 25 Congress formally declared war upon the kingdom of
+Spain.
+
+It was not by mere chance, of course, that Admiral Sampson and
+Commodore Dewey were prepared to act with such celerity. Authorities in
+the Navy Department had long felt that a collision with Spain was
+inevitable and had been preparing for such an eventuality. With as
+little publicity as possible the Department completed and commissioned
+ships that were already under construction; it hastened the repair of
+vessels which were in any way defective; it ordered target practice and
+fleet manoeuvres; and it prepared plans for the conduct of a naval war.
+Commanders of squadrons were instructed to keep in service men whose
+terms of enlistment were about to expire; supplies of ammunition were
+procured and shipped to points where they would be needed; the
+_Oregon_, which had been stationed on the Pacific coast, was ordered to
+return to Key West by way of the Straits of Magellan and so began a
+voyage whose closing days were watched with interest by a whole nation.
+A Northern Patrol Squadron was organized to guard New England; a Flying
+Squadron was assembled at Hampton Roads for service on the Atlantic
+coast or abroad; and a formidable array gathered at Key West under
+Rear-Admiral Sampson for duty in the West Indies. Foreign shipyards
+were scoured for vessels in process of building and several were
+purchased, completed and renamed for American service. Greater
+additions were made through the purchase of merchantmen and their
+transformation into auxiliary cruisers, gunboats and colliers. In these
+ways the attempt was made, with some success, to improvise a navy on
+the eve of war.
+
+The people of the country had scarcely become accustomed to the thought
+that war with Spain had actually come to pass when word was received in
+Washington of the exploit of Commodore Dewey in the Philippine Islands.
+Attention for the moment was focussed on the Far East, and the press
+dilated upon the first test of the new American Navy.
+
+The story of the test proved to have points of interest and importance.
+When Commodore Dewey received the orders already mentioned, on April
+25, he finished immediately the preparations for conflict which had
+been initiated and turned his flagship, the _Olympia_, in the direction
+of Manila. His available force consisted of four protected cruisers,
+two gunboats, a revenue cutter, a collier and a supply ship. The city
+of Manila is on Manila Bay, a body of water twenty miles or more wide,
+and is reached only through a narrow entrance. Dewey judged that the
+channel was too deep to be mined successfully except by trained experts
+and that both contact and electrical mines would deteriorate so rapidly
+in tropical waters as to be effective only for a short time. He
+therefore decided to steam through the channel at night, disregarding
+the mines, and to attack the Spanish fleet which lay within. The plans
+worked out even better than he had hoped. With all lights masked and
+the crews at the guns, the squadron moved silently through the passage
+with no other opposition than three shots from a single battery. Once
+within the Bay Dewey steamed slowly toward the city of Manila and then
+back to a fortified point, Cavite, where he found his quarry arranged
+in an irregular crescent and awaiting the conflict. Oblivious of the
+hasty and inaccurate fire from the batteries on shore, he deliberately
+moved to a position within two and a half miles of the Spanish ships
+and said to the Captain of the _Olympia_, "You may fire when you are
+ready, Gridley."
+
+[Illustration:
+The Philippines]
+
+Three times westward and twice eastward the American squadron ran
+slowly back and forth, using the port and starboard batteries in turn,
+and in a short time the shore batteries and the Spanish fleet were
+masses of ruins. Of the American forces, only eight were injured, and
+they only slightly, while 167 of the Spanish were killed and 214
+wounded. News of the victory was as unexpected as it was welcome in the
+United States. President McKinley appointed Dewey an acting
+Rear-Admiral and on all sides discussion began of the situation and
+possibilities of the Philippines.
+
+In the meantime, the position of the American squadron was far from
+secure. To be sure, all resistance from the batteries in and around
+Manila was quickly suppressed by a threat to destroy the city;
+nevertheless Admiral Dewey was in command of too slight a force to
+enable him to occupy both the town and its environs. He accordingly
+notified Washington that more troops were necessary if it were intended
+to seize and retain Manila, and expeditionary forces were despatched,
+the first of which arrived on June 30. Indeed it was high time that
+assistance be forthcoming, for new possibilities of conflict had
+appeared in the presence of a powerful force of German warships.
+
+As soon as the defeat of the Spanish squadron had been effected,
+Admiral Dewey established a blockade of Manila Bay and, according to
+custom, the war vessels of interested nations went thither to observe
+the effectiveness of the blockade and to care for the well-being of
+their nationals. Among the early arrivals were the British, the French
+and the Japanese, all of whom observed the formalities of the situation
+and reported to the American Admiral before venturing into the harbor.
+The Germans, however, omitted the proprieties until sharply reminded by
+a shot across the bow of the _Cormoran_. By mid-June five German
+men-of-war under command of Vice Admiral von Diedrichs were in the
+Bay--a force nearly if not quite the match of the American squadron.
+When the Germans continued their disregard of the regulations
+controlling the blockade, indicating a potential if not an actual
+hostility, it became necessary for Admiral Dewey to have done with the
+Teutonic peril at once. He sent a verbal message to von Diedrichs which
+effectually ended all controversy. Admiral Dewey has not disclosed the
+exact phraseology of the message, nor did he send a record of it to the
+Navy Department. A newspaper correspondent who was acting as one of the
+Admiral's aides asserted that the protest was against von Diedrich's
+disregard of the usual courtesies of naval intercourse and that it
+closed with the words, "if he wants a fight he can have it right now."
+The disclosure by Captain Edward Chichester, in command of the English
+force, that he had orders to comply with Admiral Dewey's restrictions
+and that his sympathies were with the Americans, together with the
+arrival of the expeditionary force, assured American supremacy and a
+peaceful blockade. On August 13 a joint movement of the naval forces
+and the infantry under General Wesley Merritt resulted in the speedy
+surrender of the city of Manila. The Americans were now in control of
+the capital of the Philippine Islands and would, perforce, face the
+question of the ultimate disposition of the archipelago in case of the
+eventual defeat of Spain. In the meanwhile, popular attention turned
+toward stirring events which were taking place in the Caribbean Sea.
+
+On April 28--a week after Admiral Sampson started for Cuba--the Spanish
+Admiral Cervera left the Cape Verde Islands. His force was a
+considerable one; his goal was unknown, although naturally believed to
+be some point in the Spanish West Indies. On the assumption that this
+hypothesis was a correct one, Sampson patrolled the northern coast of
+Cuba, extending his movement as far as Porto Rico, and scouts were
+placed out beyond Guadeloupe and Martinique. The entire nation
+anxiously awaited the outcome of the impending encounter.
+
+[Illustration:
+The Spanish-American War in the West Indies]
+
+On May 19 Cervera slipped into Santiago, a town on the eastern end of
+Cuba which had rail connection with Havana, the capital of the island.
+Commodore W.S. Schley who was in command of a squadron on the southern
+coast soon received information of the enemy's whereabouts and
+established a blockade of the city, while Sampson hastened to the scene
+and assumed command of operations. The American force now included four
+first-class battleships, one second-class battleship and two cruisers.
+They were arranged in semi-circular formation facing the harbor, and at
+night powerful search-lights were kept directed upon the channel which
+Admiral Cervera must take in case of an attempt to escape. The main
+part of Santiago Bay is between four and five miles long and is reached
+through a narrow entrance channel. Elevated positions at the mouth of
+the channel rendered the vigorous defence of the harbor a matter of
+some ease. Early in the progress of the blockade the Americans
+attempted to sink a collier across the entrance, but fortunately, as it
+turned out, this daring project failed, and Admiral Sampson settled
+down to await developments.
+
+It was apparent that the capture of Santiago, and the destruction of
+the fleet could be brought about only through a joint movement of the
+army and navy. Hitherto the war had been entirely on the sea.
+Nevertheless over 200,000 volunteers had been called for, in addition
+to somewhat over 50,000 regular troops and the "Rough Riders"--the last
+a regiment of volunteer cavalry which had been raised by Colonel
+Leonard Wood and Theodore Roosevelt and which was largely composed of
+cowboys, ranchmen, Indians and athletes from eastern colleges. The
+regulars, together with a few volunteers and the Rough Riders, were
+sent to Tampa, Florida, while most of the volunteers were trained at
+Chicamauga Park, in Georgia. It had been expected that the important
+military operations would take place around Havana and for that reason
+the officer commanding the army, General Nelson A. Miles, with most of
+the regular troops, were retained for the larger service. The command
+of the expedition to Santiago fell to General William E. Shafter.
+Sixteen thousand eight hundred and eighty-seven officers and men set
+sail from Tampa on June 14 and began to disembark eight days later at
+Daiquiri, sixteen miles to the east of Santiago.
+
+Advancing from this point General Lawton, commanding a division of
+infantry, moved parallel to the shore and seized Siboney. General
+Wheeler, a former Confederate who was now in command of the cavalry,
+met and defeated a Spanish force at Las Guasimas. Further advance met
+difficulties that were more serious. On the left of the American line
+was San Juan Hill, an eminence which commanded the country toward the
+east; on the right was El Caney, a fortified village held by a small
+force of Spaniards. The country between the two points was a jungle,
+the roads hardly better than trails, where troops frequently had to
+go in single file. The fight at El Caney was severe, the enemy being
+well-entrenched, well-armed and protected by wire entanglements and
+block houses, and General Lawton suffered a loss of more than 400
+killed and wounded before driving the Spaniards out of their position.
+San Juan Hill was still more stubbornly defended, and an American
+advance was impeded by the heat, the tropical growth and the uneven
+character of the country. Under these circumstances officers became
+separated from their men and victory was gained through the
+determination and resourcefulness of the individual. The Spaniards then
+fell back upon Santiago.
+
+[Illustration:
+Campaign about Santiago]
+
+The continued success of the Americans compelled the Spanish
+authorities to make an immediate decision in regard to the fleet. To
+remain in the harbor seemed to mean being encircled and starved; to go
+out through the narrow channel seemed to lead to sure destruction. Yet
+the latter venture appealed to the commander-in-chief of Cuba,
+Captain-General Blanco, as the more honorable one and on July 2 orders
+were sent to Admiral Cervera to make the attempt. Early next morning,
+while Admiral Sampson was away at a conference with General Shafter,
+lookouts on the American battleships descried the _Infanta Maria
+Teresa_ feeling her way out of the harbor, followed by the remainder
+of the Spanish fleet, three armored cruisers and two torpedo-boat
+destroyers. The Americans instantly closed in, directing their fire
+first against the _Teresa_ and later against the rest of the fleet as
+they tried to follow their leader out to safety. Once out of the harbor
+the entire Spanish fleet dashed headlong toward the west, parallel to
+the coast, while the Americans kept pace, pouring a gruelling fire from
+every available gun. The Spaniards returned the fire and thus "the
+action resolved itself into a series of magnificent duels between
+powerful ironclads." One by one the enemy's vessels were sunk or forced
+to run ashore--the _Cristobal Colon_ last, at two o'clock in the
+afternoon. The Spanish losses, besides the fleet, were 323 killed and
+151 wounded; the Americans lost one killed and one wounded. The city of
+Santiago, deprived of its fleet, found itself in a desperate plight and
+surrendered on July 16. Shortly afterwards General Miles led an
+expedition into Porto Rico, but operations were soon brought to a close
+because of the suspension of hostilities, and from a military point of
+view the importance of the campaign was negligible.
+
+The succession of overwhelming defeats drove home to Spain the futility
+of further conflict. The despatch of American troops to the Philippines
+and to Porto Rico, moreover, indicated that Spain would soon suffer
+other losses. Hence the Spanish government, acting through Jules
+Cambon, the French ambassador to the United States, sought terms for
+the settlement of the war. The President's reply of July 30 made the
+following stipulations: Spain to relinquish and evacuate Cuba and to
+cede Porto Rico and one of the Ladrone Islands; the United States to
+occupy the city and bay of Manila, pending the conclusion of peace and
+the determination of the final disposition of the Philippines. Spain
+wished to restrict negotiations to the Cuban question, but was forced
+to accept the conditions laid down by the victor. A preliminary
+agreement or protocol was therefore signed, which provided for a
+conference at Paris concerning peace terms.
+
+The uniform success of the American arms could not obscure the popular
+belief that the Department of War had been guilty of many shortcomings.
+It will doubtless be always a subject for dispute as to whether the
+major portion of the blame is to be laid at the door of the traditional
+American disinclination to be prepared for warfare, or upon Secretary
+Alger and his immediate advisors. That the conduct of the military
+affairs was inexpert, however, is admitted on all sides. The facilities
+for taking care of the troops at Tampa were inadequate. When transports
+reached Tampa to take the troops to Santiago, officers wildly scrambled
+to get their men on board. The Rough Riders, for example, made their
+way into a transport intended for two other regiments, one of regulars
+and the other of volunteers, with the result that the volunteers and
+half of the regulars were left on shore. The clothing supplied for the
+Cuban campaign was better suited to a cold climate than to summer in
+the tropics. The health of the troops during the Santiago campaign was
+such that the general officers expressed the opinion that the army must
+immediately be removed from Cuba or suffer severe and unnecessary
+losses from malarial fever. When the men were removed, however, they
+were taken to Montauk Point on Long Island, where the climate was too
+cool and bracing. Unsanitary conditions in the training camps within
+the borders of the United States were the cause of fatalities estimated
+at several times the number killed in battle. A controversy over the
+quality of the beef supplied to the troops led to an executive
+commission of investigation. Both unnecessary and unfortunate was the
+Sampson-Schley controversy, which originated in a difference of opinion
+about the proportion of credit which each of these officers should have
+for the success of Santiago and which was continued in charges that the
+latter had made serious mistakes in the conduct of his share of the
+operations. Subsequently a Court of Inquiry investigated the
+accusations and made a decision which did not completely satisfy either
+side.
+
+Despite these minor mistakes, however, the war increased the strength
+of the administration. The most lasting effects of the conflict on
+constitutional and political history demand detailed discussion at a
+later point, but the immediate results can be briefly stated.[6] The
+successful prosecution of a popular war, combined with widespread
+prosperity and the demoralization of the opposition party greatly
+heightened the prestige of the Republicans. McKinley appeared to have
+been in truth, the "advance agent of prosperity"; and his party
+obtained a dominating control of public policy.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+H. Croly, _Marcus A. Hanna_ (1912), and C.S. Olcott, _William McKinley_
+(2 vols., 1916), discuss the politics of the period, subject to the
+limitations already mentioned. W.D. Foulke, _Fighting the Spoilsman_
+(1919), describes the relation of the administration to the civil
+service; for the Dingley tariff, Stanwood, Tarbell and Taussig.
+
+The literature on the Spanish war is extensive. Most detailed and
+reliable is F.E. Chadwick, _Relations of the United States and Spain_;
+I, _Diplomacy_, II, III, _The Spanish War_ (1909, 1911). J.H. Latane,
+_America as a World Power_ (1907), has several good chapters; H.E.
+Flack, _Spanish-American Diplomatic Relations Preceding the War of
+1898_ (1906), and E.J. Benton, _International Law and Diplomacy of the
+Spanish-American War_ (1908), take up the diplomatic side. On naval
+preparations, J.D. Long, _New American Navy_ (2 vols., 1903), is by
+McKinley's Secretary of the Navy; see also E.S. Maclay, _History of
+the United States Navy_ (rev. ed., 3 vols., 1901-1902). Good
+autobiographical accounts are: C.E. Clark, _My Fifty Years in the Navy_
+(1917); George Dewey, _Autobiography_ (1913); Theodore Roosevelt,
+_Autobiography_; and W.S. Schley, _Forty-five Years under the Flag_
+(1914). See also A.T. Mahan, _Lessons of the War with Spain_ (1899).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Cf. Peck, 518.
+
+[2] Other members of the cabinet were: Lyman J. Gage, Ill., Secretary
+of the Treasury; Joseph McKenna, Calif., Attorney-General; J.A. Gary,
+Md., Postmaster-General; J.D. Long, Mass., Secretary of the Navy, C.N.
+Bliss, Secretary of the Interior; James Wilson, Ia., Secretary of
+Agriculture.
+
+[3] The National Civil Service Reform League estimated the changes at
+10,000.
+
+[4] In 1911 the wreck of the _Maine_ was raised and examined. The
+evidence found was such as to substantiate the findings of the American
+court of inquiry. _Scientific American_, January 27, 1912.
+
+[5] It has commonly been felt among certain classes in the United
+States since 1898 that the business interests whose property and trade
+were mentioned by President McKinley had an undue share in bringing
+about the declaration of war. While it can not be doubted that the
+President was swayed more by business interests than most of our
+executives since the Civil War have been, yet it is also true that the
+sufferings of the Cubans aroused genuine sympathy in the United States.
+The President himself was anxious to delay war as long as possible.
+
+[6] Below, Chap. XVIII.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+IMPERIALISM
+
+"The guns of Admiral Dewey did something more than destroy a Spanish
+fleet in the harbor of Manila. Their echo came back to us in a
+question new in the history of our government." The new problem was
+Imperialism--was it wise policy and was it constitutional to annex and
+govern territories outside the limits of continental North America? In
+colonial problems the United States had had no experience; and if the
+Philippines, Cuba or Porto Rico were annexed, it would be necessary
+to administer the affairs of peoples whose languages, racial
+characteristics and forms of government were utterly strange. Such
+objections arose in the minds of many Americans as the conference
+assembled at Paris on October 1 to settle the terms of peace.[1]
+
+The chief controversies between the Spanish and the American negotiators
+related to Cuba and the Philippines. The Spanish commissioners early
+proposed to transfer Cuba to the United States, the latter to turn it
+over to the Cuban people in due time. With the sovereignty of Cuba was
+to go the debt of the island. On the refusal of the Americans to accede
+to this, the Spanish commissioners urged the transfer of Cuba to the
+United States without any promise as to its future. Instructions from
+Washington both on possession and on debt, however, were explicit and
+in the end Spain had to relinquish all claim to Cuba and assume
+responsibility for its indebtedness. The proper disposition of the
+Philippines presented far greater difficulty. Not only was there a
+difference of opinion between the two groups of commissioners, but the
+American government was in doubt about the wisest course to pursue, and
+grave diversity of opinion existed among the people and in the peace
+commission itself. Moreover the capture of the city of Manila had taken
+place after the protocol had been signed and after hostilities had been
+ordered suspended, but before news of these facts had reached Admiral
+Dewey. The original instructions of President McKinley to the peace
+commissioners were to the effect that the outcome of the war had placed
+new duties and responsibilities on the United States, that the
+commercial opportunity which possession of the Philippines would present
+could not be overlooked and that the island of Luzon at least must be
+ceded. So little was known about the people and the possibilities of the
+islands that the American commission was compelled to go far afield to
+obtain information from writers and investigators in regard to questions
+of defence, the political capacity of the inhabitants, the danger that
+another nation might step in if the United States should evacuate,
+commercial prospects, and so on. President McKinley soon came to the
+opinion that the proper course was to take the entire archipelago. To
+give them back to Spain seemed "dishonorable"; to turn them over to our
+commercial rivals, France or Germany, seemed "bad business"; to leave
+them to themselves would be to leave them to "anarchy and misrule";
+hence there was nothing to do but to take all of them and attempt to
+spread American civilization among the Filipino people. The American
+commissioners therefore demanded the Philippines, but realizing the
+defect in their case, since the conquest of Manila had taken place after
+the conclusion of the protocol, agreed to pay Spain $20,000,000. The
+Spanish commissioners thereupon yielded to necessity and reluctantly
+agreed.
+
+As finally signed, the treaty of December 10, 1898, contained the
+following points: Spain agreed to relinquish Cuba, and the United
+States was to protect life and property during its occupancy of the
+island; Spain also ceded Porto Rico and the other Spanish West Indies,
+Guam in the Ladrones, and the Philippines on payment of $20,000,000;
+the United States agreed to return to Spain, at its own cost, all
+Spanish prisoners taken at the time of the capture of Manila; the
+civil and political rights of the inhabitants of the ceded territories
+were to be determined by Congress; and freedom of religion was
+guaranteed.
+
+The reference of the treaty to the Senate for ratification elicited
+many divergences of opinion, the ablest opposition being presented by
+members of the President's own party. In particular, the position
+taken by Senator Hoar, a rigid Republican and a close friend of
+President McKinley, made a strong impression. That there can be no
+just government without the consent of the governed, he asserted, was
+the central doctrine of the Declaration of Independence. Moreover, the
+acquisition of foreign lands, he believed, would lead us into
+competition with European powers for territory, and thus tempt us away
+from the international policy which had been laid down by the
+"fathers" and followed by the nation ever since. Most of the Democrats
+held similar views, but some of them heeded the advice of Bryan, who
+urged that the treaty be ratified in order to end the war, and that
+the ultimate disposition of the new possessions be decided in the next
+presidential campaign. The point of view which seems to have prevailed
+with most Republicans was that the United States, being a sovereign
+nation, possessed power to acquire territory and to determine its
+future status, and that as a matter of expediency it was better to
+take the Philippines than to risk the dangers which lay in leaving
+them alone. Shortly before the final vote was taken, an insurrection
+broke out in the Philippines against American control, which may have
+influenced some senators to accept the President's settlement. Even
+with this aid, however, ratification was brought about by the narrow
+margin of one vote more than the required two-thirds majority.[2]
+
+Within the field of politics, the Republicans increased the advantage
+which they had gained in 1896. The congressional and state elections
+of 1893 continued their control of the House and strengthened it in
+the Senate; the world-wide prosperity which has already been mentioned
+and in which the United States shared, was in striking contrast with
+the business depression of the recent Democratic administration;
+discoveries of gold deposits in the Klondike and the improvement of
+methods of extracting the metal from the ore greatly increased the
+currency supply and assisted in raising the level of prices, thereby
+giving greater prosperity to the western farmer and lessening his
+complaints. The gold standard act of March 14, 1900, pleased the
+financial interests, for it fixed the standard of value, set the
+amount of the gold reserve at $150,000,000, and specified adequate
+means by which the Secretary of the Treasury could maintain other
+forms of money on a parity with the precious metal. Within the
+Republican organization, the President's soothing personality and
+Hanna's meticulous attention to the details of the party machinery
+continued undiminished the momentum which had been gathered.
+Defections on the imperialism issue, while affecting important party
+leaders, were numerically unimportant. Among the financial and
+industrial classes, therefore, confidence in President McKinley and
+his advisors was thoroughgoing. There was a strong bond of interest,
+moreover, between territorial expansion and industrial expansion,
+between Imperialism and the expansion of foreign markets. The primacy
+of business was assured.
+
+The renomination of McKinley at the Republican Convention in
+Philadelphia, on June 19, 1900, was unanimous. The vice-presidency,
+contrary to tradition, occupied the center of interest. Several men of
+prominence were mentioned in this connection but the name which evoked
+most enthusiasm was that of Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt's career
+during the war with Spain had been a prominent factor in making him
+Governor of New York. As Governor he had shown energy and independence,
+especially in connection with measures for taxing street railway and
+other franchises, and had come into conflict with Senator Thomas C.
+Platt, the boss of the state. Senator Platt, therefore, desired to
+divert the vigorous Governor into the vice-presidency, an office which
+usually casts a "species of political oblivion" over its occupant.
+McKinley was opposed to the plan and so were Hanna and Roosevelt
+himself. The latter desired to put into effect further plans which he
+had made as Governor, and the attempt to shelve him aroused his
+fighting spirit. In the convention, however, sentiment in behalf of
+Roosevelt, especially from the West, was so strong as to over-rule
+both the administration and the wishes of the Governor. McKinley sent
+emphatic word that he was neither for nor against any man, but would
+accept the decision of the delegates. Hanna then withdrew his
+objections and Roosevelt was nominated without opposition.
+
+The Republican platform emphasized the prosperity which had resulted
+from the accession of the party to power; it pointed out the danger
+which would ensue if the opposition were allowed to conduct public
+affairs; and it dwelt upon the growth of the export trade, and the
+beneficence of the Dingley tariff. An antitrust plank deprecated
+combinations designed to create monopolies, and promised legislation
+to prevent such abuses. Imperialism was briefly dismissed: "No other
+course was possible than to destroy Spain's sovereignty throughout the
+West Indies and in the Philippine Islands. That course created our
+responsibility before the world ... to provide for the maintenance of
+law and order, and for the establishment of good government and for
+the performance of international obligations."
+
+The dissension which had existed within the Democratic party since the
+second administration of Cleveland was still the important fact about
+the organization. Having been out of power, the party could take only
+the negative position of hostile criticism; there had been no
+reorganization and clarification of purposes, and no new leader had
+appeared who combined the personal prestige of Bryan with those
+qualities of conservatism and solidity which the East demanded, so
+that from the beginning there was no doubt that Bryan would again be
+the candidate and that he would take the lead in framing the platform.
+The convention met in Kansas City, on July 4. The platform placed most
+emphasis upon three issues. The first, which was declared the
+"paramount" one, was imperialism. The reasons given for opposing
+territorial expansion were mainly those brought forward by Senator
+Hoar at the time when the peace treaty was under discussion.
+
+    We declare again that all governments instituted among men derive
+    their just powers from the consent of the governed; that any
+    government not based upon the consent of the governed is a tyranny;
+    and that to impose upon any people a government of force is to
+    substitute the methods of imperialism for those of a republic.
+
+The second issue, the evils of big business, received renewed
+attention, although an old complaint, because of the many industrial
+consolidations of the years immediately preceding. The "trusts" were
+condemned for appropriating the fruits of industry for the benefit of
+the few, and the Republican party was charged with fostering them in
+return for campaign subscriptions and political support. The Dingley
+act was denounced as a "trust-breeding" measure. The remedies proposed
+were severely definite in comparison with the vague plank which had
+been offered by the Republicans: they included publicity as to the
+affairs of corporations doing an interstate business; the prohibition
+of stock-watering and attempts at monopoly; and the use of all the
+constitutional powers of Congress over interstate commerce and the
+mails for the enactment of comprehensive and effective legislation.
+That the silver issue was mentioned was due to the insistence of Bryan,
+who believed that the stand which had been taken by the party in 1896
+was a right one. Notwithstanding the objections of many influential
+leaders, therefore, a free silver plank was inserted, although in brief
+terms and in an inconspicuous place.
+
+As a political contest, the campaign of 1900 lacked life in comparison
+with that of 1896. Interest in anti-imperialism was difficult to
+arouse, and waned visibly as the weeks wore on. Prosperity and the
+increased money supply sapped the strength of earlier discontent with
+the currency situation, so that the choice presented to the voters
+simmered down to imperialism and Bryan. A bit of vigor was infused into
+the campaign through the energetic speaking tours of Roosevelt and the
+Democratic leader. Hanna, as Chairman of the Republican National
+Committee, organized everything with his usual skill, and raised, his
+biographer tells us, $2,500,000 from the important business men of the
+country--one-fifth of it from two companies. The result of the election
+was the choice of McKinley, whose plurality over Bryan exceeded 860,000
+in a total vote of less than 14,000,000; Bryan received less support
+than had been accorded him in 1896.
+
+While imperialism as a political issue was being discussed and decided,
+the history of American control in Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines
+was rapidly being written. Economic conditions in the first of these
+islands at the time of the American occupation were little short of
+appalling. The streets, houses and public institutions were filthy and
+in disrepair; anarchy ruled, for lack of any stable and recognized
+government; and the people were half-clothed, homeless and starving. At
+noon on January 1, 1899, the Spanish flag was hauled down in Havana,
+the American flag was hoisted in its place, and representatives of the
+former government relinquished all rights to the sovereignty and public
+property of the island. General John R. Brooke, and later General
+Leonard Wood controlled affairs as military governors.
+
+The first task was to feed the hungry, and care for the sick and dying.
+The customs service was revived under command of Colonel Tasker H.
+Bliss and began to supply needed revenue. The penal institutions were
+investigated--noisome holes in which were crowded wretched prisoners,
+many of whom had been incarcerated for no ascertainable reason.
+Education was reorganized, equipment provided, teachers found, and
+schools repaired or rebuilt. Most remarkable, was the work of
+sanitation. Heaps of rubbish were cleared away; houses washed and
+disinfected; sewers were opened and streets cleaned. Scientific
+investigation disclosed the fact that the mosquito disseminated the
+yellow fever and steps were taken to prevent the breeding of these
+pests. So successful were the efforts that in a few years the fever had
+become a thing of the past.
+
+It was seen that the economic rehabilitation of Cuba must come about
+mainly through the production of sugar, and since the United States was
+the chief purchaser of the product, the tariff schedule was of vital
+importance. In 1901 Congress was urged to reduce the tariff on imports
+from Cuba, but the opposition was formidable. The American Beet Sugar
+Association complained that their industry, which had been recently
+established, would be ruined by allowing reductions to Cuban growers;
+the cane-sugar planters of Louisiana were allied with them; and the
+friends of protection feared the effect of any break in the tariff
+wall. On the other hand, the American Sugar Refining Company, popularly
+called the "Sugar Trust," merely refined raw sugar and desired an
+increase in the supply. Lobbyists of all descriptions poured into
+Washington to influence committees and individuals, and General Leonard
+Wood, then the Governor of Cuba, even expended Cuban funds in the
+spread of literature favorable to a reciprocal reduction of duties. In
+the meantime, a reciprocity treaty was made and submitted to the
+Senate, where it hung fire for somewhat more than a year, and was
+finally ratified on December 16, 1903. It provided for the admission of
+Cuban products into the United States at a reduction of twenty per
+cent., and a reciprocal reduction on American goods entering Cuba of
+twenty-five to forty per cent.
+
+The establishment of a policy in regard to permanent relations between
+the United States and Cuba was brought about in 1901-1902. When
+Congress had demanded the withdrawal of Spain from the island in 1898,
+its action had been accompanied by the Teller Resolution, disclaiming
+any intention of keeping Cuba and asserting a determination to leave
+the control of the island with its people. After the close of the war
+President McKinley and his closest advisors in Congress had determined
+that the pledge should be kept, and public sentiment had been in
+agreement with them. As soon, therefore, as American control was an
+established fact, plans were formulated for relinquishing Cuba to the
+people of the island. A constitutional convention was held, and a form
+of government, modelled on that of the United States, was framed and
+adopted on February 21, 1901.
+
+While the Cuban convention was deliberating, it became apparent that
+the constitution would not include any statement of a policy in regard
+to future relations with the United States. The American Senate,
+therefore, under the leadership of Senator O.H. Platt, passed the
+so-called "Platt Amendment." Its several provisions were as follows:
+the Cuban government shall never enter into agreements with other
+powers which tend to impair the independence of the island; it shall
+not contract public debts of such size that the ordinary revenues would
+be inadequate to pay interest charges and provide for a sinking fund;
+it shall permit the intervention of the United States when needed to
+preserve Cuban independence and the maintenance of an adequate
+government; and it shall sell or lease necessary coaling stations to
+the United States. When satisfied that the purpose of the Amendment was
+not to enable the United States to meddle in affairs in Cuba, but
+merely to secure Cuban independence and set forth a definite
+understanding between the two nations, the convention incorporated it
+in the final constitution. On May 20, 1902, the control of Cuba was
+formally relinquished to the people of the island, with the good wishes
+of the people of the United States. Only once since that time has the
+United States intervened. During the summer of 1906, an insurrection
+against the Cuban government took place during which the president of
+the Republic requested American assistance. A small army was
+despatched, which remained until March, 1909, when quiet was restored
+and an orderly election was held.
+
+The task of the United States in Porto Rico was far simpler than in
+Cuba. The island was small; the people homogeneous, predominantly
+white, and well-disposed toward American occupation; and only slight
+damage had been done by the troops during the war because of the
+cessation of hostilities at the outset of the Porto Rican expedition.
+The development of a system of education, therefore, the improvement of
+roads and the betterment of health conditions through vaccination and
+the control of yellow fever presented a problem which was relatively
+simple.
+
+On October 18, 1898, United States officials assumed control of the
+island, and until May 1, 1900, the government was in the hands of the
+War Department. On the latter date a civil government was established
+under the "Foraker Act," an organic law or constitution passed by
+Congress on April 12, 1900. Under the provisions of the Act a governor
+was to be appointed by the President of the United States, to be the
+chief executive officer of the island. The people of Porto Rico were
+allowed a voice in the government through the power to elect the lower
+house of the legislature; but control by the United States was assured
+by giving the President authority to choose the members of the upper
+house, and by giving both the governor and Congress a veto on
+legislation passed by the island legislature. In the course of time the
+Porto Ricans desired larger self-government. This was granted by the
+act of March 2, 1917, which made the islanders citizens of the United
+States and gave them power to elect both houses of the legislature.[3]
+
+The first difficulty met by the United States in the Philippines was an
+inheritance from Spanish rule. In 1896 the Filipinos, led by Aguinaldo,
+had risen against the government in order to secure more liberal
+treatment and to eliminate the influence of the Catholic friars from
+politics. The "embers of dissatisfaction" were still aglow when the
+American war intervened. Relations between the revolutionists and the
+United States forces became strained when the former were not allowed
+to cooperate with the Americans against the Spanish, and in February,
+1899, open warfare followed. Not until July, 1902, was quiet restored,
+and during the process enough cruelties were practiced by American
+soldiers to make the anti-imperialists doubly fearful of military
+control.[4]
+
+McKinley and his Secretary of War--at this time Elihu Root--desired to
+supplant military government with civil rule as quickly as possible and
+to this end the President appointed the first Philippine Commission on
+January 20, 1899, with Jacob G. Schurman, of Cornell University, as
+Chairman. It was instructed to investigate the situation in the islands
+and to recommend any action that seemed wise. The unsettled condition
+of affairs seriously hampered the work of the Commission but it
+gathered a fund of information which it later published. A second
+Commission was sent out in 1900, with Judge William H. Taft at the
+head. The instructions given to the Commission by President McKinley
+embodied an enlightened colonial policy, the core of which was that the
+government being established was "designed not for our satisfaction, or
+for the expression of our theoretical views, but for the happiness,
+peace, and prosperity of the people of the Philippine Islands." The
+Commission wielded such large powers that gradually the area controlled
+by the civil government increased at the expense of the military
+authorities, and by 1902 only the wild Moros were under military
+control.
+
+By this time a definite form of government could be planned for, built
+upon the labors of the second Commission. The Philippine Act of July 1,
+1902, provided for a governor appointed by the President, with the
+advice of the Senate, executive departments, and a legislature, the
+lower house of which was elected by the people. From the beginning the
+Filipinos, like the Porto Ricans, have desired a greater range of
+self-government, and in 1916 long steps were taken in the direction
+desired by them. The Jones act of that year materially increased the
+powers of the Philippine government and gave the Filipinos power to
+elect the upper as well as the lower house of the legislature. The
+passage of the law met with enthusiastic approval in the islands.
+
+The purpose of American rule in the Philippines has been to fit the
+people for self-government, although opinions have differed as to how
+soon the final outcome could be brought about. An early and bothersome
+problem was found in the friars' lands, which consisted of about
+425,000 acres, for the most part in the vicinity of Manila. The
+possession of so great an area, together with the religious power and
+the considerable political authority which the friars exercised under
+Spanish rule, gave the Church a domination which might threaten trouble
+after the American occupation. The solution of the problem was found in
+the purchase of the lands for about $7,000,000 by the United States.
+Efforts have been made to introduce a complete system of
+education--physical and industrial, as well as academic--with such
+success that when the Jones bill was being discussed in Congress in
+1916 it was asserted that every member of the Philippine legislature at
+that time was a college graduate. In 1917 the Filipino student body
+numbered 647,256, with 11,822 teachers. Political education has also
+been a part of the American idea. Elementary self-government was
+gradually introduced, starting in the more civilized local
+municipalities and provinces and confining the suffrage to the educated
+people, the official classes and property owners. The preservation of
+order has been more and more entrusted to a Philippine constabulary;
+civil service officers and school teachers have been increasingly
+chosen from the Filipinos; and the courts have been partly manned with
+native judges. Work in sanitation has followed the lines marked out in
+Cuba and Porto Rico. First and last over 10,000,000 vaccinations were
+performed before 1914; small-pox has been controlled; attention has
+been paid to the building of highways and railroads, water supply, the
+disposal of sewage and allied problems. The precise time, if ever, when
+independence should be granted to the Philippines is the one great
+question remaining.
+
+The first attempt to revise the customs laws in the Philippines was
+made by the Commission during the governorship of William H. Taft.
+These schedules were revised in Washington in such a way as to
+discriminate against Philippine interests, but they had remained in
+force only a short time when Congress passed the act of March 8, 1902,
+allowing goods grown or produced in the Philippines to enter the United
+States under a twenty-five per cent. reduction. In 1909, the tariff
+makers were induced to relent to the extent of allowing the free
+importation of goods grown, produced or manufactured in the
+Philippines, except that only a specified annual amount of Philippine
+sugar and tobacco might be brought in. In 1913 the wall was entirely
+removed on all trade between the United States and the Philippines in
+articles made or grown in either of the two countries.
+
+While Congress and the President were concerning themselves with the
+practical problems of military control, sanitation and the like, the
+Supreme Court was laboriously considering the less tangible but equally
+perplexing question of the constitutionality of the several acts which
+the legislative and executive departments had committed. The power of
+Congress to acquire territory and the right of the executive to control
+new territory under the war power had long been conceded. Admittedly,
+however, government under the war power was temporary and transitional.
+In earlier times such acquisitions as those effected by the Louisiana
+purchase and the annexation of Texas had been consummated with the
+distinct understanding that these regions should immediately or
+eventually become territories or states in the Union. The status of
+Porto Rico and the Philippines was novel. "The civil rights and
+political status of the native inhabitants of the territories hereby
+ceded to the United States," ran the words of the treaty of peace
+closing the war with Spain, "shall be determined by the Congress." Did
+this mean that Congress might govern the new acquisitions independently
+of the Constitution? Could it abridge freedom of speech, and permit
+cruel and unusual punishments, or establish slavery? Could Congress
+permanently govern these lands without giving their citizens the rights
+of citizens of the United States, and with no intention of ever making
+them territories or states? On the other hand, if Congress must act
+within the limits prescribed by the Constitution, would the wild Moros
+of the Philippines be the beneficiaries of the amendment preserving the
+right of trial by jury? In the popular language of the day, did the
+Constitution follow the flag?
+
+It was not long before the Supreme Court was called upon in the
+"Insular Cases" to express itself upon these constitutional questions.
+The first case was De Lima _v._ Bidwell. It was a suit to recover
+duties paid on goods sent from Porto Rico to the United States during
+the interval between the cession of the island and the passage of the
+Foraker Act. The duties had been paid under the Dingley law, which
+levied customs of specified amounts upon all goods imported "from
+foreign countries." Was Porto Rico a "foreign" country? The majority of
+the nine members of the Court thought that it was not foreign, that
+there was scarcely a "shred of authority" for the view that a "district
+ceded to and in the possession of the United States remains for any
+purpose a foreign country." Since Porto Rico was not a foreign country,
+the duties were wrongfully collected and must be returned. The
+remaining four justices dissented. One of them delivered a dissenting
+opinion in which he held that Porto Rico occupied middle ground between
+that of a foreign country and domestic territory. As such its status
+could be determined by Congress only and therefore its products were
+subject to duties levied by the Dingley act.
+
+In Downes _v._ Bidwell the Court was compelled to determine the
+constitutionality of the part of the Foraker Act which provided for a
+tariff between Porto Rico and the United States equal to fifteen per
+cent. of that levied by the Dingley act. Again the Court divided five
+to four. Mr. Justice Brown delivered the majority opinion. It was to
+the effect that the Constitution applied only to States; that Congress
+possessed unlimited power over the political relations of the
+territories; that Porto Rico was a "territory appurtenant to and
+belonging to the United States"; and that the part of the Constitution
+which says that duties shall be uniform throughout the United States
+did not apply to Porto Rico unless Congress so willed. Hence the
+customs clause of the Foraker Act was valid. Four of the majority,
+however, who agreed with Mr. Justice Brown in his conclusion that the
+tariff clause of the Foraker Act was constitutional did so for reasons
+which they asserted to be "different from, if not in conflict with,
+those expressed" by him.
+
+From the point of view of constitutional law, the decisions were
+unsatisfactory, because of the balanced division of opinion. Yet to
+have declared all the provisions of the Constitution in force in all
+the acquisitions would have been embarrassing. Logic and the
+Constitution went to the winds, while the executive and legislative
+departments administered the territories on the convenient and flexible
+theory that certain constitutional provisions must be heeded and that
+others need not.
+
+While the colonial policy of the United States was being developed, the
+possession of the Philippines added interest in the United States to an
+unusual international situation in China which immediately involved
+several European nations and eventually affected America. The
+Chinese-Japanese War, which came to a close in 1895, had uncovered to
+the world the weakness of China as a military power and had weakened
+the hold of the reigning monarch upon the people of the Empire.
+Thereupon the leading commercial nations of Europe began to seize
+portions of China in order to extend their trade relations in the Far
+East. Russia first attempted to obtain a seaport, but retired when an
+uproar of protest arose from the remainder of Europe. Not long
+afterwards, two German missionaries in the province of Shantung were
+murdered. The outrage formed a sufficient pretext for aggressive
+action, as a result of which China leased Kiaochau to Germany for
+ninety-nine years, including in the grant railway and mining privileges
+and an indemnity; Russia then renewed her attempt and succeeded in
+leasing Port Arthur and Talienwan for twenty-five years. Great Britain
+followed with the acquisition of rights in Weihaiwei similar to those
+of Russia in Port Arthur; Japan found its share in the province of
+Fukien, and France in Kwangchaouwan. In each case, moreover, the
+leasing power designated a large area around its holdings as a "sphere
+of influence," in which its economic and political mastery was
+complete. In this way, thirteen of the eighteen provinces of China,
+including the most desirable harbors, waterways and mines, were
+partially controlled by the powers.
+
+American foreign affairs had been, since October 1, 1898, in the
+skilful hands of John Hay, who was possessed of an intimate knowledge
+of conditions in Europe. Hay perceived the danger to American
+commercial interests in China, and accordingly in September, 1899, he
+addressed a circular note to the powers requesting each of them to give
+formal assurances that in its sphere of influence: (1) it would not
+interfere with any treaty port or vested interest; (2) it would agree
+that the Chinese tariff should apply equally to all goods shipped to
+ports in the spheres, and be collected by the Chinese officials; and
+(3) it would charge no higher harbor and railroad rates for citizens of
+other nations than for its own. The powers having agreed more or less
+directly, Hay informed them by a note of March 20, 1900, that all had
+acceded to his propositions and that the United States considered their
+assent as "final and definitive." There could be, of course, no
+effectual guaranty that the powers would fully observe this "Open-Door"
+policy, but the economic penetration of China, which would soon result
+in complete political possession, was at least retarded for the moment.
+
+Domestic affairs in China, meanwhile, had been seething under the
+surface. An ill-starred reform movement, initiated by the Emperor, had
+failed, the government was discredited, and the Empress Dowager seized
+the throne for herself. All China interpreted the event to presage a
+return to the old order of things--a general anti-foreign movement.
+Economic distresses, bad crops, a disastrous flood and hatred of
+foreign missionaries, combined with a deep resentment at the European
+partition of their country, caused the Chinese to break out in a score
+of scattered attacks on the hated aliens. The culmination was the Boxer
+Rebellion. The Boxers was a society which had long existed in China for
+various religious, patriotic and other purposes. It took up the cry
+"Drive out the foreigners and uphold the dynasty." Government officials
+by their disinclination to quell the Boxer uprising, showed that their
+sympathies were with the rioters.
+
+The climax of the outbreak came in and around Pekin, the capital of
+China. The railroad from the city to the coast was seized, telegraphic
+connection cut off, and the representatives of the foreign powers were
+compelled to fortify themselves within the city. On June 19, 1900, all
+foreigners were ordered to leave within twenty-four hours, and the
+German minister was shot when he attempted to visit the proper officer
+in order to protest. The Chinese army poured out to surround the
+quarter of the city where the legations were situated and cut them off
+from the rest of the world. All foreigners fled to the British
+legation, where they constructed bomb proof cellars, raised barricades
+and planted artillery.[5] The powers, including the United States,
+combined to send a punitive expedition to Pekin, while the legationers
+settled down to a state of siege, determined to hold out as long as
+possible. At last on August 14, when the surviving foreigners were
+reduced to eating horse flesh and when scores had been killed or
+wounded, the relief column reached the capital. It was high time. The
+foreign quarters and much of the business portion, the banks, and the
+theatres had been burned, and the entire city threatened with
+destruction.
+
+By the time that the uprisings in Pekin and elsewhere had been
+suppressed, it was evident that the powers would have a stern
+accounting with China. Hay had already openly announced the policy of
+the United States in his note of July 3, 1900; it was that the United
+States would seek a solution which should bring about permanent safety
+and peace to China, preserve the territorial entity of the country,
+protect the rights of friendly powers and insure an equal opportunity
+for all nations in the commerce of China. Hay continued through the
+negotiations to urge joint action on the part of the powers, and
+procured from them a statement disclaiming any purpose to acquire any
+part of China. At length in December, 1900, the demands upon China were
+formulated, to which that unhappy nation was compelled to accede. The
+most important were, punishment for the guilty rioters, safeguards for
+the future, indemnities for losses and the improvement of commercial
+relations. The financial indemnity finally placed upon China was
+$333,000,000, of which $24,000,000 was for the United States. The
+latter sum proved to be more than sufficient to satisfy all claims and
+China was relieved from the payment of about $11,000,000. As a mark of
+appreciation for this act, the Chinese government determined to use the
+fund in sending students to the United States for education.
+
+While the problems concerning China and the colonial possessions of the
+United States were reaching a settlement, on September 6, 1901,
+President McKinley attended the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo,
+where he was shot by a young fanatic. He died eight days later and
+Vice-President Roosevelt succeeded him.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The framing, contents and ratification of the treaty of 1898 are well
+described in Chadwick, Latane and Olcott. The treaty itself is
+conveniently found in William MacDonald, _Documentary Source Book of
+American History_ (new ed., 1916).
+
+On imperialism: L.A. Coolidge, _An Old-Fashioned Senator, O.H. Plat_
+(1910); G.F. Hoar, _Autobiography of Seventy Years_, contains a strong
+argument against imperialism; A.C. Coolidge, _United States as a World
+Power_ (1916).
+
+The best accounts of the election of 1900 are in Stanwood, Croly and
+Latane.
+
+The island possessions have given rise to a considerable body of
+special volumes of a high order. Especially useful are: (Cuba), Elihu
+Hoot, _Military and Colonial Policy of the United States_ (1916), by
+McKinley's Secretary of War; L.A. Coolidge, _O.H. Platt_ (1910); A.G.
+Robinson, _Cuba and the Intervention_ (1905); C.E. Magoon, _Republic
+ of Cuba_ (1908), by the provisional governor during the second
+intervention. (Porto Rico), W.F. Willoughby, _Territories and
+Dependencies of the United States_ (1905), by a former treasurer of
+Porto Rico; L.S. Rowe, _United States and Porto Rico_ (1904). The most
+complete work on the Philippines is D.C. Worcester, _Philippines: Past
+and Present_ (2 vols., 1914), by a member of the Commission; the
+valuable report of Commissioner Taft is in _Report of the Philippine
+Commission_, 1907, part 3, printed also as _Senate Document 200_, 60th
+Congress, 1st session, vol. 7, (Serial Number 5240).
+
+The legal and constitutional aspects of imperialism are best followed
+in the _Harvard Law Review_, vols. XII, XIII; W.W. Willoughby,
+_Constitutional Law of the United States_ (2 vols., 1910); C.F.
+Randolph, _The Law and Policy of Annexation_ (1901); the "insular
+cases" are in _United States Reports_, vol. 182, pp. 1, 244.
+
+The most complete account of affairs in China is P.H. Clements, _The
+Boxer Rebellion_ (1915); J.B. Moore, _Digest_, vol. V (1906), is
+useful, as always; J.W. Foster, _American Diplomacy in the Orient_
+(1903), is clear and concise; W.R. Thayer, _John Hay_ (2 vols., 1915),
+is disappointing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The American commissioners were W.R. Day, Secretary of State;
+Whitelaw Reid, editor of the New York _Tribune_; and Senators C.K.
+Davis, W.P. Frye and George Gray. Senator Hoar remonstrated with
+McKinley for placing senators on such commissions as this, on the
+ground that the independence of the Senate was thereby lessened when
+the question of ratifying the treaty came before that body. He declared
+that McKinley admitted that the practice was wrong. Cf. _Autobiography_,
+II, 46-51.
+
+[2] Of the President's party, T.B. Reed, the powerful Speaker of the
+House, retired from public life for personal reasons and because of his
+dissent from the imperialist policy of his party. McCall, _Reed_,
+237-8.
+
+[3] Under the provisions of the Foraker Act only fifteen per cent. of
+the usual duties were to be paid on goods passing between the island
+and the United States, and since July 25, 1901, complete free trade has
+existed.
+
+[4] The Philippine group is about 7,000 miles southwest of San
+Francisco; the chief island, Luzon, is almost exactly the size of Ohio,
+40,000 sq. miles; the largest city, Manila, contained over 250,000
+people at the time of the American occupation.
+
+[5] It was on the occasion of despatching troops to avenge the death of
+Von Ketteler, the German minister, that the Emperor gave instructions
+to "give no quarter and to (act) so like Huns that for a thousand years
+to come no Chinese would dare to look a German in the face."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+THE BEGINNING OF A NEW CENTURY
+
+Most of the tendencies which characterized the growth of population,
+the expansion of the West, the concentration of the people in cities,
+the development of manufacturing and agriculture, and the extension of
+the railway system, from 1870 to 1890, were equally significant during
+the two decades following the latter year. Nevertheless there were
+important differences of detail in the tendencies of the later period;
+and about the year 1900 in particular there occurred changes that were
+far-reaching.
+
+[Illustration:
+The chief foreign elements in the population of the United States, 1910]
+
+The rate of growth of population slowed up slightly after 1890, being
+twenty-one per cent. per decade, as contrasted with twenty-five per
+cent. from 1870 to 1890. The increases were distributed over a larger
+area during the later two decades, and aside from the industrial
+states, those which showed the greatest growth were Oklahoma, Texas and
+California. Immigration continued to be large, and concentrated in the
+north, especially in the cities. In New York city, for instance, forty
+per cent. of the inhabitants in 1910 were foreign born, and
+thirty-eight per cent. more were of foreign, or mixed foreign and
+native parentage. The chief European contributors to the population of
+America in 1910 in the order of their importance were Germany,
+Austria-Hungary, Russia, Ireland, Italy and England. Moreover the
+foreign elements had frequently become concentrated in especial states:
+the Germans in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois; the Russians in New
+York, North Dakota and Connecticut; the Austrians in Pennsylvania and
+New Jersey; and the Irish in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York.
+The immigration of Canadians, which had been of importance before 1900,
+appreciably slowed down after that year; and instead there was a
+distinct movement in the opposite direction, especially from Minnesota,
+North Dakota and Washington. The emigration was caused mainly by the
+desire to take up fertile lands which had been widely advertised by the
+Canadian government. The migration from the eastern states toward the
+West continued as in earlier years. It was noticeable, however, that
+whereas previous migration had been almost wholly on east and west
+lines, there was in later years a greater tendency to seek favorable
+openings wherever they were found. Oklahoma, for example, in 1910
+contained 71,000 natives of Illinois, 101,000 Kansans and 162,000
+Missourians. The trend of population toward the cities was so rapid
+between 1890 and 1910 as to suggest the likelihood that by 1920 half
+the people of the country would be living in communities of 2,500
+persons or more. Of the twenty-three towns that more than doubled in
+numbers during the two decades after 1890, seventeen were in the South
+and on the Pacific Coast, indicating that the tendency toward urban
+life was no longer confined to the North and East.
+
+Manufacturing increased its importance as the greatest economic
+activity in the Northeast, and was moving westward so rapidly that
+Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois found their interests becoming
+increasingly like those of the eastern states. Parts of the South,
+also, developed considerable industrial interests. The manufacture of
+cotton goods, for example, increased with such rapidity that three of
+the first five states in the value of their product in 1909 were
+southern states--North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Since 1889
+the production of lumber has taken a prominent place. Louisiana doubled
+its activity from 1889 to 1899 and had tripled this record by 1909.
+Almost the entire South from Virginia to Louisiana produced large
+amounts during the twenty years under consideration. The iron and steel
+industry in Alabama, and the production of turpentine, resin and
+fertilizers were other important southern interests. Throughout the
+country at large the number of wage earners engaged in manufacturing
+grew somewhat more rapidly than the population, being about twenty-five
+per cent. per decade from 1890 to 1910.
+
+The center of agriculture continued to be in the Middle West, in which
+was to be found nearly fifty-three per cent. of the improved farm lands
+and fifty-eight per cent. of the value of all farm property. It was in
+this part of the country that the greatest increases in the amount of
+improved land took place, and particularly in the prairie country west
+of the Mississippi. By 1890 the Plains had lost their earlier unique
+and picturesque characteristics as a cattle country, and had given way
+to the homesteader. Hence the greatest expansion in agriculture took
+place in the tier of states from North Dakota to Texas. It appeared,
+therefore, that manufacturing was driving agriculture farther and
+farther to the west: New England cultivated less farm land in 1910 than
+in 1850; the improved area in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania
+declined after 1880; Ohio tilled fewer acres in 1910 than in 1900, and
+the gradual replacement of agriculture by manufacturing was observable
+in Indiana and Illinois. Oklahoma and Texas, on the other hand,
+together opened to cultivation between 1890 and 1910 nearly 24,000,000
+acres, an expanse almost equivalent to the combined areas of New
+Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Maryland.
+
+By 1890 it was clear that the future of the Far West lay in
+agriculture, rather than in the mining of the precious metals. Between
+that date and 1910, the amount of improved farm land in the section
+increased sixty-five per cent. In the states of Washington, New Mexico,
+Colorado, Idaho and Montana, large areas were placed under cultivation.
+In Washington the amount of improved farm land increased about 350 per
+cent. The growing of fruits and nuts was brought to a high state of
+excellence in the coast states. The timber industry developed after
+1880 and particularly after 1900. About the close of the nineteenth
+century the great lumber companies began to seek sources of supply to
+take the place of those around the Great Lakes. They turned to the
+South and the Far West. The methods which were used for getting control
+of the land, and the recklessness with which the supplies of timber
+were cut off became of importance as causes of the conservation
+movement. The main handicap in the way of the development of trade
+between the Far West and the East was the great distances involved.
+Hence arose the interest of the Coast in transcontinental railway rates
+and the project for a canal across the isthmus of Panama.
+
+An economic fact of no little importance was a change in the downward
+tendency of the price level after 1896. It will be remembered that the
+constant fall in prices from 1873 to 1896 had brought distress to the
+farmers of the West and had been one of the causes of the Populist
+revolt. After 1896 the process was reversed. Between that year and 1913
+the quantity of gold in circulation considerably increased, as has been
+seen; bank deposits subject to check trebled in volume, and the use of
+checks became more common; altogether it was estimated by Professor
+Irving Fisher that the quantity of money in circulation increased
+two-fold. Prices were fifty per cent. higher in 1913 than in the
+earlier year, and accordingly the complaints of the farmer were less
+frequently heard. The wage earner in the factories, however, was
+differently affected. The price which he had to pay for the necessities
+of life increased faster than his wages, so that his standard of living
+was going down. Inasmuch as the number of wage earners in the factories
+was rapidly increasing, it seemed inevitable that the problem of rising
+prices after 1896 would constitute as great a problem as the problem of
+falling prices had done before that year.
+
+[Illustration:
+The Cost of Food, 1900-1912]
+
+In industrial enterprise the close of the nineteenth century and the
+opening of the twentieth were characterized by a mad rush toward
+consolidation. To a milder degree the process had, of course, been
+under way for many years, during which the Standard Oil Company and
+other trusts were the subject of much study and legislation. In the
+course of time some of these concerns made such great profits that
+their leaders sought attractive openings for the investment of their
+surplus. They began to appear on the boards of directors of railways,
+banks, electric lighting companies and other industrial organizations.
+Before 1900 two powerful groups had definitely formed. The Standard or
+Rockefeller group was obtaining large interests in such railroads as
+the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western,
+and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul. It was reaching out to the gas
+and electric companies in New York, had an alliance with the National
+City Bank and others, and was in touch with great life insurance
+companies such as the Equitable and the Mutual of New York. Such
+connections enabled them to determine the policies and direct the
+investments of these important concerns. The Morgans extended their
+influence over the Philadelphia and Reading, the New York, Lake Erie
+and Western, the Lehigh Valley and others. Morgan himself also entered
+the industrial field as organizer of the Federal Steel Company and the
+National Tube Company.
+
+The mania for organizing large corporations came to a climax about
+1900. The census taken in that year noted ninety-two that had been
+formed between January 1, 1899, and June 30, 1900. Early in 1904 the
+editor of Moody's _Manual of Corporation Securities_ noted the
+existence of 440 large industrial and transportation combinations whose
+capitalization as measured by the par value of their stocks and bonds
+was nearly $20,500,000,000. The securities--stocks and bonds--of the
+new companies were eagerly taken up by the investing public. Prosperity
+was wide-spread and the financial strength behind the organizations
+seemed unlimited. Speculation became common. A few individuals amassed
+wealth through the shrewd purchase and sale of stocks, and countless
+others sought unsuccessfully to imitate them. Where sales of 400,000
+shares on the stock exchange had formerly been looked upon as a good
+day's business, the record jumped to a million, then two, and even
+three.[1]
+
+A threatened competitive struggle among certain steel manufacturers in
+1901 led to the formation of the United States Steel Corporation, the
+most famous consolidation of the period. It was, strictly speaking, a
+"holding corporation" which did not manufacture at all, but merely held
+the securities and directed the policies of the group of companies of
+which it was composed. It integrated all the elements of the
+industry--ore deposits, coal mines, limestone, a thousand miles of
+railroads, ore vessels on the Great Lakes, furnaces, steel works,
+rolling mills and other related interests. The value of the tangible
+property which was thus brought under the control of a single group of
+men was estimated by the United States Commissioner of Corporations at
+about $700,000,000. The company issued securities, however, to somewhat
+over twice this amount. In other words, about $700,000,000 of the
+capitalization was "water," that is, securities issued in excess of the
+value of the tangible properties owned. The prices paid to those who
+controlled the constituent companies were such as to make them
+multi-millionaires over night, and the commission given to the
+financiers who organized the Corporation was unparalleled in size,
+amounting to $62,500,000.
+
+The appreciation of the value of the ore deposits controlled by the
+Steel Corporation later replaced some of the water in its securities,
+but in many cases no such process came about. Investors therefore
+discovered that the paper which they had purchased did not represent
+real property, but merely the hope of a company that its profits would
+be large enough to provide returns upon all its securities. One hundred
+of the leading industrial stocks shrank in value $1,750,000,000 within
+eighteen months. In the case of the Steel Corporation it was noticeable
+that its supremacy depended to a large extent on the possession of
+resources of ore on land much of which had originally belonged to the
+public, a fact which, the Commissioner of Corporations remarked, made
+the affairs of the company a matter of public interest.
+
+The growth and consolidation which characterized the history of
+industry were also taking place in the railway system, although
+somewhat more slowly. It has already been noted that the length of the
+railroads had reached 160,000 miles by 1890. For the next two decades
+the rate of construction diminished slightly, yet the total in 1914 was
+252,231 miles, and the par value of all railroad securities was
+estimated at $20,500,000,000. Nearly four and a half million persons, a
+railroad president estimated in 1915, were at that time interested in
+the industry as employees, as workmen in shops making railroad
+supplies, or through the ownership of stocks and bonds.
+
+The management of the roads is, of course, continually changing;
+alliances are made and broken; groups form and dissolve. About the time
+that the United States Steel Corporation was being organized, however,
+about ninety-five per cent. of the important lines were in the control
+of six groups of influential persons, which were dominated by fourteen
+individuals. Each group had obtained the upper hand in the roads of one
+or more sections. The Morgan-Hill group, for example, held the Chicago,
+Burlington and Quincy, the Northern Pacific, the Great Northern, the
+Southern, the Atlantic Coast Line, the Erie and others, amounting to
+47,206 miles. E.H. Harriman, chairman of the board of directors of the
+Union Pacific, succeeded in obtaining control of so many lines that by
+1901 the Interstate Commerce Commission asserted that the consummation
+of plans which he then had in mind would subject nearly one-half the
+territory of the United States to the power of a single will. Before
+his death in 1909 he had obtained practical control of a system of
+roads running from coast to coast and passing through the most
+important cities of the country and had planned to continue
+indefinitely the process of acquiring new lines.
+
+[Illustration:
+Morgan-Hill railroads as listed shortly after 1900]
+
+The concentration of the banking interests of the country went hand in
+hand with consolidation in industry and railway control. The
+unprecedented operations which have just been mentioned demanded
+unprecedented amounts of capital and credit, and the concentration of
+these necessities occurred in New York City. The Standard Oil group and
+the Morgan group dominated the banking interests to such an extent that
+it was doubtful whether any great business enterprise demanding large
+capital could be started without the aid of one or the other of them.
+Some years later a congressional investigation was started, to discover
+whether the control of a few men over the financial affairs of the
+nation amounted to a "money trust," and at that time it was found that
+the members of four allied financial institutions in New York City held
+341 directorships in banks, insurance companies, railroads, steamship
+companies and trading and public utility corporations, having aggregate
+resources of $22,245,000,000.
+
+The financial power thus placed in the hands of a small number of men
+was the cause of much legislation passed by the states and by Congress
+in connection with the railroads and trusts. Opinions varied widely in
+regard to the effects of concentration. On the one hand it was argued
+that the men of greatest ability and vision naturally came to the top;
+that industry received the necessary stabilizing influence; that
+production and demand were compelled to harmonize; that scientific
+research directed toward the discovery of new processes and products,
+and the better utilization of old ones could be successfully carried on
+only by concerns with large resources; and that efficiency and economy
+resulted from large-scale operation. On the other hand it was pointed
+out that a small number of persons who were responsible to nobody could
+dominate the fortunes of hundreds of thousands of wage earners,
+manipulate production, make or break a region or a rival, bring about
+financial crises and, in a controversy or for private gain, use a great
+industry or a railroad as a weapon and wreck it regardless of the
+welfare of the public at large.
+
+Among the intellectual forces underlying American history after 1890, a
+prominent place should be given to the expansion of the public library,
+the growth of public education and the development of the press. Many
+libraries, of course, had been established long before the Civil
+War--the Library of Congress, for example, having been founded in
+1800--but the great growth of the public library supported by taxation
+and open to all citizens alike occurred after 1865. Between that year
+and 1900 no fewer than thirty-seven states passed laws enabling the
+towns within their borders to levy taxes for the support of public
+libraries; private bequests amounted to fabulous sums, the outstanding
+example of which were the gifts of Andrew Carnegie, amounting to
+$62,500,000 between 1881 and 1915. By 1914 there were over 2,000
+libraries containing at least 5,000 volumes, and forty that contained
+more than 200,000 each.
+
+The significant features in the growth of education between 1865 and
+1890 had been the improvement of the public grammar school, the
+establishment of high schools and the foundation of the great state
+universities. After 1890 the public high schools were greatly improved,
+business and vocational courses were added, and the enrollment at the
+colleges and universities received large additions. Such universities
+as that in Wisconsin exerted an unusual influence on intellectual and
+political currents in individual states.
+
+A large proportion of the political, social and economic changes and
+reforms that have taken place in the United States since 1890 have done
+so because public opinion was educated, quietly influenced or noisily
+bestirred by the press. Governors and presidents appealed to their
+constituents through the newspaper and the periodical. Political
+campaigns have become increasingly matters of publicity; candidates for
+office have their press bureaus; corporations, abandoning their
+traditional policy of silence, explain their practices; and railroads
+defend their policies by means of advertisements in the newspapers.
+Newspaper correspondents go out through the country months before
+candidates for the presidency are nominated, and discover and publish
+sentiment favorable to the individual whom the particular organ desires
+to see placed in office. In 1918 the circulation of the daily
+newspapers amounted to approximately 28,000,000 copies for each issue.
+In the North, the Middle West, and on the Pacific Coast the number
+published was sufficient to provide every family with one copy. The
+South and the Rocky Mountain region were less well supplied. The great
+metropolitan newspapers circulate widely, not only in the immediate
+vicinity of the publisher's office, but over a wide area outside. At
+least one of them in 1918 approached half a million copies daily,
+another exceeded 800,000, and a third issued nearly three-fourths of a
+million on Sunday. William R. Hearst established a chain of newspapers
+which gave him an audience of over a million readers every day. Several
+of the weekly and monthly magazines circulated in hundreds of thousands
+of copies; and one weekly periodical which presented newspaper opinion
+of all shades of political partisanship had a circulation of 750,000
+copies for every issue.
+
+[Illustration:
+Daily Newspaper Circulation, 1918]
+
+The rise of the "muck-rake"[2] magazines was typical of the ten years
+at the opening of the twentieth century. These periodicals printed
+articles which portrayed a side of American life not commonly discussed
+in the newspapers. One of the earliest serials of this type was Miss
+Ida M. Tarbell's History of the Standard Oil Company, published in
+_McClure's Magazine_ in 1902-1903. Instead of the ordinary eulogy of
+the size and success of the Company, Miss Tarbell presented many of its
+unfair practices. At the same time and in the same publication Lincoln
+Steffens was exposing the seamy side of municipal affairs in "The Shame
+of the Cities." Between 1901 and 1906 one of the muck-rake periodicals
+increased its sales threefold, another four and another seven.
+
+Cooperation among newspapers in the gathering of information is no
+novelty in the United States, but the greatest strides have been taken
+since 1890. By 1915 the Associated Press had leased 50,000 miles of
+telegraph wires forming a net all over the country; it had agents in
+every important news center; it exchanged services with three European
+press associations; and it had its own representatives not only in
+London, Paris, and Berlin, but in Fez, Madeira, Colombo, Tsingtau and
+Sydney. News from Europe reached New York in less than an hour and was
+promptly sent to 900 newspapers, whence it was copied in thousands of
+daily and weekly publications. As in the case of other enterprises the
+publication of newspapers showed a tendency towards consolidation. The
+establishment of a new periodical became a million-dollar venture, and
+it remains to be seen whether the tendency toward centralization will
+result in the publication only of such news or such phases of the news
+as meet the approval of the relatively small number of persons that can
+launch a million-dollar organization.
+
+It will be remembered that _laissez faire_ was the prevailing theory in
+regard to the proper relation between government and industry during
+the twenty-five years after the close of the Civil War, except in so
+far as industrial organizations desired protective tariffs. In brief
+the upholders of this creed contended that legislation should concern
+itself as little as possible with the regulation of trade, that it
+should restrict itself to protecting commerce from interference and
+that business men should be permitted to work out their own problems
+with the least possible reference to such artificial forces as were
+supplied by legal enactments.[3] It would be inaccurate to say that the
+theory of _laissez faire_ had completely given way by the end of the
+half century after the Civil War. Nor would it be wholly correct to say
+that any other theory has yet demonstrated its permanent reliability,
+Nevertheless the distinctive philosophy upon which later legislation
+has been built is the theory of public interest. The theory needs
+definition in some detail, because it forms the philosophy which
+underlies most of the political developments and much of the
+legislation of the early twentieth century.
+
+As the men of the eighties and nineties contemplated the vast amounts
+of wealth created during those decades they saw it concentrated to a
+great extent in the hands of the few. The few believed that the public
+good was best cared for in this way, but an increasing majority of the
+people looked upon the tendency with greater and greater alarm. They
+complained that the railroads discriminated in favor of the powerful
+few; that corporations were achieving monopoly; and that the government
+itself often assisted the process by framing tariff schedules primarily
+for the interest of the manufacturers. When the reaction against this
+situation started, it was of course found that the seats of power were
+already occupied by the adherents of _laissez faire_,--the party
+committees, the legislatures, the executive offices and the courts.
+There ensued, therefore, a long struggle for power and for a new theory
+of government. The land-marks of the controversy were to be found in
+interstate commerce acts, anti-trust laws, income taxes, bureaus of
+labor and factory legislation.
+
+The proponent of _laissez faire_ would allow the few to accumulate
+large fortunes which they might share with the many through
+benefactions, gifts to education, libraries, and other public
+enterprises; the adherent of public interest would inquire why the many
+are poor, and attempt so to change economic conditions as to reduce the
+number of the poor to a minimum. Instead of framing laws so that wealth
+and power would get into the hands of a small number of individuals, in
+the expectation that prosperity would filter down to the many, the
+advocate of public interest would aim his legislation directly at what
+he considers the needs of the less powerful classes. He would interfere
+with the railroads, for example, to compel them to charge uniform
+rates, prevent corporations from electing public officers by means of
+large contributions to campaign funds, force industry even at some cost
+to protect employees through safety devices, and would hold the great
+forests on the public lands for the direct good of the whole people.
+The transfer of emphasis from _laissez faire_ to public interest was
+based upon a steady growth in the value placed upon the worth of the
+individual man, and upon a shift from legislating for the few to
+legislating directly for the multitude. The change was greater than can
+be indicated by citing any one law or group of laws. It was "a new
+intellectual perspective through which we view all moral issues
+affecting society."[4]
+
+Underlying many of the difficulties in the way of replacing _laissez
+faire_ with a new theory, was the attitude of the courts toward certain
+parts of the Fourteenth Amendment. It will be remembered that a portion
+of section one of the Amendment forbids the states to "deprive any
+person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." It
+will also be remembered that the majority of the Supreme Court in early
+decisions interpreting the Amendment had expressed the belief that its
+purpose was the protection of the negro. By 1890, however, the Court
+had come to hold that the word "person" as used in the first section
+included corporations, and thus had given the language of the Amendment
+a greatly widened application. Of 528 decisions given by the Court on
+the Amendment between 1890 and 1910, only nineteen concerned the negro
+race, while 289 affected corporations. In the decision of the case
+Lochner _v._ New York, a state law regulating hours of labor in
+bakeries was declared to conflict with the Amendment, because the right
+of the laborer to work as many hours as he pleased was part of the
+"liberty" which was protected by the Amendment. Laws regulating
+railroad rates through commissions were held to deprive corporations of
+property without due process. Until recently changed, the statutes did
+not allow appeal to the Supreme Court in cases where state courts
+declared state laws in conflict with the United States Constitution,
+and the Fourteenth Amendment therefore acted as a protective bulwark in
+state as well as nation. In brief, then, the legal position of the big
+industrial organizations was almost impregnable because of the
+fortuitous circumstance that the words of a part of the Constitution
+might be held to mean something which probably did not enter the minds
+of the Congress or the state legislatures which placed the words in the
+document.
+
+The people of the United States have usually avoided hostile criticism
+of the Constitution and the decisions of the Supreme Court, and they
+have reflected this feeling in their acquiescence in the unexpected
+turn given to the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. The members of
+the Court, however, have frequently expressed disquietude. Dissenting
+opinions opposing the view which the Court has taken, have been common.
+Mr. Justice Harlan declared that the scope of the Amendment was being
+enlarged far beyond its original purpose; Mr. Justice Holmes asserted
+that the word "liberty" was being "perverted" and that the Constitution
+was not intended to embody _laissez faire_ or any other economic
+theory.[5]
+
+The most prominent pioneers in replacing the old by the new theory were
+William J. Bryan, Robert M. La Follette and Theodore Roosevelt. Bryan's
+leadership in 1896 has already been mentioned. With courage and
+sincerity he attempted to solve the social and economic problems of his
+day, but his youth, his inexperience, his radicalism, and the fact that
+he did not choose issues that were immediately practicable made it
+impossible for him to command the confidence of the majority. Unable
+himself to scale the heights of reform, he nevertheless pointed them
+out to others. With a voice that has been likened to an organ with a
+hundred stops, with persistence, energy and good nature he spread far
+and wide a new conception of social obligation. He insisted that the
+social and economic discontent of the South and West were real, and
+that they could not be laughed out of court or frightened into silence.
+
+La Follette's constructive pioneer work was done for the most part in
+Wisconsin. During the ascendency of the _laissez faire_ theory, the
+state was largely controlled by the lumber, railroad and other
+interests, using the Republican party as their political agency; and a
+small but powerful group controlled the election of state and federal
+officials, the press and state legislation. Between 1885 and 1891 La
+Follette, who was himself a Republican, was a representative in the
+federal House. In the latter year he came into collision with Senator
+Sawyer, a wealthy lumber merchant who was the leader of the dominant
+party in the state. For years the state treasurers had been lending the
+state's money to favored banks without interest. Senator Sawyer had
+acted as bondsman for the treasurers and was sued by the
+attorney-general of the state for back interest. La Follette threw
+himself into this controversy on the side of the state; and being
+unable to obtain a hearing through the usual medium of the press, he
+and his supporters went directly to the people, speaking from town to
+town before interested audiences; and subsequently the state won.
+
+In the Sawyer controversy were visible all the elements of the later
+creed and methods of La Follette. He always remained with the
+Republican party, preferring to attempt change from within; and he
+always opposed the interests and found his strength in direct appeals
+to the people of his state. Out of those years came the "Wisconsin
+idea,"--a program which included the taxation of railroads and
+corporations, primaries in which the people could nominate their own
+candidates for office, the prohibiting of the acceptance of railroad
+passes by public officials, and the conservation of the forests and
+water power of the state. The conflict between _laissez faire_ and
+public interest in Wisconsin was long and bitter, but it led to a
+series of triumphs for La Follette, who was elected governor in 1900,
+1902 and 1904, and chosen to the federal Senate in 1905. In the
+meanwhile there was a widespread demand throughout the West for
+legislation along the lines marked out by Wisconsin.
+
+Party lines are so drawn in the United States that it is difficult for
+like-minded men of different parties to cooperate in furthering a
+program. The three pioneers were men whose capacities and personal
+qualities differed greatly, but in their economic and political
+philosophy they were nearer to one another than to the rank and file of
+their own parties. Bryan in 1902 refused to take part in the Democratic
+campaign in Wisconsin because he favored La Follette's program, and in
+1905 he even aided the latter in his fight for railroad regulation; in
+1912 Bryan found Roosevelt leading a revolt in the Republican party on
+a program to much of which he could give unqualified assent; and of La
+Follette, Roosevelt said in the same year: "Thanks to the movement for
+genuinely democratic popular government which Senator La Follette led
+to overwhelming victory in Wisconsin, that state has become literally a
+laboratory for wise experimental legislation aiming to secure the
+social and political betterment of the people as a whole."
+
+Roosevelt's own share in the history of the early twentieth century was
+of such magnitude as to require a more extended account.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The literature is voluminous and not easy to evaluate. On population
+changes and immigration, the best source is the _Abstract of the
+Thirteenth (1910) Census_ (1913), with the _Atlas_ accompanying it
+(1914); _Reports of the Immigration Commission, appointed under the
+Congressional Act of Feb. 20, 1907_ (42 vols., 1911), is exhaustive; F.
+A. Ogg, _National Progress_ (1918), has a good chapter; consult Joseph
+Schafer, _A History of the Pacific Northwest_ (rev. ed., 1918), for
+Washington and Oregon.
+
+The consolidation in industry, railroads and finance may be followed
+in: A.D. Noyes, _Forty Years of American Finance_ (1909); John Moody,
+_The Truth about the Trusts_ (1904); _Report of the Commissioner of
+Corporations on the Steel Industry_ (3 parts, 1911), on the United
+States Steel Corporation; Anna P. Youngman, _Economic Causes of Great
+Fortunes_ (1909); C.R. Van Hise, _Concentration and Control a Solution
+of the Trust Problem in the United States_ (rev. ed., 1914); E.R.
+Johnson and T.W. Van Metre, _Principles of Railroad Transportation_
+(1916); John Moody, _The Railroad Builders_ (1919); John Moody, _The
+Masters of Capital_ (1919); and _Report of the Committee Appointed
+Pursuant to House Resolutions 429 and 504 to Investigate the
+Concentration of Control of Money and Credit_, (Pujo Committee) 1913.
+
+There is no satisfactory study of the social and political effects of
+the great increase in the circulation of newspapers and periodicals.
+Suggestive articles are: _World's Work_ (Oct., 1916), "Stalking for
+Nine Million Votes"; _Arena_ (July, 1909), "The Making of Public
+Opinion"; _Atlantic Monthly_ (Mar., 1910), "Suppression of Important
+News." Less superficial articles are those of Walter Lippmann in the
+_Atlantic Monthly_ (Nov., Dec., 1919). The statistics are available in
+N.W. Ayer, _American Newspaper Annual and Directory_.
+
+The emergence of the theory of public interest is best seen in the
+_Autobiography_ of R.M. La Follette (4th ed., 1920); consult also
+Theodore Roosevelt, _Autobiography_, and C.G. Washburn, _Theodore
+Roosevelt; the Logic of his Career_ (1916). A profound article is W.J.
+Tucker, "The Progress of the Social Conscience," in _Atlantic Monthly_
+(Sept., 1915).
+
+On the Fourteenth Amendment, consult the volumes already mentioned
+under Chap. IV.
+
+There are no thorough estimates of Bryan and La Follette. On the
+former: _Atlantic Monthly_ (Sept., 1912), and _Nineteenth Century_
+(July, 1915); H. Croly, _Promise of American Life_ (1914), is critical.
+W.J. Bryan, _First Battle_ (1897), is essential. On La Follette, his
+own narrative as given in the _Autobiography_ is best, but should be
+read with care as it was written in the heat of partisan controversy.
+See also F.C. Howe, _Wisconsin an Experiment in Democracy_ (1912),
+friendly to La Follette.
+
+Frank Norris, _The Octopus, and The Pit_; Winston Churchill, _Coniston_
+and _Mr. Crewe's Career_; and Upton Sinclair, _The Jungle_, are
+illustrative fiction.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The shrinkage of the value of these securities caused the "rich
+men's panic" of 1903. Consult Noyes, _Forty Years_, 308-311.
+
+[2] The word originated in 1906 with President Roosevelt, who likened
+certain sensational journalists to the man with the Muck-Rake in
+Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress. Annual Register_, 1906, 442.
+
+[3] Cf. pp. 94-96 above.
+
+[4] I have drawn largely at this point upon Dr. W.J. Tucker's article
+"The Progress of the Social Conscience" in the _Atlantic Monthly_,
+Sept., 1915, 289-303. The clearest idea of the transition from _laissez
+faire_ to public interest is gained by reading the biography of M.A.
+Hanna by Croly, and La Follette's and Roosevelt's autobiographies.
+
+[5] Usually cases involving the Fourteenth Amendment have also involved
+other parts of the Constitution. The main reliance, however, in such
+cases has been the Amendment mentioned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+THEODORE ROOSEVELT
+
+Seldom, in times of peace, is the personality of a single individual
+so important as that of Theodore Roosevelt during the early years of
+the twentieth century. At the time of his accession to the presidency,
+he lacked a month of being forty-three years old, but the range of his
+experience in politics had been far beyond his age. In his early
+twenties, soon after leaving Harvard, he had entered the Assembly of
+the state of New York. President Harrison had made him Civil Service
+Commissioner in 1889, and he had been successively President of the
+Board of Police Commissioners of New York City, Assistant Secretary of
+the Navy, an important figure in the war with Spain, and Governor of
+New York. He had been known as a young man of promise--energetic,
+independent and progressive--and in addition to his political
+activities he had found time to write books on historical subjects,
+see something of life on a western ranch and develop a somewhat
+defective physique into an engine of physical power.
+
+Brimming with energy, nimble of mind, impetuous, sure of himself, quick
+to strike, a fearless foe, frank, resourceful, audacious, honest,
+versatile--Roosevelt possessed the qualities which would challenge the
+admiration of the typical American. One who frequently saw him at work
+described thus the way in which he prepared a message to be sent to the
+Senate:
+
+    He storms up and down the room, dictating in a loud and oratorical
+    tone, often stopping, recasting a sentence, striking out and
+    filling in, hospitable to every suggestion, not in the least
+    disturbed by interruption, holding on stoutly to his purpose,
+    and producing finally, out of these most unpromising conditions,
+    a clear and logical statement, which he could not improve with
+    solitude and leisure at his command.
+
+The breadth of his interests, the democratic character of his
+friendships--for he was equally at home with blue-stocking, politician,
+cowboy and artisan--his complete loyalty to his friends and his
+disregard of conventionalities gave him a grip upon popular favor that
+had not been duplicated since the days of Andrew Jackson, unless by
+Lincoln. The effectiveness of so compelling a personality was in no way
+diminished by Roosevelt's possession of what a journalist would call
+"news sense." He was made for publicity; he had an instinct for the
+dramatic. His speeches were removed from mediocrity by his evident
+sincerity, his abounding interest in every occasion at which he was
+called upon to talk and the phrases that were half victories which he
+coined almost at will. "Mollycoddle," "muckraking," "the square deal,"
+"the big stick" became familiar idioms in the vernacular of politics
+and the street. The political leadership of Roosevelt rested mainly
+upon his personal prestige and upon his attributes as a reformer. With
+unerring prescience he chose those political issues which would make
+a wide appeal and which could be pressed quickly to a successful
+conclusion. His complete integrity saved him from mere opportunism; his
+ruggedly practical commonsense saved him from that combination of high
+purpose and slight accomplishment which has characterized many other
+reformers.
+
+No estimate of the deficiencies in Roosevelt's personality and
+leadership would be agreed upon at the present time. In some cases--as
+in the realm of international relations--only the future can decide
+whether he was a prophet or a chauvinist; in all cases, opinions have
+differed widely, for Roosevelt could scarcely explore a river, describe
+a natural phenomenon or urge a political innovation without thereby
+arousing a controversy in which his friends and his opponents would
+participate with equal intensity. His identification of himself with
+his purposes was as complete as that of Andrew Jackson; opposition to
+his proposals was reckoned as opposition to him as an individual. Like
+many leaders of the fighting type, he was frequently weak when judging
+the motives of those who disagreed with him. One of his admirers
+declared that his greatest political defect was an impatience of any
+interval between an expressed desire for an act and the accomplishment
+of the deed itself--an inability to stand through years of defeat for
+the future success of an ideal. A keener and equally sympathetic critic
+dubbed him the "sportsman" in politics--honest, hard-hitting, but
+playing the issue which had an immediate political effect.
+
+At the outset of his administration Roosevelt was apparently an
+adherent of the prevailing Republican creed--protective tariff, gold
+standard, imperialism, _laissez faire_ and the rest. His first official
+utterance after becoming President was an indication that he would
+continue unbroken the policies of his predecessor, and to this end he
+insisted that the cabinet should remain intact.[1] His foreign policy
+was aggressive; his interest in the military and naval establishments
+real and constant. Roosevelt was more venturesome than McKinley, and
+more ready to experiment with new ideas. He took up the duties of his
+position with an unaffected zest and enthusiasm; he looked upon the
+presidential office as an exhilarating adventure in national and even
+international affairs. As time went on, therefore, it became more and
+more evident that he was prepared to play a big role on a great stage.
+Moreover, few doubts concerning the constitutional powers of the
+executive position seem ever to have assailed him. Whatever may have
+been his theory at the outset of his presidency, he came eventually to
+believe that the executive power was limited only by the specific
+restrictions and prohibitions appearing in the Constitution, or imposed
+by Congress in laws which it had constitutional authority to pass. The
+scope which this theory presented for the exercise of his energetic
+originality is evident when contrasted with the theory of his
+predecessors, who had, in times of peace, held to the belief that the
+executive possessed only the powers specifically designated by the
+Constitution.
+
+Not until some future time, when the events of the early twentieth
+century are better understood, will it be possible to judge accurately
+the value of President Roosevelt's regime in its relation to the
+control of railroads and corporations. There can be no doubt, however,
+that one of the most serious problems that faced the American people
+during that time was the position which the government ought to occupy
+toward the business interests of the nation. Not only were the
+railroads and the great corporations the center of the economic life
+of the people, but their social and political effects were momentous.
+
+Neither the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 nor the Sherman Anti-trust
+law of 1890, it will be remembered, had accomplished what had been
+expected of them. The Interstate Commerce law had met with grave
+obstacles in the courts; the Sherman act had been seldom invoked by the
+federal executive, and in the most prominent case, United States _v._
+E.C. Knight Co., the government had failed to obtain the decision it
+desired. Government regulation seemed like a broken reed.[2] A few
+cases, however, had indicated the possibility that strength might be
+discovered in the law. In United States _v._ the Trans-Missouri Freight
+Association, the Supreme Court had declared that the Anti-trust act
+applied to railroads and that it forbade agreements among them to
+maintain rates; two years later, in 1899, the Court pronounced illegal
+a combination of pipe manufacturers in the Middle West, on the ground
+that its result was to restrain interstate commerce.
+
+Roosevelt, like Bryan and La Follette, had been groping his way to an
+understanding of the importance of the new problem. During his term as
+Governor of New York he had clashed with the older political leaders
+when he supported an act looking to the heavier taxation of railway
+franchises. The first recommendations in his message to Congress on
+December 3, 1901, concerned the subject of the relation of government
+and industry. The accumulation of wealth in recent years in the United
+States, he asserted, had been due to natural causes, and much of the
+antagonism aroused thereby was without warrant. Nevertheless grave
+evils had attended the process: overcapitalization was one; untruthful
+representations concerning the value of the properties in which
+business asked the public to invest was another. Such evils should be
+attacked; with extreme care, to be sure, but also with resolution.
+Combination and concentration, he thought, should be supervised and,
+within reasonable limits, controlled. The remedies which the President
+suggested were simple: in the interest of the public the government
+should have the right to inspect the workings of organizations engaged
+in interstate commerce; because of the lack of uniformity in corporation
+legislation within the states, the federal government should so extend
+its power as to include supervision of corporations; a Department of
+Commerce and Industries should be established, whose head should be a
+cabinet officer; the Interstate Commerce law should be amended; railway
+rates should be just, and should be the same to all shippers alike, and
+the government should be the agent to provide a remedy to this end.
+
+The enthusiastic reception accorded the message by the press indicated
+that one or another of its numerous recommendations met with approval.
+The effect on Congress, however, of the portion dealing with interstate
+commerce was represented by a cartoon in the New York _World_. Uncle Sam
+was there portrayed stowing away for later attention a bundle of
+manuscript labelled "President's Message 1901. 30,000 words," while he
+smilingly remarked "When I git time!" But Roosevelt was not content to
+let the matter drop, and in the following summer he took the unusual
+step of carrying his message directly to the people. In the New England
+states first, and later in the West, he declared his creed on the
+federal regulation of industry. The effectiveness of the campaign was
+increased by the moderation of the President, by his increasing
+popularity and by the many telling phrases, with which he enforced his
+main thesis. The Sherman act looked less like a broken reed when the
+chief executive of the nation declared: "As far as the anti-trust laws
+go they will be enforced ... and when (a) suit is undertaken it will not
+be compromised except upon the basis that the Government wins." Here and
+there objection was raised that the program was not sufficiently
+definite; now and then a critic hazarded a conjecture that Roosevelt had
+not consulted the leaders of his party; but in the main he succeeded in
+obtaining a sympathetic hearing. At this juncture the coal strike of
+1902 gave him one of those fortunate opportunities which were commonly
+referred to as a part of "Roosevelt's luck." With no uncertain hand he
+seized the opportunity which chance presented.
+
+Before 1899, there had been no organization of the anthracite miners
+with sufficient strength to force any changes in the conditions under
+which the men performed their work. During that year the United Mine
+Workers of America began to send organizers into the Pennsylvania
+region. In 1900 the men struck, but an agreement was reached with the
+operators and work was resumed. The settlement, however, was not
+satisfactory to either side, and in 1902 the workers asked for a
+conference. The presidents of the coal companies and the coal-carrying
+railroads replied that they were always ready to meet their own
+employees but would have no dealings with a general labor organization.
+Smaller causes of unrest were the demand for more pay, shorter hours,
+and payment for coal by weight instead of by the car, but the
+fundamental issue was the recognition of the union--the workmen
+insisting on collective bargaining, the operators refusing it. The men
+were helpless except as a union; the roads were sure of keeping the
+upper hand if they dealt with the men individually or in small groups.
+When attempts at conference failed, the miners struck and from May 12
+until October 23 nearly 147,000 of them remained idle. The total loss
+to miners and operators was nearly $100,000,000.
+
+Since the Pennsylvania fields were almost the sole source of supply
+for anthracite coal, discomfort was soon felt in the North and West,
+and as the cooler weather came on, suffering became acute and public
+feeling bordered on panic. A winter without hard coal could hardly be
+contemplated without grave misgivings. Popular opinion, meanwhile,
+went increasingly to the side of the miners. The refusal of the
+operators to confer, and the propriety of the conduct of the workmen
+made a wide impression that was favorable to the union. Moreover,
+George F. Baer, President of the Philadelphia and Reading Company,
+spoke of himself and his associates in a letter to a correspondent as
+those "Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the
+control of the property interests of the country." The remark was
+widely quoted and generally looked upon as evidence of a selfish and
+uncompromising individualism.[3] The strike having now become a matter
+of national importance, President Roosevelt requested the operators
+and representatives of the miners to meet him in Washington, October
+3. At this conference the spokesman of the railroads refused mediation,
+while the leader of the United Mine Workers, John Mitchell, proposed
+arbitration and pledged the workers to accept it.
+
+After the refusal of the operators to accept the President's
+conciliatory offer, he decided to apply pressure. He obtained the
+consent of Grover Cleveland to act as chairman of a commission of
+investigation and determined to seize the mines by military force, if
+necessary, operate them as a receiver and await the report of his
+commission. In some way, which can not now be indicated with certainty,
+the operators were influenced to accept mediation, and the President
+appointed a commission with Judge George Gray as chairman.[4] The
+miners immediately returned to work, coal began again to flow to the
+North, and public rejoicing was extreme. The President's Commission at
+once repaired to Pennsylvania, heard 558 witnesses, visited the mines,
+and inspected machinery and the homes of the miners. It concluded that
+neither side was completely in the right, and therefore made an award
+that satisfied some of the complaints of both parties. In the history
+of the relation between the federal government and the business
+interests of the nation, the anthracite strike of 1902 is of marked
+significance. The operators had given evidence of a failure to
+understand that their business so concerned the nation that the
+interest of the public in it must be heeded. The successful outcome
+enhanced the prestige of the government and of the President, and an
+example of the need of greater control over corporations received wide
+publicity at the precise moment when the general subject was uppermost
+in the popular mind.
+
+The first legislative evidence of the result of the agitation for the
+more effective regulation of industry was an act approved on February
+11, 1903, by which any suit brought in a Circuit Court by the United
+States government under the Sherman Anti-trust act or the Interstate
+Commerce law, could be given precedence over other cases at the desire
+of the Attorney-General. Three days later a law was passed which
+established a Department of Commerce and Labor, whose chief was to be a
+cabinet officer. Included in the Department was a Bureau of Corporations
+headed by a Commissioner, who was authorized to investigate the
+organization and conduct of the business of corporations. Within another
+five days the Elkins Act had been passed--a law designed to eliminate
+rebating. Despite the Interstate Commerce act, the practice of rebating
+had continued. Agreement was general that railroad men who, in other
+respects, were perfectly scrupulous, commonly violated the law in order
+to get business in competition with their rivals. Among the railroad men
+who had violated the law but who deprecated the necessity of so doing,
+was Paul Morton, president of the Santa Fe system. Morton volunteered to
+assist Roosevelt in stamping out the evil, and the Elkins law was
+designed to aid in this process. It forbade any variation from published
+rates, made both a corporation and its agents punishable for offenses
+against the law, prohibited the receiving of rebates as well as giving
+them, and made the penalty for failure to observe the provisions of the
+Act a fine of one thousand to twenty thousand dollars. Furthermore,
+during February, 1903, Congress appropriated $500,000 to be expended
+under the direction of the Attorney-General for the better enforcement
+of the anti-trust and interstate commerce laws.
+
+In 1903, likewise, was initiated an important judicial proceeding in the
+direction of the enforcement of the Sherman law. The Great Northern
+Railway Company and the Northern Pacific Railway Company operated
+parallel competing lines of road extending from the region of Lake
+Superior to the Pacific Coast. An attempted consolidation of the two had
+been declared illegal under the statutes of the state of Minnesota. On
+November 13, 1901, under the leadership of two of the foremost railway
+magnates of the nation, J.J. Hill and J.P. Morgan, there had been
+organized the Northern Securities Company, to purchase and control at
+least a majority of the shares of the capital stock of the two lines of
+railway. In this way the two roads would be operated as one, their
+earnings pooled, competition between the two eliminated and a virtual
+consolidation effected. On the advice of the Attorney-General, Philander
+C. Knox, President Roosevelt directed that proceedings be instituted
+against the holding company--an act that seemed almost useless in view
+of the decision of the Supreme Court in the Knight Case. But the
+decision in the Northern Securities Case, handed down in 1904, was a
+surprise. By a vote of five to four the Court declared the company a
+combination in restraint of trade, and therefore illegal under the
+Sherman act, and enjoined any attempt on its part to control the affairs
+of either of the two railways.
+
+Nineteen hundred and four, the year of the presidential election, found
+Roosevelt in a strong position. His success in handling the coal strike
+and his energetic preparations for the crusade against trust evils had
+struck a responsive chord in the popular mind. Late in 1903 he had
+announced to Congress that frauds had been discovered in the post
+office and land office, and urged the appropriation of funds for the
+prosecution of the offenders. The result was a house-cleaning which
+involved the conviction of many officials, including two United States
+senators. Roosevelt's popularity became greater than ever.
+
+It was to be expected, however, that some opposition would appear to the
+nomination of Roosevelt for a continuation of his term of office, and it
+was around the forceful Mark Hanna that the opposition began gradually
+to center. Hanna had attained remarkable influence as a senator, was
+highly trusted by the business interests and was popular among southern
+Republicans. But his death in February, 1904, effectively ended any
+opposition to Roosevelt, since it was then too late to focus attention
+upon any other competitor. The Republican nominating convention,
+therefore, which met in Chicago on June 21, lacked any semblance of a
+contest, and the President was renominated without opposition. The
+platform was of the traditional sort. The history of the party was
+approved; its achievements in giving prosperity to the country and
+peaceful government to the island possessions were recounted; the
+protective tariff, the gold standard, an isthmian canal, the improvement
+of the army and navy, the continuation of civil service reform and a
+vigorous foreign policy,--on all these the party utterance was that of
+other days. Surprisingly little was said upon the subject of the
+regulation of corporations. The few steps already taken were approved,
+but as to the future, the platform was almost colorless:
+
+    Combinations of capital and of labor are the results of the
+    economic movement of the age, but neither must be permitted to
+    infringe upon the rights and interests of the people. Such
+    combinations, when lawfully formed for lawful purposes, are
+    alike entitled to the protection of the laws, but both are
+    subject to the laws, and neither can be permitted to break them.
+
+The Democratic convention met in St. Louis on July 6, and the
+excitement which marked its proceedings compensated for the lack of
+interest at the Republican meeting. As drawn up by a sub-committee of
+the Committee on Resolutions, the platform was, in many of its planks,
+a distinct return to the programs of the days before 1896. It urged a
+reduction of the tariff, generous pensions and civil service reform,
+together with the enforcement of the anti-trust laws and the popular
+election of senators. In the main, it was devoted to a condemnation
+of the existing Republican administration, which it denounced as
+"spasmodic, erratic, sensational, spectacular and arbitrary." It also
+contained a paragraph declaring that the question of the money standard
+had ceased to be an issue, on the ground that recent discoveries of
+gold had enormously increased the supply of currency in the country.
+Bryan did not approve. With characteristic energy he threw himself into
+an all-night fight in the Committee in behalf of a silver plank. His
+defeat indicated that the convention was in the hands of his opponents
+and the platform as adopted contained no reference to the currency.
+
+The delegates had, in fact, come to the meeting with the distinct
+purpose of returning to the "safe and sane" democracy of Grover
+Cleveland. To that end, the platform was to drop the silver issue and
+Bryan was to be replaced by a more conservative leader. The radical
+forces centered their strength upon William R. Hearst, but they were in
+a distinct minority, and in the end, the Cleveland wing succeeded in
+nominating Judge Alton B. Parker of New York. As soon as he was
+notified of his nomination, Judge Parker telegraphed to the convention
+that he regarded the gold standard as irrevocably established and that
+he must decline to be the party candidate if his attitude on the
+currency was unsatisfactory to the delegates. Thereupon the convention
+replied that the platform was silent on the question of a monetary
+standard because it was not regarded as a campaign issue. Parker was
+satisfied with the reply, and the last word was written upon a question
+that had disturbed politics for many years.
+
+The succeeding campaign was unusually listless. Parker did not inspire
+enthusiasm, although a man of undoubted integrity and ability, and the
+personality of Roosevelt was the controlling force. Only at the close
+of the canvass did a passing interest appear in some charges made by
+Parker. He called attention to the fact that Secretary Cortelyou of the
+Department of Commerce and Labor had been charged with the duty of
+examining the acts of corporations and had then resigned to become
+chairman of the National Republican Committee. Parker insinuated that
+Cortelyou was using information about corporate misdoing, which he had
+discovered, in order to force large contributions from the business
+interests. He also declared that the Republican campaign was being
+financed by the corporations. Roosevelt did not answer the charges
+until three days before the election, and then he asserted that the
+statements made by Parker were "unqualifiedly and atrociously false."
+Later investigations have shown that in general Parker was correct in
+his complaint as to the activities of the corporations, although he
+would have found difficulty in proving his charges in detail. The same
+investigations, however, indicated that some of the Democratic campaign
+fund had come from similar sources.
+
+[Illustration:
+Election of 1904 by Counties]
+
+The election resulted in the choice of President Roosevelt, whose
+popular vote was 7,600,000 to Parker's 5,000,000. In the more populous
+sections of the country, which were normally Republican, the party vote
+scarcely exceeded that of 1900, but in the Far West, the increases were
+notable. Beyond the Mississippi River, except in the southern states,
+hardly a county gave a majority for Parker, showing that the region
+which had gone to Bryan in 1896 was substantially solid for Roosevelt.
+Indeed, the policies to which Roosevelt was committed bore a greater
+resemblance to the principles of Bryan than to the _laissez faire_
+philosophy to which many important Republican leaders adhered. Despite
+their dissent, however, his victory in the election was so overwhelming
+that he could carry out his program with the irresistible pressure of
+public opinion behind him.
+
+During the campaign year, the Commissioner of Corporations was busy
+investigating the activities of the so-called "beef-trust," and a suit
+against the combination was pressed to a successful conclusion in
+January, 1905. In its decision in the case (Swift & Company _v._ United
+States), the Supreme Court dwelt at some length on the charges made
+against the Company. A dominant proportion--six-tenths--of the dealers
+in fresh meat in the United States were alleged to have agreed not to
+bid against one another in the live-stock markets; to restrict the
+output of meat in order to raise prices; to keep a black-list; and to
+get illegal rates from the railroads to the exclusion of competitors.
+To the objection of the members of the trust that the charges against
+them were general and did not set forth any specific facts, the Court
+retorted that the scheme alleged was so vast as to present a new
+problem in pleading. The decision was against the combination, which
+was ordered to dissolve. The publicity given to the case and to the
+methods of the meat packers assisted in the passage of legislation
+requiring government inspection of meats.
+
+An unexpected phase of the Sherman act appeared in 1908, in the case
+Loewe _v._ Lawlor. The American Federation of Labor, acting through its
+official organ, had declared a boycott against D.E. Loewe, a hat
+manufacturer of Danbury, Connecticut. The Court decided that a
+combination of labor organizations designed to boycott a dealer's goods
+was a combination in restraint of trade and that the manufacturer might
+maintain an action against the Hatters' Union for damages.[5]
+
+In the meantime, another prominent trust had played into the hands of
+the administration. The American Sugar Refining Company imported large
+amounts of raw sugar, on which it paid tariff duties. In November,
+1907, it was discovered that the Company had tampered with the scales
+on which the incoming sugar was weighed, in such a manner as to defraud
+the government. In the resulting legal actions, over $4,000,000 were
+recovered from the Company, criminal prosecutions were carried on
+against the officials and employees, and several of them were
+convicted. The close relation between the railroads and the great
+corporations was indicated when the Standard Oil Company of Indiana was
+brought into court on the charge of receiving rebates on petroleum
+shipped over the Chicago and Alton Railroad. The decision by Judge K.M.
+Landis was that the Company was guilty on 1,462 separate counts and
+must pay a fine of $29,240,000. On appeal to a higher court the case
+was dismissed, partly on a question concerning the meaning of the law.
+
+The efforts of Roosevelt in the direction of control of the railroads
+resembled his activities in relation to industrial combinations. A
+variety of circumstances had combined to arouse a popular demand for
+the reinforcement of existing legislation: the discovery of grave
+abuses in connection with the transportation of petroleum; the
+continuance of favoritism and rebating, together with increasing public
+knowledge of their existence; the rise in freight rates; and the
+consolidation of the railroads into a few large systems, with the
+accompanying concentration of power in the hands of a small number of
+persons. In his public speeches and in his messages to Congress in 1904
+and 1905, President Roosevelt made himself the spokesman of the popular
+will. In particular--and it was here that the conflict was destined to
+rage--the President called for the transfer to the Interstate Commerce
+Commission of the power to determine the rates which the roads should
+be allowed to charge. The project was not a new one, having already
+taken shape in previous years, but at no time was Congress prepared to
+pass definite legislation. The reaction of the railroads to the rising
+demand was energetic. A costly propaganda was entered upon designed to
+prove to the public that the roads should be let alone. A powerful
+lobby worked insistently upon Congress, first to prevent action and
+later, when action was seen to be inevitable, to weaken the legislation
+wherever possible. The railroad's campaign of popular education,
+however, helped to convince the popular mind that new laws were needed,
+and came coincidently with the disclosures of corporate mismanagement
+and wrong-doing. The outcome was the Hepburn Act of June 29, 1906.
+
+Its major provisions were five in number. It enlarged the scope of the
+Interstate Commerce Act so as to include control of express and
+sleeping car companies, pipe lines, switches, spur tracks and
+terminals. Free passes, which had hitherto been productive of much
+favoritism and the source of political corruption, were strictly
+forbidden, except to a few specified classes. The "commodity clause"
+forbade railroads to carry goods, other than timber, in which they had
+an interest, except such as they were going to use themselves. This
+provision was designed mainly to check the activities of those
+companies which owned both coal mines and railroads, and which used
+their advantageous position to crush independent operators. Its force,
+however, was largely nullified by subsequent decisions of the courts.
+The Hepburn law also enabled the Commission to prescribe the methods of
+book-keeping which the roads must follow, to call for monthly or
+special reports and to employ examiners who should have access to the
+books of the carriers. The roads were even denied the right to keep any
+records except those approved by the Commission. These drastic features
+of the law were due in part to the practices of certain roads which hid
+away corrupt expenditures in their accounts in such a manner that
+detection was almost impossible. Most important, however, among the
+provisions of the Act was that in relation to rate-making, which not
+only empowered the Commission to hear complaints that rates were unjust
+or unreasonable, but even enabled it to determine what would be a just
+and reasonable charge in the case, and to order the carrier complained
+of to adhere to the new rate. The rate-making section of the Hepburn
+Act immediately resulted in a large increase in the number of
+complaints entered by shippers against the carriers. Previously, few
+cases had been taken to the Commission--only 878 in eighteen
+years--because relief was seldom obtained and then only at great cost
+in time and money. Under the new law more than 1500 cases were entered
+within two and a half years, and several thousand others were
+informally settled out of court.
+
+The example of the federal government in adopting restrictive railway
+legislation was followed by the states, on a nation-wide scale. Hours
+of labor were regulated, liability for accidents defined, railroad
+commissions given larger powers, and freight and passenger rates
+determined. The result was a tangle of local regulations, many of which
+were designed to embarrass the roads and others of which were passed
+with slight knowledge of the practical questions involved.
+
+Aside from his connection with the anti-trust campaign and the movement
+for railroad regulation, Roosevelt's most significant activities during
+his second administration related to conservation. As early as 1880 the
+Superintendent of the Census had called attention to the exhaustion of
+the best public lands. The truth of his assertion had been exemplified
+in the rush of settlers to Oklahoma when the former Indian Territory
+was opened to settlement on April 22, 1889. At noon on that day the
+blast of a cavalry bugle was the signal that any settler might enter
+and stake out his claim. On foot, on fleet horses, in primitive wagons,
+an excited, jostling mob rushed toward those lands that seemed most
+desirable. Trains were crowded to the roofs; tools, furniture, and
+portable houses were carried in from Texas, Nebraska and Kansas. By
+nightfall a stretch of waving prairie became Gruthrie, with a
+population of 10,000 persons; by the evening of the first day Oklahoma
+possessed a population of 50,000; twenty years later it had over a
+million and a half, contained flourishing cities, many public
+enterprises, and a beautiful state university.
+
+The fact that desirable land was becoming so rare called attention to
+the waste and dishonesty in connection with our public land system. In
+his annual report for 1884 the Secretary of the Interior had complained
+that large amounts of land had been acquired under fictitious names or
+by persons employed for the purpose. Their holdings were then passed
+over to speculators who retained huge areas for a rising market.
+Railroads had kept lands granted to them, without fulfilling the
+conditions of the grants. Titled Englishmen and English land companies
+had gained control of tracts of unbelievable size, one of them being
+estimated at 3,000,000 acres. The history of the disposal of the public
+land had almost been duplicated in the history of the forest-bearing
+public domain, except that measures had earlier been taken to conserve
+the remnant of the once magnificent supply of standing timber. An act
+of 1891 had enabled the president to set apart as public reservations
+any lands bearing forests. All the presidents, from Harrison down, had
+availed themselves of their power, and had established great numbers of
+reservations, most of them in states west of the Mississippi.[6]
+
+A few far-sighted individuals had long urged caution in the disposal of
+the public resources. Some beginnings in fact had already been made in
+the Division of Forestry in the Department of Agriculture, where
+Clifford Pinchot was actively interested in forest preservation. In
+1901 and later his functions had been expanded, and the forestry
+service had taken up protection against fire, the sale of timber, and
+reforestation. In 1907 President Roosevelt appointed a commission to
+study the inland waterways, which after careful investigation
+recommended a convention for the discussion of conservation problems.
+Thereupon the President invited the governors of the states to
+Washington for a conference, at which conservation questions were
+thoroughly discussed. The resulting recommendations composed a
+complete, although general plan of reform: the natural resources of the
+country to be used for the prosperity of the American people;
+reclamation of arid lands; conservation of forests, minerals and
+water-power; the protection of the sources of the rivers; and
+cooperation between Congress and the states in developing a
+conservation program. A National Conservation Commission was later
+appointed which coordinated the work of organizing the movement, and
+made an exhaustive inventory of the nation's natural resources.
+
+The conservation movement also called attention to the possibilities of
+the arid region between the western parts of Kansas, Nebraska and the
+Dakotas, and the eastern border of California. Within this vast area
+were large tracts of land that would be fertile if sufficiently
+supplied with water. The most important legislation in a series of acts
+designed to meet this need was the Reclamation Act of 1902. Under its
+provisions the federal government set aside the proceeds of the sale of
+public land in sixteen states and territories as a fund for irrigation
+work. With the resources thus obtained, water powers were developed,
+reservoirs built and large tracts supplied with water. Private
+companies and western states also carried out numerous projects. The
+Department of Agriculture after its establishment in 1889 also
+conducted many undertakings which, in effect, were conservation
+enterprises. It helped educate the American farmer in scientific
+methods, sought new crops in every corner of the globe, discovered and
+circulated means of combating diseases and insects, studied soils,
+distributed seeds and gathered statistics. In the arid and semi-arid
+regions the discovery of dry farming was of great value. This consists
+of planting the seed deep and keeping a mulch of dust on the surface by
+frequent cultivation, in order to retard the evaporation of the
+moisture in the ground underneath.[7]
+
+Nothing can be more apparent than the complete change of position which
+was brought about during the eight years after the death of President
+McKinley. At the end of that period, both the industrial corporations
+and the railways were on the defensive, and the public had secured the
+whip hand. Industry, especially the railroads, was tamed and
+hobbled--some thought, crippled. Many factors contributed to the
+revolution. President Roosevelt was its most active agent, to be
+sure,--its "gigantic advertiser" and popularizer. But it could hardly
+have taken place--at least at the time and in the way it did--without
+the great upheaval of 1896, without the publicity which the "muck-rake"
+magazines and daily newspapers were able to offer, without the
+industrial consolidations of 1898 and later, and without the refusal of
+industry and the railways to obey earlier and less drastic laws, and
+their skilled and insistent attempts to find loop-holes in legislation.
+
+From the standpoint of politics, the effect of the Roosevelt
+administrations was notable. As has been seen, the Republican party had
+become largely the party of the business and commercial classes,
+conservative and unyielding to the new demands of the late nineteenth
+century. Its leadership had been sharply challenged by the forces of
+unrest in 1896. On an issue other than a monetary one, the success of
+Bryan would have been possible. The failure of the attempt to get
+control of the federal government in the interest of the Populist
+program was only a temporary defeat, for the revival of unrest,
+although checked by the war with Spain, was sure soon to reappear. In
+President Roosevelt, the forces of discontent, especially in the Middle
+and Far West, saw their hoped-for champion, and their support of him
+was instant and complete. The dominant leadership and much of the rank
+and file of the Republican party had become liberal. The situation was
+anomalous, however, for no great political party can experience a
+thorough-going change of philosophy in a few years. Only the future,
+therefore, could tell whether the newer and more liberal element would
+continue to control the party, or whether a reaction against its
+leadership would take place.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+It is too early to expect a biography of Roosevelt which is informed
+and critical, as well as sympathetic. The keenest judgment is to be
+found in _Atlantic Monthly_ (CIX, 577), "Mr. Roosevelt." The following
+are also available: L.F. Abbott, _Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt_
+(1919); F.E. Leupp, _The Man Roosevelt_ (1904); W.R. Thayer, _Theodore
+Roosevelt_ (1919); C.G. Washburn, _Theodore Roosevelt; the Logic of His
+Career_ (1916). Roosevelt can be partly understood through a critical
+reading of his writings, especially his _Addresses and Presidential
+Messages_ (1904), and his _Autobiography_ (1913).
+
+On the coal strike consult the _Autobiography_, and _Senate Reports_,
+58th Congress, special session, Document No. 6 (Serial Number 4556),
+the report of the President's Commission. The election of 1904 is
+discussed in Latane, Croly and Stanwood: see also C.M. Pepper, _The
+Life and Times of Henry Gassaway Davis_ (1920). The new railroad acts
+are well discussed in W.Z. Ripley, _Railroads: Rates and Regulations_
+(1912), and by F.H. Dixon in _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, XXI, 22.
+
+The literature of conservation is very large. An excellent single
+chapter is in Katherine Coman, _Industrial History of the United
+States_ (rev. ed., 1910); C.R. Van Hise, _The Conservation of Natural
+Resources in the United States_ (1913), is a standard work; R.P. Teele,
+_Irrigation in the United States_ (1915), is detailed; for documents
+concerning the conference of governors, _House of Representatives
+Document_ No. 1425, 60th Congress, 2nd session (Serial Number 5538).
+
+The anti-trust campaign is best followed in Theodore Roosevelt,
+_Addresses and Presidential Messages_, and in the _Autobiography_. The
+Northern Securities decision is in _United States Reports_, vol. 193,
+p. 197.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] In view of the later activities of President Roosevelt, there is
+point in the remark of a satirist that Roosevelt did carry out the
+policies of McKinley--and bury them. _Atlantic Monthly_, CIX, 164.
+
+[2] Above, p. 257.
+
+[3] It was later denied that Baer made the statement, but a
+photographic copy of the letter was printed in Lloyd, _Henry D. Lloyd_,
+II, 190. See also Mitchell, _Organized Labor_, 384; Peck, _Twenty
+Years_, 693-6.
+
+[4] Rumor says that Roosevelt sent Elihu Root to the eminent financial
+magnate, J.P. Morgan, with information of his intent to appoint the
+Cleveland Commission, and that Morgan applied the pressure to the coal
+operators.
+
+[5] In 1917, fourteen years after Loewe's first suit, he recovered
+damages from the Union.
+
+[6] In 1918, 151 national forests aggregated 176,000,000 acres.
+Secretary of the Interior, _Annual Report_, 1918, 61.
+
+[7] The territory of Alaska contains immense stores of natural resources
+which are being conserved with more wisdom than characterized the
+disposal of our continental supplies. The area of the territory,
+586,400 square miles, constitutes a, kingdom. It has uncounted wealth in
+fish, furs, timber, coal and precious metals. At present the federal
+government is building a railroad which will tap some of the resources
+of the region. _Enc. Brit._, "Alaska."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+POLITICS, 1908-1912
+
+By 1908, the year of the presidential election, an influential portion
+of the Republican members of Congress, particularly in the Senate, were
+bitterly opposed to President Roosevelt. His attitude on the trusts and
+the railroads was offensive to many, and on several occasions he had
+gained the upper hand over Congress by means which were coming to be
+known as "big-stick" methods. The so-called "constructive recess" of
+1903 was an example.
+
+Under the provisions of the Constitution, the president appoints many
+officials with the advice and consent of the Senate, when it is in
+session, and fills vacancies that happen during a recess by granting
+commissions which expire at the end of the next session. On December 2,
+1903, at noon, one session of Congress came to an end and another began.
+Precisely at 12 o'clock, according to the official statement, the
+President issued new commissions to W.D. Crum, a negro, to be collector
+of the port of Charleston, and also to 168 army officers, of whom the
+President's close friend Brigadier-General Leonard Wood was one. General
+Wood was to be promoted to a major-generalship and the remaining
+promotions were dependent upon his advance. The President's theory was
+that a "constructive recess" intervened between the two sessions, during
+which he could make recess appointments. Although the Senate was hostile
+to both Crum and Wood, it reluctantly succumbed to Roosevelt's wishes
+rather than withhold promotion from the 167 officers to whom it had no
+objection.
+
+In 1908, Senator Tillman, an outspoken Democratic critic of the
+President, declared that senators vigorously denounced Roosevelt's
+radical ideas in private but that in public they opposed merely by
+inaction. Party loyalty was sufficient to keep these Republicans, in
+most cases, from open and continued rebellion. Hardly less hostile to
+the President were many of the business men of the country, who objected
+to his economic policies, but the only alternative to Roosevelt was
+Bryan, who, as one of the earliest proponents of radical legislation,
+was even more offensive. On the other hand, a large majority of the rank
+and file of the party, especially in the North and West, upheld the
+President with unfeigned enthusiasm and made his position in the party
+so strong that he could practically name his successor. Several
+candidates had more or less local support for the nomination--Senator
+Knox, of Pennsylvania, Governor Hughes, of New York, Speaker Cannon, of
+Illinois, Vice-President Fairbanks, of Indiana, Senator La Follette, of
+Wisconsin and Senator Foraker, of Ohio. The President's prestige and
+energy, however, were frankly behind the candidacy of his Secretary of
+War, William H. Taft.
+
+The Republican convention of 1908 met in Chicago on June 16. Early in
+the proceedings the mention of Roosevelt's name brought an outburst of
+enthusiasm which indicated the possibility that he might be nominated
+for a third term, despite his expressed refusal to allow such a move to
+be made. In the platform the achievements of the retiring administration
+were recounted in glowing terms; tariff reform was promised; and a
+postal savings bank, the strengthening of the Interstate Commerce law
+and the Sherman Anti-trust act, the more accurate definition of the
+rules of procedure in the issuance of injunctions, good roads,
+conservation, pensions and the encouragement of shipping, received the
+stamp of party approval. Planks pledging the party to legislation
+requiring the publicity of campaign expenditures, the valuation of the
+physical property of railroads and the popular election of senators were
+uniformly rejected. The closing paragraph declared that the "trend of
+Democracy is toward Socialism, while the Republican party stands for
+wise and regulated individualism." The contest over the nomination was
+extremely brief, as Taft received 702 out of 979 votes on the first
+ballot. James S. Sherman of New York was nominated for the
+vice-presidency.
+
+The Democrats, meanwhile, were in a quandary. A considerable fraction of
+the party desired the nomination of somebody other than Bryan, whose
+defeats in 1896 and 1900 had cast doubts upon the wisdom of a third
+trial. Nevertheless the failure of Parker in 1904 had been so
+overwhelming that the nomination of a conservative seemed undesirable
+and, moreover, no candidate appeared whose achievements or promise could
+overcome the prestige of Bryan. The national convention was held in
+Denver, July 7-10, and Bryan dominated all its activities. The platform
+welcomed the Republican promise to reform the tariff, but doubted its
+sincerity; promised changes in the Interstate Commerce law, a more
+elastic currency, improvements in the law of injunctions, generous
+pensions, good roads and the conservation of the national resources. In
+the main, however, the platform was an emphatic condemnation of the
+Republican party as the party of "privileges and private monopoly." It
+declared that the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives
+exercised such absolute domination as to stop the enactment of measures
+desired by the majority. It demanded the termination of the "partnership
+which has existed between corporations of the country and the Republican
+party," by which the business interests contributed great sums of money
+in elections in return for an unmolested opportunity to "encroach upon
+the rights of the people." It promised the enactment of laws preventing
+corporation contributions to campaign funds and providing for the
+publication before election of all contributions by individuals.
+Detailed and definite planks in relation to trusts indicated that the
+framers of the platform possessed at least the courage of their
+convictions. Three laws were promised: one preventing the duplication of
+directors among competing corporations; another establishing a license
+system which would place under federal authority those corporations
+engaged in interstate commerce which controlled as much as twenty-five
+per cent. of the product in which they dealt, and which should likewise
+protect the public from watered stock and prohibit any single
+corporation from controlling over fifty per cent. of the total amount of
+any commodity consumed in the United States; and, third, a law forcing
+corporations to sell to purchasers in all sections of the country on the
+same terms, after making due allowance for transportation costs.
+
+As soon as the platform was out of the way, the convention turned to the
+nomination of the candidate. Only George Gray, of Delaware, and John A.
+Johnson, of Minnesota, contested the leadership of Bryan, but their
+support was so slight that he was chosen on the first ballot. John W.
+Kern, of Indiana, was nominated for the vice-presidency.
+
+Of the smaller parties which shared in the election of 1908, the
+People's party and the Socialists should be mentioned. The Populists
+adopted a program of economic reforms many parts of which had been
+prominent in their platforms of 1892 and 1896. Both the Republicans and
+the Democrats, however, had adopted so many of these earlier demands
+that the Populists rapidly lost strength and disappeared after 1908. The
+Socialists likewise advocated economic reforms, together with government
+ownership of the railroads, and of such industries as were organized on
+a national scale. The candidate nominated was Eugene V. Debs, a labor
+leader who had gained prominence at the time of the Pullman strike.[1]
+
+The only novelty in the campaign was Bryan's stand in regard to campaign
+funds. By calling upon his supporters for large numbers of small
+individual contributions, he drew attention to the fact that the
+corporations were helping generously to meet Taft's election expenses.
+At their leader's direction the Democratic committee announced that it
+would receive no contributions whatever from corporations, that it would
+accept no offering over $10,000 and that it would publish a list of
+contributors before the close of the campaign.
+
+The result of the election was the triumph of Taft and his party. The
+Republican popular vote was 7,700,000; the Democratic, 6,500,000; the
+Socialist, 420,890. The election also gave the Republicans control of
+Congress, which was to be constituted as follows during 1909-1911:
+Senate, Democrats, 32, Republicans, 61; House of Representatives,
+Democrats, 172, Republicans, 219.
+
+Few men in our history have had a wider judicial and administrative
+experience before coming to the presidency than that of William H. Taft.
+He was born in 1857 in Ohio, graduated from Yale University with high
+rank in the class of 1878 and later entered upon the study of law. A
+judicial temperament early manifested itself and Taft became
+successively judge of the Superior Court in Cincinnati and of a United
+States Circuit Court. From the latter post he was called to serve upon
+the Philippine Commission, was later Governor of the Philippines and
+Secretary of War in Roosevelt's cabinet. During the period of his
+connection with the Philippines and his membership in the Cabinet he
+visited Cuba, Panama, Porto Rico, Japan and the Papal Court at Rome in
+connection with matters of federal importance.
+
+Personally Taft is kindly, unaffected, democratic, full of good humor,
+courageous. As a public officer he was slow and judicial, rather than
+quick and executive like his predecessor. Although in sympathy with the
+reforms instituted by Roosevelt, Taft was less the reformer and more
+conscious of considerations of constitutionality. Roosevelt thought of
+the domain of the executive as including all acts not _specifically
+forbidden_ by the Constitution or by the laws of the nation; Taft
+thought of it as including only those which were _specifically granted_
+by the Constitution and laws. The one was voluble, a dynamo of energy,
+quick to seize and act upon any innovation that gave promise of being
+both useful and successful; the other thought and acted more slowly and
+was less sensitive to the feasibility of change. One possessed well-nigh
+all the attributes necessary for intense popularity; the other inspired
+admiration among a smaller group. Roosevelt had a peculiarly keen
+perception of the currents of public opinion, enjoyed publicity and knew
+how to achieve it; Taft was less quick at discovering the popular thing
+and less adept at those tricks of the trade that heightened the
+popularity of his predecessor.
+
+Despite the patent differences of temperament and philosophy between
+Taft and Roosevelt, both expected that the new administration would be
+an extension of the old one. Roosevelt indicated this in his frank
+preference for Taft as his successor; Taft indicated it in his thorough
+acceptance of the policies of the preceding seven years and in his
+intention, expressed at the time of his inauguration, to maintain and
+further the reforms already initiated. His first act, however, the
+appointment of his official advisors, caused some surprise among the
+friends of his predecessor who expected that he would retain most if not
+all of the Roosevelt cabinet. When he did not do so, it seemed as if the
+attempt to further the Roosevelt policies would lack continuity.[2]
+
+The immediate problem that faced the new executive was the revision of
+the tariff. The task was one which has frequently resulted in political
+disaster, but the platform left no choice to the President:
+
+    The Republican party declares unequivocally for a revision of the
+    tariff by a special session of Congress immediately following the
+    inauguration of the next President.... In all tariff legislation the
+    true principle of protection is best maintained by the imposition
+    of such duties as will equal the difference between the cost of
+    production at home and abroad, together with a reasonable profit to
+    American industries.
+
+The precise meaning of this declaration will perhaps always remain a
+matter of dispute, although it is certain that the public in general
+understood it to mean a distinct lowering of the tariff wall, and Taft
+committed himself to downward revision in his inaugural address.
+Moreover, whether it was intended by the framers to commit the party
+to downward revision or not, the method of defining the amount of
+protection to be granted was both novel and unsatisfactory, as
+Professor Taussig has pointed out. How could the costs of production
+at home or abroad be determined? To what extent would the principle
+announced in the platform be carried? Almost any commodity can be
+produced almost anywhere if the producer is guaranteed the cost of
+production, together with a reasonable profit. The wise revision of
+the tariff is difficult enough under any circumstances; under so vague
+a theory as was proposed in 1908, the chances of success became
+remote.
+
+The drafting of the tariff bill proceeded in the usual manner. The
+Ways and Means Committee of the House, the chairman of which was
+Sereno Payne, held preliminary public "hearings," which were open to
+any who desired to offer testimony or make requests. Naturally,
+however, the great body of the consuming public was little
+represented; most of those who appeared were manufacturers, importers
+and other interested parties. The bill drawn up by the Committee and
+passed by the House revised existing duties, on the whole, in the
+downward direction. The Senate Finance Committee, however, under the
+leadership of Nelson W. Aldrich, an experienced and able proponent of
+a high protective tariff, made 847 amendments, many of them important
+and generally in the direction of higher rates. The Senate, like the
+House, contained several Republicans, usually called "insurgents," who
+were inclined to break away from certain of the party doctrines.
+Senators Bristow, Cummins, Dolliver and La Follette were among them.
+This contingent had hoped for a genuine downward revision, and when
+they saw that the bill was not in accord with their expectations, they
+prepared to demand a thorough debate. Each of the insurgents made an
+especial study of some particular portion of the proposed measure so
+as to be well prepared to urge reductions. Their efforts were
+unavailing, however, and the bill passed--the insurgents voting with
+the great majority of the Democrats in the negative. The bill then
+went to a conference committee. Up to this point, the President had
+taken little share in the formation of the bill. Yet as leader of the
+party he had pledged himself to a downward revision and the result
+seemed likely not to be in the promised direction. He therefore
+exerted pressure on the conference committee and succeeded apparently
+in getting some reductions, chiefly the abolition of the duty on
+hides. The bill was then passed by both houses and signed by the
+President on August 5, 1909.
+
+The question whether the Payne-Aldrich act redeemed the pledge
+embodied in the platform of 1908 will doubtless remain a debatable
+question. On the one hand, a prominent Republican member of the
+Committee on Ways and Means and of the Conference Committee, declared
+that the act represented the greatest reduction that had been made in
+the tariff at any single time since the first revenue law was signed
+by George Washington. Roosevelt also defended the act. Experts outside
+of Congress sharply differed. Professor Taussig analyzed the act in
+all its aspects and concluded that no essential change had been made
+in our tariff system. "It still left an extremely high scheme of
+rates, and still showed an extremely intolerant attitude on foreign
+trade." General public opinion was most affected by the fact that
+duties on cotton goods were raised, and those on woolen goods left at
+the high rates levied under the Dingley act. It also appeared that
+many silent influences had been at work--the duty on cheap cotton
+gloves, for example, being doubled through the efforts of an
+interested individual who procured the assistance of a New England
+senator.[3]
+
+Not long after the passage of the act President Taft defended it in a
+speech at Winona, Minnesota, as the best tariff bill that the
+Republican party had ever passed. In regard to the woolen schedule he
+frankly said:
+
+    Mr. Payne in the House, and Mr. Aldrich, in the Senate, although
+    both favored reduction in the schedule, found that in the Republican
+    party the interests of the wool growers of the Far West and the
+    interests of the woolen manufacturers in the East and in other
+    States, reflected through their representatives in Congress, were
+    sufficiently strong to defeat any attempt to change the woolen
+    tariff and that, had it been attempted, it would have beaten the
+    bill reported from either committee.... It is the one important
+    defect in the present Payne tariff.
+
+The response of the press and the insurgent Republicans to the passage
+of the bill and to the Winona speech were ominous for the future of the
+party. Although not unanimous, condemnation was common in the West,
+even in Republican papers. Particular objection was made to the high
+estimate which the President placed upon the act and to his defence of
+Senator Aldrich, who had come to be looked upon as the forefront of the
+"special interests"; and western state Republican platforms in 1910
+declared that the act had not been in accord with the plank of 1908.[4]
+
+Coincidently with the disagreement over the Payne-Aldrich act, there
+raged the unhappy Pinchot-Ballinger controversy. One of the last acts
+of President Roosevelt had been to withdraw from sale large tracts of
+public land which contained valuable water-power. The purpose and the
+effect of the order was to prevent these natural resources from falling
+into private hands and particularly into the hands of syndicates or
+corporations who would develop them mainly for individual interests.
+President Taft's Secretary of the Interior, Richard A. Ballinger, took
+the attitude that the withdrawals were without statutory justification
+and he therefore revoked the order for withdrawals immediately after
+coming into office. Upon further investigation, however, he re-withdrew
+a part of the land, although somewhat doubtful of his power to do so.
+
+During the summer of 1909, Gifford Pinchot, the Chief Forester,
+addressed an irrigation Congress in Spokane and asserted that the
+water-power sites were being absorbed by a trust. Much interest was
+aroused by the charge, which was looked upon as an attack on the
+Secretary of the Interior and his policy. Within a short time the idea
+became widespread, through the press, that Ballinger was associated
+with interests which were desirous of seizing the public resources and
+that this fact lay back of his partial reversal of the policy of his
+predecessor. This impression was deepened by the charges of L.R.
+Glavis, an employee of the Department of the Interior, concerning the
+claims of a certain Clarence Cunningham, representing a group of
+investors, to some exceedingly valuable coal lands in Alaska. Glavis
+asserted that the Cunningham claims were fraudulent, that many of the
+Cunningham group were personal friends of Ballinger and that the latter
+had acted as attorney for them before becoming Secretary of the
+Interior. President Taft, with the backing of an opinion from
+Attorney-General Wickersham, upheld Ballinger and dismissed Glavis. The
+press again took the matter up and the controversy was carried into
+Congress, where an investigation was ordered. About the same time
+Pinchot was removed for insubordination, and additional heat entered
+into the disagreement. The majority of the congressional committee of
+investigation later made a report exonerating Ballinger, but his
+position had become intolerable and he resigned in March, 1911. The
+result of the quarrel was to weaken the President, for the idea became
+common that his administration had been friendly with interests that
+wished to seize the public lands.
+
+Republican complaint in regard to the tariff and the Pinchot-Ballinger
+controversy were surface indications of a division in the party into
+conservative or "old-guard," and progressive or insurgent groups. The
+same line of demarcation appeared in a quarrel over the power of the
+Speaker of the House of Representatives, Joseph G. Cannon. Cannon had
+served in the lower branch of Congress almost continuously for
+twenty-seven years, and in 1910 was filling the position of speaker for
+the fourth consecutive time. Much of his official influence rested on
+two powers: he appointed the committees of the House and their
+chairmen, a power which enabled him to punish opponents, reward friends
+and determine the character of legislation; and he was the chairman and
+dominant power of the Committee on Rules which determined the procedure
+under existing practice and made special orders whenever particular
+circumstances seemed to require them. It was widely believed that
+Cannon, like Aldrich in the Senate, effectually controlled the passage
+of legislation, with slender regard to the wishes or needs of the
+people. "Cannonism" and "Aldrichism" were considered synonymous. For
+several years an influential part of the Republican and Independent, as
+well as the Democratic press had attacked Speaker Cannon as the enemy
+of progressive legislation. Many of them laid much of the blame for the
+character of the Payne-Aldrich act at his door. _The Outlook_ decried
+"government by oligarchy"; _The Nation_ declared that he belonged to
+another political age; Bryan queried what Cannon was selling and how
+much he got; Gompers, the head of the American Federation of Labor,
+pointed him out as the enemy of all reforms.
+
+The outcry against the Speaker in the House itself, reinforced by the
+gathering opposition outside, found effective voice in a coalition of
+the Democrats and the insurgent Republicans. In mid-March, 1910, an
+insurgent presented a resolution designed to replace the old Committee
+on Rules by a larger body which should be elected by the House, and on
+which the speaker would have no place. The friends of Cannon rallied to
+his defence; other business fell into the background; and debate became
+sharp and personal. One continuous session lasted twenty-six hours,
+parliamentary fencing mingling with horse-play while each side
+attempted to get a tactical advantage over the other.[5] Eventually
+about forty insurgent Republicans joined with the Democrats to pass the
+resolution. The result of the change was to compel the speaker to be a
+presiding officer rather than the determining factor in the passage of
+legislation. About the time that Cannon's domination in the House was
+being broken, the announcement that Senator Nelson W. Aldrich and his
+staunchly conservative associate, Eugene Hale, of Maine, were about to
+retire indicated a similar change in the Senate. These men had served
+for long periods in Congress and were looked upon as the ablest and
+most influential of the "reactionary" element in the upper house.
+
+Coincidently with the partial disintegration of the conservative wing
+of the Republican party in Congress, there was passed a large volume of
+legislation of the type desired by the insurgents. The public land laws
+were improved; acts requiring the use of safety appliances on railroads
+were strengthened; a Bureau of Mines was established to study the
+welfare of the miners; a postal savings bank system was erected; and an
+Economy and Efficiency Commission appointed to examine the several
+administrative departments so as to discover wasteful methods of doing
+business. Of especial importance was the Mann-Elkins Act of June 18,
+1910, which further extended the powers of the Interstate Commerce
+Commission. Experience had brought out serious defects in the
+rate-fixing procedure set up by the Hepburn Act. By that law, to be
+sure, a shipper could complain that the roads were charging him an
+unreasonable rate and the Commission might, in course of time, uphold
+him and order relief; but in the meantime the shipper, especially if he
+were a small one, might be crushed out of existence through the large
+rates, and the consuming public would have paid increased prices for
+commodities with no possibility of a remuneration to them, even if the
+Commission decided that the rates levied were unreasonably high. The
+Mann-Elkins law, therefore, provided that the Commission might suspend
+any proposed change in rates for a period not greater than ten months,
+and decide during that time whether it was reasonable and should go
+into effect or not. In this way the burden of proving the justice of a
+suggested change was placed upon the railroads.[6]
+
+An act of June 25, 1910, which was amended a year later, required the
+publication of the names of persons contributing to the federal
+campaign funds of the political parties, and the amounts contributed,
+as well as a detailed account of the expenditures of the committees and
+the purposes for which the expenses were incurred. President Taft also
+urged the passage of an income tax amendment to the federal
+Constitution and indicated that he was in favor of an amendment
+providing for the popular election of senators. Amendments for both
+these purposes passed Congress; but they were not ratified and put into
+effect until 1913.
+
+In June, 1910, Roosevelt returned from Africa whither he had gone for a
+hunting trip, after the inauguration of President Taft. Both elements
+in the Republican party were anxious for his sympathy and support.
+Roosevelt himself seems to have desired to remain outside the arena, at
+least for a time, but for many reasons permanent separation from
+politics was impossible. He became a candidate for the position of
+temporary chairman of the New York Republican State Convention against
+Vice-President James S. Sherman. The contest in the convention brought
+out opposition to him on the part of the old-guard, and his triumph
+left that wing of the party dissatisfied and disunited. During the
+summer and autumn of 1910 he made extensive political tours. At
+Ossawatomie, Kansas, he developed the platform of the "New
+Nationalism," which included more thorough control of corporations, and
+progressive legislation in regard to income taxes, conservation, the
+laboring classes, primary elections at which the people could nominate
+candidates for office, and the recall of elective officials before the
+close of their terms. He urged such vigorous use of the powers of the
+federal government that there should be no "neutral ground" between
+state and nation, to serve as a refuge for law-breakers. Critics
+pointed out that these proposals had been urged by the insurgents and
+the followers of Bryan, and there could be no doubt where the
+sympathies of Roosevelt lay in the factional dispute within the
+Republican party.
+
+While conditions within the organization were such as were indicated by
+the hostile criticism of the Payne-Aldrich act, by the Pinchot-Ballinger
+controversy, the overturn of Speaker Cannon and the disintegration of
+the Aldrich-Hale group, the congressional election of 1910 took place.
+Signs of impending change had already become evident. Insurgent
+Republicans were carrying the party primaries; and the Democrats, who
+were plainly confident, emphasized strongly the tariff act, Cannonism
+and the high cost of living as reasons for the removal of the
+Republicans. The result was a greater upheaval than even the Democrats
+had prophesied. In nine states the Republicans were ousted from
+legislatures that would elect United States senators; the new Senate
+would contain forty-one Democrats and fifty-one Republicans--too narrow
+a Republican majority in view of the strength of the insurgents. In the
+choice of members of the lower branch of Congress there was a still
+greater revolution; the new House would contain 228 Democrats, 161
+Republicans and one Socialist, while Cannon would be retired from the
+speakership. In eastern as well as western states, Democratic governors
+were elected in surprising numbers. Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
+New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Oregon were among them. Of particular
+importance, as later events showed, was the success in New Jersey of
+Woodrow Wilson, former president of Princeton University.
+
+Not long after the election of 1910 the President sent to Congress a
+special message urging the adoption of a reciprocal trade agreement
+with Canada. The arrangement provided for freedom of trade in many raw
+materials and food products, and for substantial reductions on some
+manufactured articles. He believed that the project would benefit both
+countries economically and improve the already friendly relations
+existing between them, and he set his heart upon its adoption.
+Opposition appeared at once: the farmers' organizations protested
+vigorously at the reduction of the tariff on agricultural products; the
+high protectionists were fearful of an entering wedge which might lead
+to further tariff reductions; and the paper and wood pulp interests
+also objected. Although the agreement eventually passed both houses of
+Congress by large majorities, the opposition was composed chiefly of
+Republicans. Objection to the arrangement in Canada turned out to be
+stronger than had been anticipated. The fear that commercial
+reciprocity might make the Dominion somewhat dependent on the United
+States seems to have caused a manifestation of national pride, and Sir
+Wilfred Laurier, who had led the forces in favor of the agreement, was
+driven out of power and reciprocity defeated. The result for the
+administration was failure and further division in the party.
+
+Democratic control of the House during the second half of Taft's term
+effectually prevented the passage of any considerable amount of
+legislation. A parcel-post law, however, was passed, a Children's
+Bureau was established for the study of the welfare of children, and a
+Department of Labor provided for, whose secretary was to be a member of
+the cabinet. Aided by the insurgents, the Democrats attempted a small
+amount of tariff legislation. Although a general revision of the entire
+tariff structure would be a long and laborious task, specific schedules
+could be revised which would indicate what might be expected in case of
+Democratic success in 1912. The sugar, steel, woolen, chemical and
+cotton schedules were taken up in accord with this plan and bills were
+passed which were uniformly vetoed by the President.
+
+In his attitude toward the regulation of big business, President Taft
+was in harmony with his predecessor and was in thorough sympathy,
+therefore, with suits brought under the Sherman law against the
+Standard Oil Company, and the American Tobacco Company. In May, 1911,
+the Supreme Court decided that both of these companies had been guilty
+of combining to restrain and to monopolize trade, and ordered a
+dissolution of the conspiring elements into separate, competing units.
+The Court also undertook to answer some of the knotty questions that
+had arisen in relation to section 1 of the act, which declares illegal
+"every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or
+conspiracy, in restraint of trade." Did the prohibition against every
+contract or combination mean precisely _every_ contract, whether
+important or not? Or did it refer merely to large and unreasonable
+restraints? The phraseology of the statute seems to prohibit restraints
+of all kinds, and the previous decisions of the Court had been in line
+with this view. When, then, the decisions in these two cases erected
+the "rule of reason" and declared that only those restraints were
+forbidden that were unreasonable, the attention of some opponents of
+the trusts was focussed on the _obiter dictum_, rather than upon the
+decisions themselves. In taking this position, they had the support of
+Mr. Justice Harlan who agreed to the decision but condemned the _obiter
+dictum_, asserted that the exact words of the law forbade _every_
+contract, and deprecated what he believed to be the amendment of
+statutes by the courts. The dissolution of the companies into competing
+units, however, had no apparent effect that was of benefit to the
+public. In fact, immediate increases in the value of Standard Oil
+stocks indicated that the decision was of slight consequence.
+
+In the meantime the widening of the breach in the Republican party was
+indicated by the formation of the National Progressive Republican
+League on January 21, 1911. Its most prominent leaders were Senators
+Bourne, Bristow and La Follette; and leading progressives in different
+states were invited to join--among them ex-President Roosevelt. It was
+the hope that if the latter joined the League, the step might help to
+place him in more open opposition to the Taft administration. The
+purpose of the organization was the passage of progressive economic and
+political legislation, especially acts providing for the election of
+senators by vote of the people, direct primaries for the nomination of
+elective officers, direct election of delegates to national
+conventions, the initiative, referendum and recall in the states, and a
+thorough-going corrupt practices act.
+
+Early in 1912 the factions in the Republican party began to consider
+the question of a leader for the coming presidential campaign, some of
+the progressive element looking to La Follette as the natural
+candidate, and others to Roosevelt when it was seen that he would not
+support Taft for a renomination. On February 21, Roosevelt addressed a
+constitutional convention in Columbus, Ohio, and expressed a political
+creed that closely resembled the program of the National Progressive
+Republican League. In the meantime the demand for Roosevelt as a
+candidate had been incessant on the part of numerous Republicans of
+insurgent sympathies, who realized how many more progressive principles
+he had accepted than Taft. Finally on February 24 he replied to an
+appeal from a group of his supporters, including seven state governors,
+that he would accept a nomination. Thereupon most of the progressives
+transferred their allegiance from La Follette to the ex-President.
+President Taft's fighting spirit had become aroused, in the meanwhile,
+and he had declared that only death would keep him out of the fight.
+
+The call had already been issued for the Republican Nominating
+Convention to be held in Chicago, in June, and the contest began for
+the control of the 1,078 delegates who would compose its membership.
+The supporters of Taft, being in possession of the party machinery,
+were able to dictate the choice of many of these delegates, especially
+from the South, by means that had been usual in politics for many
+years. The friends of Roosevelt, in order to overcome this handicap,
+began to demand presidential preference primaries, in which the people
+might make known their wishes, and in which his personal popularity
+would make him a strong contender. During the pre-convention campaign,
+twelve states held primaries and the others held the usual party
+conventions. At first Taft did not actively enter the contest, but the
+efforts of Roosevelt were so successful and his charges against the
+President so numerous that he felt compelled to take the stump. The
+country was then treated to the spectacle of a President and an
+ex-President touring the country and acrimoniously attacking each
+other. The progressives, Taft asserted, were "political emotionalists"
+and "neurotics"; Roosevelt, he complained, had promised not to accept
+another nomination, had broken his agreement, and had not given a fair
+account of the policies which the administration had been following.
+Roosevelt charged Taft with being a reactionary, a friend of the
+"bosses" and with using the patronage in order to secure a
+renomination. And he grated on the sensibilities of the nation by
+referring to his influence in getting Taft elected in 1908 and
+remarking, "it is a bad trait to bite the hand that feeds you." The
+result of the presidential preference primaries in the few states that
+held them was overwhelmingly in favor of Roosevelt; in the states where
+conventions chose the delegates, Taft obtained a majority; in the case
+of over 200 delegates, there were disputes as to whether Taft or
+Roosevelt men were fairly chosen. These contests, as usual, were
+decided by the National Republican Committee, with the right of appeal
+to the Convention itself. The Committee decided nearly all the contests
+in favor of Taft's friends, and since all the delegates thus chosen
+would sit in the Convention and vote on one another's cases, the
+decision seemed likely to be final.
+
+The scene of action then shifted to Chicago where the Convention
+assembled on June 18. Aroused by the action of the Committee in the
+contests, Roosevelt went thither to care for his interests.[7] The
+election of a temporary chairman resulted in the choice of Elihu Root,
+who was favorable to Taft. The Roosevelt delegates, declaring that the
+contests had been unfairly decided, enlivened the roll-call by shouts
+of "robbers," "thieves"; and when Root thanked the Convention for the
+confidence which it reposed in him, his words were greeted with groans.
+Upon the failure of an attempt to revise the decision of the National
+Committee in the cases of the contested delegates, Roosevelt announced
+that he was "through." One of his supporters read to the Convention a
+statement from him charging that the Committee, under the direction of
+Taft, had stolen eighty or ninety delegates, making the gathering no
+longer in any proper sense a Republican convention. Thereafter most of
+the Roosevelt delegates refused to share either in the nomination of
+the candidate or in the adoption of a platform. The choice of Taft as
+the candidate was then made without difficulty.
+
+The platform contained the usual planks concerning the party's past,
+the protective tariff and the civil service; and it reflected something
+of the rising interest in economic and political reforms in its
+advocacy of laws limiting the hours of labor for women and children,
+workmen's compensation acts, reforms in legal procedure, a simpler
+process than impeachment for the removal of judges, additions to the
+anti-trust law, the revision of the currency system, publicity of
+campaign contributions and a parcel-post.
+
+As the Republican convention was drawing its labors to a close, the
+dissatisfied adherents of Roosevelt met and invited him to become the
+candidate of a new organization. Upon his acceptance, a call was issued
+for a convention of the Progressive Party, to be held in Chicago on
+August 5. The discord among the Republicans was viewed with undisguised
+content by the Democratic leaders, for it seemed likely to open to them
+the doorway to power. Yet the same difference between liberals and
+conservatives that had been the outstanding feature of the Republican
+convention was evident among the Democrats, and nobody could be sure
+that a schism would not take place.
+
+There was no lack of aspirants for the presidential nomination. J.B.
+("Champ") Clark, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Governor
+Judson Harmon, of Ohio, O.W. Underwood, Chairman of the House Committee
+on Ways and Means, and Governor Woodrow Wilson, of New Jersey, all had
+earnest supporters. In contests in the state conventions and primaries,
+Speaker Clark was most successful, although not enough delegates were
+pledged to him to secure the nomination.
+
+The convention met in Baltimore on June 25, and for the most part
+centered about the activities of Bryan. On the third day he presented a
+resolution declaring the convention opposed to the nomination of any
+candidate who was under obligations to J.P. Morgan, T.F. Ryan, August
+Belmont, or any of the "privilege-hunting and favor-seeking class." An
+uproar ensued, but the resolution was overwhelmingly adopted. Balloting
+for the candidate then began. Speaker Clark had a majority, but was far
+from having the two-thirds majority which Democratic conventions
+require; Governor Wilson was more than a hundred votes behind him.
+While the fourteenth ballot was being taken, Bryan created a new
+sensation by announcing that he should transfer his vote from Clark to
+Wilson, on the ground that the New York delegates were in the hands of
+Charles F. Murphy, the leader of Tammany Hall, and that Murphy was for
+the Speaker. The relative positions of the two leading candidates
+remained unchanged, however, for five ballots more. Then the tide began
+to turn. At the thirtieth, Governor Wilson led for the first time, and
+on the forty-sixth Clark's support broke and Wilson was nominated.
+
+The platform resembled that of 1908. It called for immediate downward
+revision of the tariff, the strengthening of the anti-trust laws,
+presidential preference primaries, prohibition of corporation
+contributions to campaign funds, a single term for the president and
+the revision of the banking and currency laws.
+
+The organization of the Progressive party, in the meantime, was rapidly
+proceeding, and on August 5 the national convention was held. It was an
+unusual political gathering both in its personnel--for women delegates
+shared in its deliberations--and in the emotional fervor which
+dominated its sessions. At the Democratic convention the delegates had
+awakened the echoes with the familiar song "Hail! Hail! The gang's all
+here"; the Progressives expressed their convictions in "Onward,
+Christian Soldiers." Roosevelt's speech was called his "confession of
+faith"; his charge that both of the old parties were boss-ridden and
+privilege-controlled epitomized the prevailing sentiment among his
+hearers. Without a contest Roosevelt was nominated for the presidency
+and Hiram Johnson of California for the vice-presidency.
+
+The platform adopted was distinctly a reform document. It advocated
+such political innovations as direct primaries, the direct election of
+senators, the initiative, referendum and recall, a more expeditious
+method of amending the Constitution, women's suffrage, and the
+limitation of campaign expenditures. A detailed program of social and
+economic legislation included laws for the prevention of accidents, the
+prohibition of child labor, a "living wage," the eight-hour day, a
+Department of Labor, the conservation of the nation's resources, and
+the development of the agricultural interests. The third portion of the
+platform dealt with "the unholy alliance between corrupt business and
+corrupt politics." It declared the test of corporate efficiency to be
+the ability "to serve the public"; it demanded the "strong national
+regulation of interstate corporations," a federal industrial commission
+comparable to the Interstate Commerce Commission and the protection of
+the people from concerns offering worthless investments under highly
+colored and specious appearances.
+
+The results of the election indicated how complete the division
+in the Republican party had been. In the electoral college Wilson
+received 435 votes to Roosevelt's 88 and Taft's 8. Yet Wilson's
+popular vote--6,300,000--fell far short of the combined Roosevelt-Taft
+vote--7,500,000--and was less than that of Bryan in 1896, 1900, and
+1908.[8] The fact that the combined Roosevelt-Taft vote was less than
+that received by Taft in 1908 seems to indicate that many Republicans
+refused to vote. The control of Congress, in both houses, went to the
+Democrats, even such a popular leader as Speaker Cannon failing of
+reelection. In twenty-one of the thirty-five states where governors
+were chosen, the Democrats were triumphant. Whether, then, the schism
+in the Republican party was responsible for the success of the
+opposition, or whether the electorate was determined upon a change
+regardless of conditions in the party which had hitherto controlled
+popular favor, the fact was that the overturn was complete. And
+circumstances that could not have been foreseen and that affected the
+entire world were destined to make the political revolution profoundly
+significant.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+In the main, periodical literature written with more or less partisan
+bias must be relied upon.
+
+For the election of 1908, F.A. Ogg, _National Progress_ (1918), and the
+better newspapers and periodicals. W.H. Taft may be studied in his
+_Presidential Addresses and State Papers_ (1910), _Present Day
+Problems_ (1908), and _Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers_ (1916).
+
+On the Payne-Aldrich tariff: S.W. McCall in _Atlantic Monthly_, vol.
+CIV, p. 562; G.M. Fisk in _Political Science Quarterly_, XXV, p. 35;
+H.P. Willis in _Journal of Political Economy_, XVII, pp. 1, 589, XVIII,
+1; in addition to Tarbell and Taussig.
+
+The documents in the Pinchot-Ballinger controversy are in _Senate
+Documents_, 61st Congress, 2nd session, vol. 44 (Serial Number 5643),
+and 3rd session, vol. 34 (Serial Numbers 5892-5903).
+
+For other incidents: C.R. Atkinson, _Committee on Rules and the
+Overthrow of Speaker Cannon_ (1911); Canadian reciprocity in _Senate
+Documents_, 61st Congress, 3rd session, vol. 84 (Serial Number 5942);
+Appleton's _American Year Book_ (1911). The decisions in the Standard
+Oil and American Tobacco cases are in _United States Reports_, vol.
+221, pp. 1, 106; a good discussion will be found in W.H. Taft,
+_Anti-Trust Act and the Supreme Court_ (1914). For the rise of the
+insurgent movement and the election of 1912, F.E. Haynes, _Third Party
+Movements_ (1916); R.M. La Follette, _Autobiography_; B.P. De Witt,
+_Progressive Movement_ (1915); W.J. Bryan, _Tale of Two Conventions_
+(1912); besides Ogg, Beard and Stanwood.
+
+The _American Year Book_ (1910-), becomes serviceable in connection
+with major political events. Its articles are usually non-partisan and
+may be relied upon to bring continuing tendencies and practices up to
+date.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Above, p. 322.
+
+[2] The cabinet was composed of: P.C. Knox, Pa., Secretary of State; P.
+MacVeagh, III., Secretary of the Treasury; J.M. Dickinson, Tenn.,
+Secretary of War; G.W. Wiekersham, N.Y., Attorney-General; F.H.
+Hitchcock, Mass., Postmaster-General; G.L. Meyer, Mass., Secretary of
+the Navy; R.A. Ballinger, Wash., Secretary of the Interior; J. Wilson,
+Ia., Secretary of Agriculture; C. Nagel, Mo., Secretary of Commerce and
+Labor. Meyer and Wilson had been in Roosevelt's cabinet.
+
+[3] Other features of the act were the establishment of a Court for the
+settlement of tariff disputes, provisions for a tariff commission and a
+tax on corporation incomes.
+
+[4] Mr. Dooley, who was well known as a humorous character created by
+F.P. Dunne, made merry with the claim that the tariff had been reduced,
+by reading to his friend Mr. Hennessy the "necessities of life" which
+had been placed on the free-list and which included curling stones,
+teeth, sea-moss, newspapers, nuts, nux vomica, Pulu, canary bird seed,
+divy divy and other commodities.
+
+[5] A sample of the jocosity that partially relieved the tension is the
+following portion of the _Congressional Record_ for March 18:
+
+    The Speaker _pro tempore_: The House will be in order. Gentlemen
+    will understand the impropriety of singing on the floor, even though
+    the House is not at this moment transacting any business. The House
+    is not in recess.
+
+    Chorus. "There'll be a hot time in the old town to-night."
+
+    The Speaker _pro tempore_. That was last night, not to-night.
+    (Laughter.) The House will be in order.
+
+    Mr. Shackleford. Mr. Speaker, I make the point of order that the
+    tap-tapping of the Chair's gavel interferes with the music.
+    (Laughter.)
+
+Cf. Atkinson, _Committee on Rules_, 115.
+
+[6] A Commerce Court was also provided, so as to expedite the decision
+of appeals from orders of the Commission. Its career was brief, for
+Congress was not well-disposed toward the project, and the Court was
+abolished in 1913.
+
+[7] When Roosevelt arrived in Chicago, he remarked that he felt like a
+"bull moose," an expression which later gave his party its popular
+name.
+
+[8] Roosevelt, 4,000,000; Taft, 3,500,000.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL TENDENCIES SINCE 1896
+
+During the four decades between the opening of the Civil War and the
+close of the nineteenth century, the United States became in many
+respects an economic unit. The passage of the Interstate Commerce Act
+in 1887, for instance, was an early recognition of the fact that the
+transportation problem of the nation transcended state bounds; the
+Sherman Anti-trust law of 1890 arose from the realization that
+commercial and industrial unity were rapidly coming to pass; the
+American Federation of Labor brought workmen from all states and many
+trades into a single organization. The election of 1896 and the amazing
+consolidation of business enterprises at the close of the century were
+further proofs that the day had passed when any section of the United
+States could live an isolated economic life without relation to other
+parts of the country. Instead of remaining a federation of diverse
+economic sections, we became increasingly homogeneous. Much of the
+economic and political legislation enacted after 1896, and many of the
+practices and standards which were adopted by leaders in economic and
+political life were an outgrowth of the new conditions.
+
+It will be remembered that the eighties and early nineties had been
+years of labor unrest. Costly and bitter strikes on the part of the
+workmen, and resolute and powerful resistance on the part of the
+employers were the commonplaces of the history of labor. The
+culmination was the Pullman strike of 1894.[1] Its cost in money and
+suffering was appalling; it placed the federal military power in the
+hands of the employers; and although it was a failure as far as the
+strikers were concerned, yet an impartial investigation after the
+struggle was over established the justice of much of which the men had
+complained. If discriminating justice were to be measured out to both
+sides, instead of victory to the side of the strongest battalions, and
+if intolerable waste and discomfort were to be avoided, some remedies
+for industrial unrest must be discovered which would replace strikes
+and violence. Happily, signs were not wanting that such a change was
+slowly taking place.
+
+A combination of influences tended to place the labor problem on a new
+footing after 1896. One of the most important of these forces was the
+American Federation of Labor which greatly increased its size and
+activities, especially about the opening of the new century, growing
+from 950,000 members in 1901 to 4,302,148 in April, 1920. Its
+president, Samuel Gompers, is an able, resourceful leader, who has
+remained in control from 1882 to the present (1920), with the single
+exception of the year 1895, so that the organization has had the
+benefit of experienced leadership and continuity of purpose. Although a
+radical, socialistic element broke away in 1905 and formed the
+Industrial Workers of the World, yet the defection was not immediately
+serious and in general schisms have been avoided. Several other labor
+organizations, although unconnected with the Federation exerted a
+strong influence; in particular the brotherhoods of railway employees,
+by frequent threats to strike and thereby tie up the transportation
+system, aided in bringing the demands of labor to public notice.
+
+Moreover, after 1896 and especially after the coal strike of 1902 there
+was an increasing recognition on the part of the public that a labor
+problem existed and that it must be solved in some way other than by
+force of arms. Physicians and scientific experts called attention to
+the lack of proper care for the health of workmen in dangerous
+industries; the movement for the preservation of the forests and
+mineral supplies emphasized the need of efforts for the conservation of
+human lives; social reformers, economists, writers and educators upheld
+the needs and rights of the neglected classes; and the press and the
+muck-rake periodicals found it profitable to expose extreme abuses.
+Distress that had hitherto been unnoticed or disregarded became
+important, and remedies were demanded. Change was in the air, and not
+alone in America, for England and France were experiencing the same
+problems, and attempting to devise new expedients to solve them. After
+the beginning of the new century, also, the employing class came to a
+better realization of the existence of the labor problem and sought
+solutions in ways that must be mentioned later.[2] There was a more
+widespread acceptance of the principle of trade agreements, whereby the
+employer and the men determined the conditions of labor by means of
+direct negotiations.
+
+Although it had been the policy of the American Federation of Labor to
+keep out of politics, it was almost inevitable that the policy should
+receive some modifications. Organizations of employers were influential
+at Washington, and had long been so. Accordingly in 1908 the Democratic
+platform was endorsed on account of its labor planks, and again in 1910
+and 1912. By the latter year all parties were earnestly striving to
+capture the labor vote, and in particular the Democratic and
+Progressive platforms embodied most of what the wage earner had been
+demanding for the previous generation.
+
+The major demands in the labor program of earlier years--higher wages,
+shorter hours, settled conditions of employment, and the like--were not
+altered after 1896, but a few striking advances were made. The attempt
+to legislate concerning hours of employment, for example, had been
+continually obstructed by the clauses in the Fifth and Fourteenth
+Amendments forbidding any legislation depriving the individual of
+"life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." The courts
+had usually interpreted these phrases as prohibiting laws restricting
+hours of labor, on the ground that the liberty of the workman to
+contract freely regarding his own working hours was thereby infringed.
+A Massachusetts law of 1874, nevertheless, which limited a day's work
+for women and children to ten hours, had followed the long-continued
+assertion that regulatory legislation could be based on the "police
+power"--a somewhat indefinite authority which was gradually conceded by
+the courts to the states and the federal government, and under which it
+was possible to pass legislation concerning the conservation of the
+health and morals of the people without violating the Constitution. Not
+until 1908, however, was the constitutionality of such legislation
+finally settled by the Supreme Court, in upholding an Oregon ten-hour
+law. "As healthy mothers are essential to vigorous offspring," the
+decision asserted, "the physical well-being of women becomes an object
+of public interest and care in order to preserve the strength and vigor
+of the race." In other words, the Court was prepared to approve
+limitations on the freedom of contract in order to further the public
+interest. The Massachusetts law was imitated far and wide, so that at
+the present time an almost negligible number of states have failed to
+restrict the length of the working day for women.
+
+Recently, also, substantial progress has been made in restricting
+working hours for children. As long ago as 1866 Massachusetts had
+restricted the employment of children, but neither this law nor similar
+laws passed by other states had been fully enforced. Greater progress
+has been made since 1903, when Illinois, followed by the majority of
+the important industrial states, established the eight-hour standard
+for children under sixteen. Impressed with the need of federal
+legislation to coerce backward states, the reformers took their case to
+Congress where a federal act was passed in 1916. On account of
+constitutional limitations, the measure was framed so as to forbid
+shipment, on interstate railways, of the products of factories
+employing children under fourteen years of age. It was estimated that
+150,000 out of nearly 2,000,000 working children might be affected by
+the act. Its fate, however, was that of many another piece of economic
+legislation; by a vote of five to four, the Supreme Court declared the
+law unconstitutional on the ground that it was not an attempt to
+regulate commerce, but an attempt to regulate the conditions of
+manufacture. Early in 1919 the effort to regulate child labor was
+renewed through the imposition of a tax of ten per cent. on the net
+profits of factories employing children under fourteen years of age.
+The constitutionality of the law has not yet been tested (1920).
+
+It will be noted that all the foregoing legislative attempts to reduce
+the working day affected women and children only; in general, little
+attempt has been made to limit the working day for men. Nevertheless,
+large numbers of cities, more than half the states, and the federal
+government provide for an eight-hour day on public work; and western
+states have followed the lead of Utah in passing eight-hour laws for
+miners. Hours of labor for railway employees have also been the subject
+of study and legislation. Cases had not been unknown where employees
+were kept at their posts for thirty, fifty and even one hundred hours;
+frequently such workmen fell asleep and disastrous accidents occurred.
+In 1907 this situation was met by a congressional act limiting the
+hours of railway engineers to sixteen and providing that periods of
+work must be followed by specified rest periods. Train-despatchers,
+telegraphers, and others were similarly protected. A majority of the
+states imitated these federal statutes. In a few cases, state laws have
+been passed which were intended to limit working hours in other
+especial industries. The most famous of these was one in New York,
+which restricted the working day in bakeries to ten hours. In the
+decision Lochner _v._ New York, the Supreme Court declared the law
+unconstitutional.[3]
+
+The early twentieth century also saw progress on the subject of
+compensation for industrial accidents. As far back as 1884 Germany had
+enacted a law which put the blame for all accidents on the employers,
+except when the victim was wilfully negligent; in 1897 England had
+passed the British Workmen's Compensation Act which virtually made the
+employer the insurer of his workmen against all accidents. The theory
+underlying these laws was that accidents were like wear and tear and
+should be made a charge on the industry, like the depreciation of
+buildings and machinery. The United States, however, lagged behind all
+other industrial nations, despite the astonishing number of accidents
+which yearly occurred. In 1908, for example, it was estimated that two
+million men were injured, of whom 200,000 were permanently disabled,
+and 30,000 died--a larger number than the federal killed, wounded and
+missing in the Gettysburg campaign. Under previous practice in this
+country compensation for industrial accidents had been awarded in
+accord with common law principles, under which the employer was not
+responsible for an employee who was injured through the negligence of a
+fellow servant. Any workman who entered hazardous employment was
+assumed under the common law to know the dangers and be ready to run
+the risks, and no compensation could be recovered unless it could be
+shown that the master had been negligent and the employee had not also
+been negligent. It came widely to be thought that the common law did
+not justly apply to the complex industrial system of modern times. It
+did not seem equitable, for example, that the fellow servant doctrine
+should hold in case of a railway employee killed through the negligence
+of a train despatcher many miles away, whom he did not know and had
+never even seen.
+
+The first workmen's compensation act in the United States was passed in
+Maryland in 1902. Its scope was narrow and it came to nothing as it was
+declared unconstitutional. In course of time, however, legislation was
+framed in such language as to pass muster before the courts, and
+moreover judicial decisions changed, as time went on, in the direction
+desired by popular opinion. Beginning in 1911 there was an avalanche of
+liability and compensation laws and by 1920 forty-two states, together
+with Porto Rico, Alaska and Hawaii had passed acts that placed the
+burden more or less completely on the employer, and provided schemes of
+compensation. The federal government also took action. At the
+suggestion of President Roosevelt an act was passed in 1908 making
+interstate railroads responsible for injuries to employees and
+expressly doing away with former common law practices.[4] At the same
+time a similar liability was placed upon the United States for
+accidents occurring to certain classes of government employees and a
+plan of compensation was established. In 1916 another act brought all
+civil servants under the system.
+
+Several other types of social legislation have made considerable
+progress in Europe, but have found little or no foot-hold in this
+country, such as minimum wage laws, health insurance, old age and
+widows' pensions, and unemployment insurance. The minimum wage law,
+establishing a level below which wages must not go, has been adopted by
+Massachusetts and a few other states in a restricted form. The
+unemployment problem has hardly been touched, although the federal
+Department of Labor since its establishment in 1913 has gathered and
+made public information in regard to opportunities for work.
+
+Recent years have likewise seen a vast number of laws which together
+have made a new era in American industrial life, although separately no
+one of them was revolutionary. For example, matches containing white
+phosphorous were subjected to a prohibitive tax because of the harmful
+effect of the phosphorous on workmen in match factories; greater care
+was exercised in guarding dangerous machines, elevator wells and the
+like; fire protection, harmful or poisonous fumes and dust, ventilation
+and safety devices in mines, safety appliances on railway trains,
+together with numberless other accompaniments of modern industry were
+the subject of state legislation. Almost as important as legislative
+enactments were the changes in working conditions voluntarily made by
+the most progressive corporations. One who compares a factory built
+within twenty-five years of the close of the Civil War with a building
+erected since 1900 discovers revolutionary changes. Later buildings are
+constructed with much more care for ventilation, light and convenience;
+in some cases even the temperature of the work-rooms is a matter for
+painstaking attention; "welfare" work is now a commonplace, with rest
+rooms, lunch rooms, recreation fields and factory social activities.
+Factory or store committees that confer with higher officers in
+relation to hours and the needs and desires of the employees are by no
+means uncommon, and some of the large corporations even provide pension
+systems for their employees.
+
+On the other hand, laws and statute books did not always guarantee
+performance. Laws were continually avoided both by the employers and
+the employees; workmen transgressed rules laid down for their welfare;
+the passage and execution of many laws were hampered to the last degree
+by short-sighted employers; the courts invalidated much legislation on
+the ground of unconstitutionality; and progress was frequently confined
+to leading states or corporations and was by no means universal. It
+nevertheless is true that the tendencies in social and economic
+legislation since 1896 have been widely different from those prevalent
+before that year.
+
+In several cases the influence of the labor element in federal
+legislation has been decisive. The use of the injunction, it will be
+remembered, was one of the grievances most frequently mentioned at the
+time of the Pullman strike. In the campaign of 1908 both parties strove
+to attract the labor vote by proposals of reform, but not until 1914
+was the issuance of injunctions forbidden "unless necessary to prevent
+irreparable injury to prosperity ... for which injury there is no
+adequate remedy at law." At the same time the labor unions were
+exempted from the operation of the anti-trust laws.[5] The influence of
+the labor organizations was also a factor in the agitation for the
+restriction of immigration which continued from 1897 to 1917. In the
+former year a bill was passed which contained a literacy test--that is,
+a provision excluding persons who were unable to read or write English
+or some other language. President Cleveland exercised his veto, as did
+later presidents when similar measures were carried in 1913, 1915 and
+1917, but in the latter year Congress was able to muster sufficient
+strength to pass the act over the President's veto. One of the main
+purposes of the measure seems to have been the restriction of the labor
+supply, and hence it enlisted the support of the American Federation of
+Labor and other similar organizations.[6]
+
+The ameliorative measures already mentioned have by no means prevented
+the boycott and the strike. Indeed they have not, except in rare cases,
+directly affected the two great causes of industrial disputes--hours
+and wages for adult male laborers. Many formidable and violent strikes
+have occurred since 1896, such as those of the shirt-waist makers in
+New York in 1909, the textile operatives in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in
+1912, and the Colorado coal miners in 1913. On the whole, however, it
+seems that the labor unions have developed somewhat greater
+conservatism and that their influence has been against violence in
+strikes.
+
+Few aspects of the labor problem have been the cause of more earnest
+thought than the search for peaceful methods of settling industrial
+controversies. In 1898, by the Erdman Act, the federal government
+provided a means for arbitrating disputes on interstate railways. The
+Newlands Act of 1913 superseded this by the creation of a formal Board
+of Mediation and Conciliation, and many disputes were decided under the
+terms of these laws. The Department of Labor mediated in many
+industrial disputes, and in 1916 when the four railway brotherhoods
+threatened to strike for an eight-hour day, Congress itself intervened
+with a piece of special legislation, the Adamson law, which was framed
+to settle the questions under dispute.[7] In some cases, profit-sharing
+plans have been put into force; in others, disputes have been referred
+to impartial boards of outsiders; and in yet others, machinery has been
+established for continuous conference between representatives of the
+employees and employers. Neither federal and state boards and
+commissions, however, nor the efforts of individual employers have been
+sufficient fully to insure industrial peace.
+
+The increased activity of the state and federal governments in the
+fields of economic legislation, as indicated in the passage of labor
+laws, was also illustrated in two important measures passed in 1906.
+The adulteration of foods had been brought to a state of dangerous
+perfection, and drugs had been commonly advertised and sold all over
+the country which had none of the powers ascribed to them by their
+makers. Since the eighties, many states had forbidden the sale of
+impure or tainted food, but the laws were varied and difficult to
+enforce, and it appeared that reliance must be placed on the federal
+government. As early as 1890 a federal law had provided for the
+inspection of meats which were to be exported, but otherwise little
+progress had been made. In 1906 Upton Sinclair published _The Jungle_,
+a novel which purported to describe the ghastly conditions under which
+the meat packers of Chicago conducted their business. Sinclair's book,
+together with a campaign of education conducted by the muckrake
+periodicals against harmful patent medicines aroused public interest to
+such a degree, that two important laws were passed. One provided for
+federal inspection of meats intended for interstate commerce, so as to
+make sure that they were obtained from healthy animals and slaughtered
+under sanitary conditions. The other act concerned foods and drugs, and
+prohibited the sale of these commodities if they contained any
+injurious drugs, chemicals or preservatives, while a later amendment
+forbade false statements on labels attached to medical compounds. As a
+result of the provisions of the law in regard to patent medicines, many
+concerns which had been selling drugs that were falsely advertised as
+having curative effects were compelled to retire from business.
+
+Innovations in the field of politics and government since 1896 have
+been as marked as in the field of social and economic legislation.
+Possibly the most outstanding development has been the rapid expansion
+of the range and variety of the activities of the federal government.
+The unification of the economic life of the nation, as has been shown,
+compelled a program of federal economic legislation, and helped
+inculcate a feeling of greater political solidarity. When fires and
+floods and other disasters occurred which were too great for a single
+city or state to take care of, when state laws became confusing because
+of their variety, when railroads crossed a dozen states and
+corporations that were chartered in New Jersey did business in Maine,
+Florida and California, only at the federal capital could the requisite
+authority be found, which would give the needed relief. As the theory
+of _laissez faire_ gradually broke down, moreover, giving way to the
+belief that the government ought to be the servant of the mass of the
+people, it was inevitable that the people should themselves turn more
+to legislation as a remedy for their grievances. To Washington,
+therefore, hurried the proponents of every reform.
+
+This tendency was not only counter to the probable intention of the
+framers of the Constitution, but it trenched upon the powers
+specifically granted to the states. The tenth amendment stated in so
+many words that "The powers not delegated to the United States ... are
+reserved to the States." It was necessary for the federal government to
+act, however, or else to leave problems that had become national in
+character to the chaos that results from legislation in nearly fifty
+states. State laws concerning railroads, for example, as well as
+marriage and divorce, child labor and trusts are even now in a maze. No
+solution of the problem seemed possible other than constant stretching
+of the terms of the Constitution. In 1906, one of the most conservative
+statesmen in the country, Elihu Boot, even went so far as to utter a
+warning that if the states did not use their powers to better advantage
+a "construction of the Constitution will be found to vest the power
+where it will be exercised-in the National Government." The burden thus
+shifted from state to nation was somewhat lightened by the appointment
+of numerous commissions to which was entrusted the administration of
+specific laws or the accumulation of specific data. The earliest of
+these was the Interstate Commerce Commission; later, others were
+appointed to administer laws concerning banking, the tariff and the
+trusts.
+
+With the expansion of the power of the federal government went the
+elevation of the office of chief executive. Cleveland's use of the veto
+power had given an indication of the possibilities of the presidential
+office in obstructing undesirable legislation; his action in bringing
+about the repeal of the purchase clause of the Sherman silver law in
+1890 had shown the more positive force which a determined officer could
+exert. Roosevelt's activity in carrying his anti-trust program to the
+people, and his mediation in the coal strike carried the prestige of
+the presidency to greater heights. President Taft was by no means
+radical in his interpretation of the powers and possibilities of his
+office; nevertheless his conception of it was far removed from the
+conservative philosophy of President McKinley, and he even suggested in
+a message to Congress that the cabinet officers be given seats,
+although without votes, in the Senate and House. His successor
+augmented rather than diminished the powers of the presidential office.
+
+The Senate, on the contrary, lost both in power and in prestige. Many
+reasons for the increasing popular distrust of the Senate after the
+middle nineties can be given. There was a widespread belief that a
+controlling fraction of the body had achieved membership through
+wealth, through the assistance of corporate interests and because of
+skill in the manipulation of political wires. The charge was common
+that a small coterie of powerful strategists held the Senate in their
+hands and with it the control of important legislation. Most of all,
+and especially in the West, many thoughtful people believed that the
+state legislatures were easily influenced to choose inferior or
+untrustworthy men as senators. Whatever the reasons, however, there
+grew increasingly after 1870 and particularly after 1893 a demand for
+the popular election of senators. Between the latter year and 1911, at
+six different times resolutions were presented to Congress proposing an
+amendment to the Constitution which should secure popular election. At
+length Congress gave way, adopted an amendment, and sent it to the
+states. Within ten months thirty-six states had agreed, and after May
+31, 1913, senators were elected by the people.
+
+The demand for greater popular control over the choice of senators was
+a part, merely, of a somewhat general political trend. Distrust of the
+state legislatures had long been observable, and new state
+constitutions had been notable for detailed prohibitions placed upon
+law-making bodies. The West, which had gone to greatest extremes in
+framing new state constitutions, was also the testing-ground for the
+initiative, referendum and recall. The first of these devices--the
+initiative--is a plan by which a specified percentage of the voters may
+initiate legislation--that is, propose a law and require the officials
+of the state to submit it to the electorate. If the people accept the
+proposal, it becomes law as if enacted by the legislature. Under the
+referendum system, any measure already accepted by the legislature is
+held in abeyance on petition of a specified number of voters, until
+presented to the people for approval or rejection. Both the initiative
+and the referendum had been commonly used in Switzerland before being
+adopted in South Dakota in 1898. In less than two decades they had been
+accepted in twenty-one states, all but four of which were west of the
+Mississippi, and in one of the four eastern states, Maryland, only the
+referendum was tried. In Oregon, which made the most complete trial of
+these methods of legislation, both the initiative and the referendum
+were extended to the municipalities. The reasons for the innovation
+were to be found in the determination to discover a means of compelling
+negligent or boss-controlled state legislatures to respond to public
+opinion.[8]
+
+The recall is a process by which any public official may be withdrawn
+from his office by popular vote before the expiration of his term. Los
+Angeles adopted the plan in 1903 and was imitated by a small number of
+other western cities; Oregon in 1908 applied the device to all state
+officers, and in one form or another it has been adopted in ten states
+(1920). During the campaign of 1912 Roosevelt proposed that the voters
+be allowed to ratify or reject the decision of the courts on the
+constitutionality of legislation. The results of the suggestion were
+negligible.
+
+More significant than the recall as an indication of the prevailing
+desire to increase popular control over the processes of government was
+the adoption of direct primaries. Under this expedient the nominees of
+a party for office are chosen directly by the party voters, rather than
+by a party convention. Wisconsin first used the system in 1903 and from
+that state it spread rapidly. At the present time most states have some
+form of direct nomination. The peculiar circumstances surrounding the
+campaign for the Republican nominations in 1912 gave force to the
+demand for presidential preference primaries which were held in about a
+fourth of the states. Only the future can tell with assurance whether
+the demand is more than temporary.
+
+The agitation for women's suffrage was another example of the
+increasing desire for popular control of government. Suffrage for women
+was first granted by Wyoming in 1869 when its territorial government
+was organized, but the movement lagged thereafter until the early years
+of the twentieth century. At that time increasing numbers of states
+began to grant political privileges to women, and finally in 1919
+Congress passed a proposed constitutional amendment expressly stating
+that sex should not be a bar to the suffrage.[9]
+
+Accompanying the increased popular control of government after 1896 was
+a gradual demand for a higher level of political ethics. The
+revelations of the insurance investigations of 1905 were significant of
+this change. Early in that year certain newspapers made charges against
+the Equitable Life Assurance Company which were taken up by the New
+York legislature and referred to a committee for investigation. The
+committee's task was the examination of the affairs of life insurance
+companies doing business in the state of New York; its attorney was
+Charles E. Hughes. The results of the investigation amazed the country.
+The exorbitant salaries paid to officers, the unreasonable expenses
+incurred and the disregard of the rights of the policy holders were of
+concern chiefly to persons doing business with the companies. But it
+also appeared that several of the larger concerns had divided the
+country into districts, and had systematically influenced legislation
+affecting either insurance or financial interests to which they or
+their officers were related; enormous sums were expended and records
+not kept, or so kept as to conceal the real purposes of the
+expenditure. The report of the committee showed that Chauncey M. Depew,
+a member of the United States Senate, was paid $20,000 a year for legal
+services, without his rendering any return that seemed to warrant the
+payments made. The contributions of the companies to the Republican
+campaign funds were very heavy--$50,000 by one company in 1904. It
+appeared from testimony that Democrats also sought contributions from
+the companies but were refused. The final report of the committee
+unsparingly condemned these abuses and embodied a program of
+legislation for their reform, which was put into effect. The public
+received an education in the connection of corporations with politics,
+and Hughes himself at once became a figure of national importance, the
+favorite of the reform element, and was launched upon a career that
+made him governor of New York, a member of the United States Supreme
+Court and candidate for the presidency.[10]
+
+Laws regulating campaign expenditures had long been on the statute
+books although they had been little heeded, but as the result of the
+insurance investigation, New York in 1906 forbade contributions by
+corporations for political purposes. In 1907 Congress passed a similar
+law concerning federal campaigns, and most of the states have since
+passed laws placing restrictions on the use of campaign funds. In the
+campaign of 1908 Bryan requested that the Democratic National Committee
+receive no contributions from corporations, that no sums in excess of
+$10,000 be received from any source and that a list of contributors be
+published in advance of the election. By a law enacted in 1911 Congress
+compelled a statement of the amounts of money spent by committees, and
+limited the amounts which might be spent by candidates for Congress. In
+1919 the Chairman of the Republican National Committee announced that
+the party would raise funds for the next campaign in amounts from $1 to
+$1,000. Both parties were discovering that public sentiment opposed
+large contributions from individuals and corporations, because they
+expect a _quid pro quo_ after the election.[11]
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The best brief general accounts of recent conditions are in F.A. Ogg,
+_National Progress_, with an excellent bibliography, which may be
+supplemented by the _American Year Book_. On hours and conditions of
+labor, J.R. Commons and J.B. Andrews, _Principles of Labor Legislation
+_(1916). The decision in Lochner _v._ New York is in _United States
+Reports_, vol. 198, p. 45. For the courts and economic legislation,
+C.G. Haines, _American Doctrine of Judicial Supremacy _(1914), already
+referred to. An excellent historical account of the workmen's
+compensation idea is by A.F. Weber in _Political Science Quarterly_
+(June, 1902). Ida M. Tarbell, _New Ideals in Business_ (1917),
+describes the accomplishments of the industrial leaders rather than of
+the rank and file.
+
+Some of the political innovations are discussed in A.L. Lowell, _Public
+Opinion and Popular Government_ (1913); _Proceedings of the American
+Political Science Association_, V, 37, "The Limitations of Federal
+Government"; Elihu Boot, _Addresses on Government and Citizenship
+_(1916), "How to Preserve the Local Self-Government of the State." The
+most complete account of the historical development of the power of the
+president is in Edward Stanwood, _History of the Presidency, II
+_(1916), Chap. V. The fullest account of the movement for popular
+election of senators is G.H. Haynes, _The Election of Senators _(1906).
+The initiative, referendum and recall have given rise to a literature
+of their own. Convenient volumes are: C.A. Beard and B.E. Shultz,
+_Documents on the State-wide Initiative_, _Referendum and Recall_
+(1912); W.B. Munro, _The Initiative, Referendum and Recall_ (1912);
+J.D. Barnett, _Operation of the Initiative, Referendum, and Recall in
+Oregon_ (1915).
+
+_American Political Science Review _(Aug., 1915), "Presidential
+Preference Primaries." The articles in A.C. McLaughlin and A.B. Hart,
+_Cyclopaedia of American Government_ (3 vols., 1914), are a convenient
+source on most topics considered in this chapter.
+
+On the use of money in politics: _Report of the Legislative Insurance
+Investigating Committee _(10 vols., 1905-1906), Armstrong-Hughes
+committee; _Testimony before a Sub-committee of the Committee on
+Privileges and Elections, United States Senate, 62d Congress, 2d
+session, pursuant to Senate Resolution 79_ (Clapp Report).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Above, pp. 320-323.
+
+[2] Below, p. 508.
+
+[3] Above, p, 442.
+
+[4] An act of 1906 had been declared unconstitutional.
+
+[5] It should be said, however, that the meaning of this law is far
+from clear and is yet (1920) to be interpreted by the courts.
+
+[6] Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt also favored it. See Ogg,
+_National Progress_, 123-130.
+
+[7] Below, p. 571.
+
+[8] By 1920 twenty-three states had adopted the referendum or the
+initiative and referendum.
+
+[9] The amendment reads: Section 1. The right of citizens of the United
+States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or
+by any State, on account of sex. Section 2. Congress shall have power,
+by appropriate legislation, to enforce the provisions of this article.
+The amendment was ratified by the required number of states and
+proclaimed in force August 26, 1920.
+
+[10] The election of Senator Isaac Stephenson of Wisconsin occasioned
+another outbreak of reform sentiment. Investigation betrayed the fact
+that he had expended $107,793.05 in his primary campaign. The salary of
+a senator at that time was $7,500 per annum.
+
+[11] An investigation of federal campaign expenditures conducted in
+1912-1913 by a committee headed by Senator Moses Clapp uncovered much
+that had hitherto been only the subject of rumor. The Standard Oil
+Company, for instance, contributed $125,000 in 1904. Archbold, the
+vice-president of the company, testified that he told Bliss, the
+Republican treasurer, "We do not want to make this contribution unless
+it is thoroughly acceptable and will be thoroughly appreciated by Mr.
+Roosevelt"; and that Bliss "smilingly said we need have no possible
+apprehension on that score." Archbold complained later when the
+administration attacked the company, but Roosevelt declared that he was
+unaware of the contribution at the time. The Republican fund in 1908
+was $1,655,000. The testimony of Norman E. Mack, Chairman of the
+Democratic National Committee, indicated his perfect willingness to
+accept money wherever he could get it, and that he refused to receive
+contributions from corporations only because of Bryan's scruples.
+Roosevelt declared, on the authority of an insurance officer, that the
+Democrats in the campaign of 1904 were after all the corporation funds
+they could get.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+LATER INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS[1]
+
+At the close of the war with Spain it was commonly remarked that the
+United States had become a world power; books and periodicals written
+on the history of the period were based upon the assumption that
+America had swung out into the current of international affairs and
+that the traditional isolation of this country had become a thing of
+the past. Time must be appealed to, however, for answers to fundamental
+questions concerning the character of this change. Did the United
+States become a world power in the sense that the majority of its
+people threw off that policy of steering clear of permanent alliances
+which had been expressed by Washington in his farewell address, in
+favor of the policy of participation in world affairs on a footing with
+the larger European states? Did the people of the United States after
+1898 take a constant and informed interest in world politics and
+international relations? Or did the people, after a slight excursion
+into the West Indies and the Philippines, return to the traditional
+attitude of "splendid isolation"? Was the extent to which the United
+States became a world power sufficient to make probable its entry into
+a European war?
+
+A cardinal principle of the foreign policy of the United States has
+always been its attachment to international peace, particularly through
+the practice of arbitration. The great hopes raised by the two Hague
+Conferences were striking proofs of this fact. In 1899, at the
+suggestion of Czar Nicholas II of Russia, twenty-six leading powers
+conferred at The Hague, in order to discover means of limiting
+armaments and ensuring lasting peace. A second conference was held in
+1907 at the suggestion, in part, of President Roosevelt. At this
+gathering forty-four states were represented, including most of the
+Latin-American republics. During the two conferences many questions
+relating to international law were discussed, and the conclusions
+reached were expressed in the form of "Conventions," which the several
+powers signed. In the main these agreements related to the rights and
+duties of nations and individuals in time of war. Most important among
+the agreements was one for the pacific settlement of international
+disputes, according to which, in certain less important controversies,
+the states concerned would appoint a "commission of inquiry" which
+would study the case and give its opinion of the facts involved. It was
+also agreed to organize a Permanent Court of Arbitration to be
+available at all times for the peaceful settlement of differences.
+Strictly speaking this body was not a Court, but a list of judges to
+which each nation was to contribute four, and when any countries became
+involved in a controversy they could draw arbitrators from the list.
+Moreover the powers agreed "if a serious dispute threatens to break out
+between two or more of them, to remind these latter that the Permanent
+Court is open to them."
+
+The United States was a party to four of the fifteen cases presented to
+the Court between 1902 and 1913. The first controversy was between the
+United States and Mexico and involved "The Pious Fund," a large sum of
+money which was in dispute between Mexico and the Roman Catholic Church
+of California, and the second concerned claims of the United States,
+Mexico and eight European countries against Venezuela. As the Court was
+successfully appealed to in case after case, high hopes began to be
+entertained that the "Parliament of Man" had at last been established.
+Elihu Root, the Secretary of State, asserted in a communication to the
+Senate in 1907 that the Second Conference had presented the greatest
+advance ever made at a single time toward the reasonable and peaceful
+regulation of international conduct, unless the advance made at The
+Hague Conference of 1899 was excepted.
+
+In the meantime, in 1904, under President Roosevelt's leadership,
+treaties were arranged with France, Germany, Great Britain and other
+nations, under which the contracting parties agreed in advance to
+submit their disputes to The Hague Court, although excepting questions
+involving vital interests, independence or national honor. While the
+Senate was discussing the treaties, it fell into a dispute with the
+President in regard to its constitutional rights as part of the
+treaty-making power, and although there was general agreement on the
+value of the principle of arbitration, yet the Senate insisted upon
+amending the treaties, whereupon the President refused to refer them
+back to the other nations. Secretary Root revived the project, however,
+in 1908 and 1909 and secured amended treaties with a long list of
+nations, including Austria-Hungary, France and Great Britain. President
+Taft signed treaties with France and England in 1911 which expanded the
+earlier agreements so as to include "justiciable" controversies even if
+they involved questions of vital interest and honor, but again the
+Senate added such amendments that the project was abandoned. Bryan,
+Secretary of State from 1913 to 1915, undertook still further to expand
+the principles of arbitration, and during his term of office many
+treaties were submitted to the Senate, under which the United States
+and the other contracting parties agreed to postpone warfare arising
+from any cause, for a year, in order that the facts of the controversy
+might be looked into. Many of these treaties were ratified by the
+Senate.
+
+The attitude of the American people toward the pacific settlement of
+international disputes found expression in many ways in addition to the
+arrangement of treaties. At Lake Mohonk, yearly conferences were held
+at which leading citizens discussed phases of international peace.
+Andrew Carnegie and Edwin Ginn, the publisher, devoted large sums of
+money to countrywide education and propaganda on the subject. The
+leaders of the movement and the membership of the organizations
+included so many of the most prominent persons of their time--public
+officials, university presidents and men of influence as to prove that
+the traditional American reliance upon international arbitration was
+more firmly rooted in 1914 than ever before in our history.
+
+The attitude of the United States toward purely European controversies
+was illustrated in our action on the Moroccan question. In 1905-1906 a
+controversy broke out between Germany and France in relation to
+Morocco, and in January of the latter year a conference was held at
+Algeciras in southern Spain in which ten European nations and the
+United States took part. The result of the meeting was an "Act" which
+defined the policy of the signatory powers toward Morocco. The Senate,
+in ratifying the Act, asserted that its action was not to be considered
+a departure from our traditional policy of aloofness from European
+questions.
+
+[Illustration:
+Caribbean interests of the United States]
+
+The outstanding incident in our relations with that part of America
+south of the republic of Mexico was the controversy with Colombia over
+the Panama Canal strip. The project for a canal across the Isthmus of
+Panama was as old as colonization in America. For present purposes,
+however, it is not necessary to go farther into the past than the
+Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850, by the terms of which the United States
+and Great Britain agreed that neither would obtain any control over an
+isthmian canal without the other. As time went on, however, American
+sentiment in favor of a canal built, owned and operated by the United
+States alone grew so powerful that the Hay-Pauncefote treaty of 1901
+was arranged with Great Britain. This agreement permitted a canal
+constructed under the auspices of the United States. Sentiment in
+Congress was divided between a route through Nicaragua and one through
+that part of the Republic of Colombia known as Panama, but in 1902 an
+act was passed authorizing the President to acquire the rights of the
+New Panama Canal Company, of France, on the isthmus for not more than
+$40,000,000, and also to acquire a strip of land from Colombia not less
+than six miles wide.[2] In case the President was unable to obtain
+these rights "within a reasonable time and upon reasonable terms," he
+was to turn to the Nicaragua route. President Roosevelt was himself in
+favor of the Panama project.
+
+The Hay-Herran convention with Colombia was accordingly drawn up and
+signed in January, 1903, giving the United States the desired rights on
+the isthmus, but the Senate of Colombia rejected the treaty. Thereupon
+the New Panama Canal Company became alarmed because it would lose
+$40,000,000 in case the United States turned from Panama to Nicaragua,
+and its agents busied themselves on the isthmus in the attempt to
+foment a break between Colombia and its province of Panama; the people
+of Panama became aroused because their chief source of future profit
+lay in their strategic position between the two oceans; and the
+President was concerned because Congress would soon meet and might
+insist on the Nicaragua route or at least greatly delay progress. He
+hoped for a successful revolt in Panama which would enable him to treat
+with the province rather than with Colombia, and he even determined to
+advise Congress to take possession forcibly if the revolt did not take
+place.
+
+The administration meanwhile kept closely in touch with affairs in
+Panama, and having reason to suspect the possibility of a revolution
+sent war vessels to the isthmus on November 2, 1903, to prevent troops,
+either Colombian or revolutionary, from landing at any point within
+fifty miles of Panama. Since the only way by which revolution in Panama
+could be repressed was through the presence of Colombian troops, the
+action of the American government made success highly probable in case
+a revolt was attempted. On the next day the plans of the Canal Company
+agents or of some of the residents of Panama came to a head; early in
+the evening a small and bloodless uprising occurred; and while the
+United States kept both sides from disturbing the peace, the insurgents
+set up a government which was recognized within two days, and Philippe
+Bunau-Varilla, a former chief engineer of the Company, was accredited
+to the United States as minister. A treaty was immediately arranged by
+which the United States received the control of a zone ten miles wide
+for the construction of a canal, and in return was to pay $10,000,000
+and an annuity of $250,000 beginning nine years later, and to guarantee
+the independence of Panama. The Secretary of State, John Hay, described
+the process of drawing up the treaty in a private letter of November
+19, 1903:
+
+    Yesterday morning the negotiations with Panama were far from
+    complete. But by putting on all steam, getting Root and Knox and
+    Shaw together at lunch, I went over my project line by line, and
+    fought out every section of it; adopted a few good suggestions:
+    hurried back to the Department, set everybody at work drawing up
+    final drafts--sent for Varilla, went over the whole treaty with him,
+    explained all the changes, got his consent, and at seven o'clock
+    signed the momentous document.
+
+Although the Senate ratified the treaty, the action of the President
+was the cause of a storm both in that body and throughout the nation.
+In self-defence Roosevelt condemned Colombia's refusal to ratify the
+Hay-Herran treaty and asserted that no hope remained of getting a
+satisfactory agreement with that country; that a treaty of 1846 with
+Colombia justified his intervention; and that our national interests
+and the interests of the world at large demanded that Colombia no
+longer prevent the construction of a canal. On the other hand the
+President's critics called attention to the unusual haste that
+surrounded every step in the "seizure" of Panama; condemned the
+disposition of war vessels which prevented Colombia from even
+attempting to put down the uprising; and insinuated that the
+administration was in collusion with the insurgents. Roosevelt's
+successors in the presidency felt there was some degree of justice in
+the claim of Colombia that she had been unfairly treated by her big
+neighbor and several different attempts were made to negotiate treaties
+which would carry with them a money payment to Colombia. On July 29,
+1919, the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate unanimously
+reported to that body the favorable consideration of a treaty providing
+for a money payment of $25,000,000, but other matters intervened and no
+further progress resulted.[3]
+
+The work of constructing the waterway was delayed by changes of plan
+until 1906, when a lock canal was decided upon, and shortly afterward a
+start was made. So huge an undertaking--the isthmus is forty-nine miles
+wide at this point--was an engineering task of unprecedented size, and
+involved stamping out the yellow fever, obtaining a water supply,
+building hospitals and dwellings and finding a sufficient labor force,
+as well as the more difficult problems of excavating soil and building
+locks in regions where land-slides constantly threatened to destroy
+important parts of the work. At length, however, all obstacles were
+overcome and on August 15, 1914, the canal was opened to the passage of
+vessels.
+
+The final diplomatic question relating to the canal concerned the rates
+to be charged on traffic passing through. By the terms of the
+Hay-Pauncefote treaty with Great Britain, the United States agreed that
+the canal should be free and open to all nations "on terms of entire
+equality." In 1912 Congress enacted legislation exempting American
+coast-wise vessels from the payment of tolls, despite the protest of
+Great Britain. As President Wilson was of the opinion that our action
+had been contrary to our treaty agreement, he urged the repeal of the
+act upon his accession in 1913, and succeeded in accomplishing his
+purpose.
+
+The construction of the Canal under American auspices committed the
+United States to new responsibilities in the Caribbean. Her coaling
+station in Cuba, the possession of Porto Rico and the protection of the
+isthmus made it a matter of national safety to preserve stable
+governments in Central America and the West Indies. The infiltration of
+American capital into the region served to ally economic with political
+interest, for like European investors, our capitalists have taken a
+part in the exploitation of South American sugar, fruit, coffee, oil
+and asphalt. With the islands and shores of the Caribbean Sea alone,
+American trade doubled in the decade after 1903. Orderly government
+south of the United States became accordingly essential to the welfare
+of our outlying possessions, and to the commercial interests of a group
+of investors. The most important international questions that have
+arisen in Spanish America related to Venezuela in 1902 and Santo
+Domingo in 1905.
+
+Venezuela had long granted concessions to foreign investors--Germans,
+English, Italians and others--in order to develop her mines, timber and
+railroads, but unsettled conditions in the country frequently resulted
+in the non-fulfillment of the obligations which had been entered into.
+Germany, for example, claimed that the government of Venezuela had
+guaranteed dividends on the stock of a railroad built by German
+subjects and had failed to live up to the contract. Having in mind the
+possible use of force to compel Venezuela to carry out her alleged
+obligations, Germany consulted our state department to discover whether
+our adherence to the Monroe Doctrine would lead us to oppose the
+contemplated action. The attitude of President Roosevelt in 1901 was
+that there was no connection between the Monroe Doctrine and the
+commercial relations of the South American republics, except that
+punishment of those nations must not take the form of the acquisition
+of territory. In 1902 Germany, Great Britain and Italy proceeded to
+blockade some of the ports of Venezuela, and the latter thereupon
+agreed to submit her case to arbitration. Apparently, however, Germany
+was unwilling to relinquish the advantage which the blockade seemed to
+promise, and in the meantime Roosevelt became fearful that the result
+of the blockade might be the more or less permanent occupation of part
+of Venezuela. He therefore told the German ambassador that unless the
+Emperor agreed to arbitration within ten days, the United States would
+send a fleet to Venezuela and end the danger which Roosevelt feared.
+The pressure quickly produced the desired results, and during the
+summer of 1903 many of the claims were referred to commissions. The
+three blockading powers believed themselves entitled to preferential
+treatment in the settlement of their claims, over the non-blockading
+nations, while the latter held that all of Venezuela's creditors should
+be treated on an equality. This portion of the controversy was referred
+to the Hague tribunal, which subsequently decided in favor of the
+contention raised by Germany, Great Britain and Italy, and eventually
+all the claims were greatly scaled down and ordered paid.[4]
+
+The Venezuela case made evident the possibility that European creditors
+of backward South American nations might use their claims as a reason
+for getting temporary control over harbors or other parts of these
+countries. There was also ground for the fear that temporary control
+might become permanent possession. Hence in the Santo Domingo case, the
+United States adopted a new policy. The debts of Santo Domingo were far
+beyond its power to pay; its foreign creditors were insistent. An
+arrangement was accordingly made by which the United States took over
+the administration of the custom houses, turned over forty-five per
+cent. of the income to the Dominican government for current expenses,
+and used the remainder to pay foreign claims. The plan worked so well
+that its main features were continued and imitated in the protectorates
+over Haiti (1915) and Nicaragua (1916).
+
+The progress which has been made in composing the jarring relations
+among the American states is due in part to the Pan American Union and
+to the Pan American Conferences. The Union is an organization of
+twenty-one American republics which devotes itself to the improvement
+of the commercial and political relations of its member states. The
+first Pan American Conference, held at Washington in 1889, has already
+been mentioned.[5] At the second, at Mexico City in 1901, the American
+republics which had not already done so agreed to the conventions
+signed at The Hague in 1899. At the third conference at Rio de Janeiro
+in 1906 and the fourth in Buenos Aires in 1910, its field of effort was
+further broadened, and in the latter year a recommendation was passed
+that the Pan American states bind themselves to submit to arbitration
+all claims for pecuniary damages.
+
+President Wilson continued unbroken the policy of protectorates which
+President Roosevelt had initiated in the case of San Domingo. His
+statements of general policy were conciliatory and evidently designed
+to allay suspicion, and he constantly expressed the view that the
+American states were cooperating equals. And having asserted that the
+United States had no designs upon territory, and nothing to seek except
+the lasting interests of the peoples of the two continents, he gave
+practical evidence of his purposes by urging that all unite to
+guarantee one another their independence and territorial integrity,
+that disputes be settled by investigation and arbitration, and that no
+state allow revolutionary expeditions against its neighbors to be
+fitted out on its territory.[6]
+
+American relations with Great Britain between 1896 and 1914 were such
+as to lend themselves to amicable settlement. The question of the
+boundary between Alaska and Canada, to be sure, contained some of the
+elements of trouble. The treaty of 1825, between Russia and Great
+Britain, had established the boundary between Alaska and Canada in
+terms that were somewhat ambiguous, the most important provision being
+that the line from the 56th degree of north latitude to the 141st
+degree of west longitude should follow the windings of the coast, but
+should be drawn not more than ten marine leagues inland. The coast at
+this point is extremely irregular, and the few important towns of the
+region are at the heads of the bays. With the discovery of gold in the
+Klondike region in 1897 and the consequent rush of population to the
+coast settlements, the question of jurisdiction became important.
+
+The claim of Great Britain was that the word "coast" should be
+interpreted to include adjacent islands. Hence the ten league line
+would follow the general direction of the shore but would cut across
+the inlets and headlands and thus leave the towns in the possession of
+Canada. The American contention was that the line should follow closely
+the windings of the shore of the mainland, thus giving the United
+States a continuous strip of coast. The controversy was referred in
+1903 to a board composed of three Americans, two Canadians and the Lord
+Chief Justice of England. On all the important points the English
+representative concurred with the Americans and a line was subsequently
+drawn in general conformity with our contention.[7]
+
+The most complicated negotiation of the period, as well as one of the
+most complicated in our history, concerned the North Atlantic Coast
+fisheries. Under the treaty of 1818 relating to matters remaining over
+from the War of 1812, the United States possessed certain rights on the
+fishing grounds off Newfoundland and Labrador. From then on there was
+intermittent negotiation concerning the meaning of the terms of the
+treaty and the justice of fishing regulations made by Canada. In 1908
+the United States and Great Britain made a general arbitration treaty,
+under the terms of which the fisheries question was referred to members
+of the Court of Arbitration at The Hague.[8] The award, made in 1910,
+upheld the rights of American fishermen on the coasts of Newfoundland,
+and recommended the establishment of a permanent fishery commission to
+settle all future controversies. This was accomplished in 1912 and an
+irritating and long-standing dispute was put to rest.
+
+"Dollar diplomacy" was the chief novelty in our relations with China.
+The expression was used in President Taft's administration, when his
+Secretary of State, P.C. Knox, devoted much attention to promoting
+loans, contracts and concessions in Central and South America, and more
+particularly in China. The argument for dollar diplomacy was that it
+opened new fields for the use of American capital, and thus indirectly
+benefited the whole people. The President also believed that
+investments in China would further American influence there and react
+favorably in continuing the open-door policy which had been initiated
+by Secretary Hay. The objection most commonly made was that the
+government became bound up in the interests of investors and might be
+compelled to interpose with armed force when difficulties arose between
+the investor and the state where the investment was made.
+
+An opportunity for large investments in China was presented during
+1912-1913. In the former year a revolution in that distracted country
+had come to an end and a republic had been set up with Yuan Shih-kai as
+President. Since the new government was in need of funds, it undertook
+to borrow through an associated group of bankers from six foreign
+nations, the United States among them. The financial interests agreed
+to the loan, but insisted on having a hand in the administration of
+Chinese finance, so as to ensure repayment. At this point President
+Wilson's administration began. The bankers at once asked him whether he
+would request them to participate in the "six-power" loan, as President
+Taft had done. Wilson declined to make the request, fearing that at
+some future time the United States might be compelled to interfere in
+Chinese financial and political affairs, whereupon the American bankers
+withdrew and the six-power group subsequently disintegrated.
+
+Relations with Japan have been a cause for negotiation on several
+occasions. During the Russo-Japanese War, which came to a close in
+1905, American sympathies were mainly with the Japanese. The
+correspondence which brought about a cessation of hostilities was
+initiated by President Roosevelt, and the peace conference was held in
+Portsmouth, New Hampshire. During the course of the sessions American
+sympathies shifted somewhat to the Russian side, and when the Japanese
+did not receive all that they demanded of Russia they felt somewhat
+dissatisfied.
+
+A subject which seemed at times to contain unpleasant possibilities was
+the restriction of Japanese immigration into the United States. The
+western part of the country, especially California, has objected
+vigorously to the presence of the Japanese on the coast, and as Japan
+refused to agree to such a treaty as that which restricts Chinese
+immigration, recourse was had to the Root-Takahira agreement of 1908,
+by which the Japanese government itself undertook to prevent the
+emigration of laborers to the United States. It was more difficult to
+reach an agreement concerning Japanese who were already living in the
+United States. In 1913 the legislature of California had before it a
+law forbidding certain aliens from holding land in the state. As the
+act would apply almost solely to the Japanese, the federal government
+was placed in an embarrassing position. Under existing treaties the
+Japanese were granted equal rights with other aliens, but the states
+were able to modify the practical operation of treaty provisions, as
+California planned to do, by declaring certain aliens ineligible to
+citizenship and then placing particular restrictions upon them. The
+Secretary of State, William J. Bryan, went to California and attempted
+to persuade the state authorities to alter their land laws. Although
+the law was eventually passed, it was modified to the extent of
+allowing Japanese to lease agricultural lands for terms not greater
+than three years.
+
+In 1917, Robert Lansing, the American Secretary of State, and Viscount
+Ishii, special ambassador of Japan, reached an important agreement
+concerning American relations in the Orient. By it the United States
+admitted the interest of Japan in China, but the two placed themselves
+on record as mutually opposed to the acquisition by any government of
+special rights in China that would affect the independence or the
+territorial integrity of that country. Nevertheless Japan had already
+forced China in 1915 to grant her territorial and economic concessions
+that constituted a grave menace to Chinese independence, and final
+settlement between the two awaited later events.
+
+It is impossible at the present time to give an accurate account of
+American relations with Mexico during the decade preceding 1920. Mexico
+and Mexican affairs are but ill understood in the United States; and
+the purposes and acts of the chief figure in the most important events,
+President Wilson, will not be fully known until papers are made public
+and explanations presented that only he can give. His conduct of
+Mexican affairs, moreover, had to face constant change on account of
+the outbreak and progress of a European war in 1914, and many critical
+decisions had to be arrived at during 1915-1916 when political
+partisanship in the United States was at fever heat and when the most
+bitter opponents of the administration were ready to pounce upon every
+act and hold it up to public scorn. Nor is the exact character of some
+of the pressure brought to bear upon the President fully known.
+American capital in vast amounts had gone into Mexico as into other
+parts of Latin America. Mining companies, railroad, ranching and
+plantation companies, and private individuals had invested in a land
+that has been called "the storehouse of the world," because of its
+fabulous resources in mineral wealth and fertile soil. In 1912
+President Taft said that American investments had been estimated at one
+billion dollars. President Wilson in 1916 warned the public that agents
+of American property owners in Mexico were scattered along the border
+originating rumors which were unjustified by facts, in order to bring
+about intervention for the benefit of investors. For these reasons most
+accounts of Mexican relations, whether they uphold or condemn the steps
+taken by the administration, are rendered defective by prejudice or
+lack of information. It is possible, therefore, to give only a bare
+narrative of a few of the most important events following 1910.
+
+The strong hand of Porfirio Diaz ruled Mexico from 1877 to 1880 and
+from 1884 to 1911. The government was autocratic; the resources of the
+country were in the hands of foreigners; and while a few magnates were
+wealthy, the mass of the people were poor and ignorant. The country was
+infested with bands of robbers, but Diaz managed to control them and
+even made some of the leaders governors of states. Such was the country
+that is separated from Arizona and New Mexico by an imaginary line and
+from Texas by a narrow river that shrinks in summer almost to a bed of
+sand.
+
+In 1910 Francisco Madero organized a revolt, compelled Diaz to flee to
+Europe in 1911, and was himself chosen President. Taft meanwhile had
+sent troops to the border, stray bullets from across the line killed a
+few American citizens and the demand for intervention began. Madero was
+soon overthrown by General Victoriano Huerta, who became provisional
+president. Shortly afterward Madero was shot under circumstances that
+pointed to Huerta as the instigator of the assassination, but his
+friends kept the fires of revolt alive, and Governor Carranza of
+Coahuila, the state across the border from northwest Texas, refused to
+recognize the new ruler. It was at this juncture that Wilson succeeded
+Taft. General Huerta was promptly recognized by the leading European
+nations but President Wilson refused to do so, on the ground that the
+new government was founded on violence, in defiance of the constitution
+of Mexico and contrary to the dictates of morality. He then sent John
+Lind to Mexico to convey terms to Huerta--peace, amnesty and a free
+election at which Huerta himself would not be a candidate. When the
+latter refused the proposal, President Wilson warned Americans to leave
+Mexico and adopted the policy of "watchful waiting," hoping that Huerta
+would be eliminated through inability to get funds to administer his
+government. In the meanwhile the destruction of lives and property
+continued.
+
+War was barely avoided in the spring of 1914 when a boat's crew of
+American marines was imprisoned in Tampico. An apology was made, but
+General Huerta refused to order a salute to the United States flag, and
+troops were accordingly landed at Vera Cruz, where slight encounters
+ensued. At this juncture Argentina, Brazil and Chile, "the ABC powers"
+made a proposal of mediation which was accepted. The conference averted
+war between the United States and Mexico, although failing to solve the
+questions at issue. Shortly afterward, however, Huerta retired from the
+field unable to continue his dictatorship, and the American troops were
+withdrawn.
+
+The end was not yet however. Carranza and his associate, Villa, fell to
+quarreling. Bands of ruffians made raids across the border, and Mexico
+became more than before a desolate waste peopled with fighting
+factions. At President Wilson's suggestion six Latin-American powers
+met in Washington in 1915 for conference, and decided to recognize
+Carranza as the head of a _de facto_ government. Diplomatic relations
+were then renewed after a lapse of two and a half years. In a message
+to Congress the President reviewed the imbroglio, but expressed doubts
+whether Mexico had been benefited.
+
+His fears soon proved to be well founded. In 1916 Villa crossed into
+New Mexico and raided the town of Columbus. With the consent of
+Carranza the United States sent troops under General Pershing across
+the line to run down the bandits, but the only result was to drive the
+Villistas from the region near the border. Renewed raids, this time
+into Texas, indicated the need of larger forces and the state militia
+were called upon, but after nearly a year of service they were
+withdrawn early in 1917. Not long afterward Carranza was elected
+president for a term of four years, but in 1920 another revolt ended in
+his assassination. The country is in a condition of wretchedness, and
+neither life nor property is safe from bands of marauders, President
+Wilson has patiently attempted to give Mexico a chance to work out her
+own salvation without hindrance from other countries and without
+exploitation by investors,--but the problem remains unsettled.[9]
+
+In view of some aspects of the foreign relations of the United States
+since 1914, it is apparent that such diplomatic incidents as those
+concerned with boundaries, fisheries and Latin-American protectorates
+were not the most important forces in determining the outlook of
+America upon Europe. In spite of the huge immigration of Europeans into
+America since the Civil War, the United States has seldom drawn upon
+European experience and has never sought to model itself on European
+lines. American legislators have not commonly studied either English or
+continental practices; our institutions and our constitutional
+limitations have been so peculiarly our own that slight attention has
+been paid to the outside world. Even the ancient resentment against
+England had dwindled by 1914, leaving the United States without any
+traditional "enemy." Tradition, as well as geographical isolation,
+tended to keep us apart from the currents of European action.
+
+Nevertheless America was being inter-related with the rest of the world
+through means with which the diplomats had little to do. In 1867 the
+Atlantic cable had finally been placed in successful operation, and
+forty years afterward the globe was enmeshed in 270,000 miles of
+submarine telegraph wires. In 1901 wireless telegraphic messages were
+sent across the ocean, and within a few years private and press notices
+were being sent across the Atlantic, vessels were commonly equipped
+with instruments, and international regulations concerning
+radio-telegraphy were adopted by the chief powers of the world. Most
+important of all was the constant passage of merchant vessels shuttling
+back and forth between America and Europe, and weaving the two into one
+commercial fabric. With Great Britain, with Germany, with France, Italy
+and the Netherlands, during 1913, the United States exchanged products
+valued at nearly two and a half billion dollars. This was an amount
+more than twice as great as the entire trade with Europe twenty years
+before. Over half a billion dollars' worth was with Germany, to which
+country we sent cotton, copper, food-stuffs, lard and furs in return
+for fertilizers, drugs, dyes, cotton manufactures and toys. American
+corporations had branches in Germany, while German manufacturers
+invested hundreds of millions of dollars in factories here. So huge a
+volume of commerce concerned the welfare not only of the ordinary
+commercial classes--ship owners, exporters and investors--but the much
+larger number of producers, manufacturers, miners, meat-packers, and
+farmers who directly and indirectly supplied the materials for export.
+
+In the meantime a change was taking place in the attitude of America
+toward world affairs. Inaccurate as it was to describe the United
+States as a world power at the time of the Spanish War, nevertheless
+the war itself and the colonial responsibilities which it entailed
+helped to a small degree to break down the isolation of America;
+frequent communication with Europe, and the expansion of American
+commerce tended in the same direction.
+
+The international relations of the United States for the twenty years
+immediately preceding 1914 may then be briefly summarized. The one
+international problem which interested the greatest numbers of people
+was the best method of arriving at international peace. Other problems,
+except the Mexican question, were simple and inconspicuous, and the
+majority of Americans knew little of European politics or international
+relations. Only in the fields of communication and commerce was the
+United States becoming increasingly and intimately related to the
+remainder of the world, and the extent to which this change
+supplemented the effect of the war with Spain in broadening the
+American international outlook was a matter of conjecture.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The general texts mentioned at the close of Chapter XIII continue to be
+useful.
+
+On the Hague Conferences reliance should be placed upon G.F.W. Holls,
+_The Peace Conference at the Hague_ (1900), by the secretary of the
+American delegation; A.D. White, _Autobiography of Andrew D. White_ (2
+vols., 1905), by a member of the delegation; J.W. Foster, _Arbitration
+and the Hague Court_ (1904); P.S. Beinsch, in _American Political
+Science Review_, II, 204 (Second Conference).
+
+The best brief account of the acquisition of the canal strip is in
+Latane; Theodore Roosevelt's story is in his _Autobiography_ and his
+_Addresses and Presidential Messages_. On the Caribbean, C.L. Jones,
+_Caribbean Interests of the United States_ (1916). The Venezuela
+arbitrations are in _Senate Documents_, 58th Congress, 3rd session, No.
+119 (Serial Number 4769). The Alaskan boundary question is clearly
+discussed in Latane, with a good map, and J.W. Foster, _Diplomatic
+Memoirs_ (2 vols., 1909). _The Proceedings in the North Atlantic Coast
+Fisheries Arbitration_ are in _Senate Document_ No. 870, 61st Congress,
+3rd session (12 vols, 1912-1913): more briefly in G.G. Wilson, _Hague
+Arbitration Cases_ (1915). S.K. Hornbeck, _Contemporary Politics in the
+Far East_ (1916), is useful for Asiatic relations. Ogg, Fish, and the
+_American Year Book_ provide material on Mexican affairs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The Presidents and Secretaries of State during this period were as
+follows:
+
+    McKinley, 1897-1901; John Sherman, William R. Day, John Hay.
+    Roosevelt, 1901-1909; John Hay, Elihu Root, Robert Bacon.
+    Taft, 1909-1913; P.C. Knox.
+    Wilson, 1913-1921; W.J. Bryan, Robert Lansing, B. Colby.
+
+[2] The French company had a concession on the isthmus and had already
+done considerable work.
+
+[3] Roosevelt, after his retirement from office was widely reported as
+having said in an address at the University of California: "If I had
+followed traditional, conservative methods, I would have submitted a
+dignified state paper of probably two hundred pages to Congress, and
+the debate on it would have been going on yet; but I took the Canal
+Zone and let Congress debate." Cf. Jones, _Caribbean Interests_,
+238-239.
+
+[4] For the Roosevelt "threat," together with another version of the
+story, cf. Thayer, _Hay_, II, 284-289 and _North American Review_,
+Sept., 1919, 414-417, 418-420.
+
+[5] Above, p. 289.
+
+[6] The latest acquisition of the U.S. in the Caribbean Sea was the
+Virgin Islands which were purchased from Denmark in 1916.
+
+[7] The American members of the Commission were Elihu Root, who was
+then Secretary of War, Senator H.C. Lodge, and ex-Senator George
+Turner. The English member was the Lord Chief Justice, Baron
+Alverstone; the Canadians were Sir Louis Amable Jette, Lieutenant
+Governor of Quebec, and Allen B. Aylesworth of Toronto.
+
+[8] The American member of the tribunal was Judge George Gray. The
+closing argument for the United States was made by Elihu Root. Robert
+Lansing was one of the associate counsel.
+
+[9] The number of Americans killed in Mexico as given by the ambassador
+in 1919 was as follows: 1911, 10; 1912, 6; 1913, 24; 1914, 30; 1915,
+26; 1916, 46; 1917, 39; 1918, 31. N.Y. _Times_, July 20, 1919. For the
+revolution of 1920 consult N.Y. _Times_, May 16 ff.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+WOODROW WILSON
+
+A definite account of the eventful years following 1913 can be written
+only after time has allayed partisanship; after long study of the
+social, economic and political history has separated the essential
+from the trivial; after papers that are now locked in private files
+have been opened to students; and after the passage of years has given
+that perspective which alone can measure the wisdom or the folly of a
+policy. It will be little less difficult to make a just appraisal of
+the chief American participants in those years, and particularly of
+President Woodrow Wilson. At present it is possible only to avoid
+partisanship so far as it can be done, read with open mind whatever
+documents are available, and refrain from either praise or condemnation.
+On all sides it is agreed that during his administration Wilson
+became one of the three or four world-figures, and for that reason
+his characteristics, as well as the events of his presidency demand
+unusual attention.
+
+Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia, in 1856. His ancestors
+were Scotch-Irish and his father an educator and Presbyterian
+clergyman. After graduating from Princeton College he practiced law,
+studied history and politics, and taught these subjects at several
+different institutions. Subsequently he became a professor at
+Princeton and later its President. He was a prolific and successful
+writer. His book on _Congressional Government_, for example, went
+through twenty-four impressions before he became President of the
+United States. _The State_, an account of the mechanism of government
+in ancient and modern times, and some of his portrayals of American
+history were hardly less in demand. His election as Governor of New
+Jersey in 1910 and his election to the presidency two years later have
+already been mentioned.
+
+The outstanding characteristic of Wilson is a finely-organized,
+penetrating intelligence. Somewhat like a silent chess-player he
+thinks many moves in advance, a fact which makes it difficult to judge
+a single act of his without a knowledge of the whole plan. Before
+coming to the presidency he had long pondered on the proper and
+possible function of that office, and had drawn in imagination the
+outlines and many of the details of the role which he was to play.
+Years of careful study had drilled him in the accumulation of facts.
+As a specialist in polities and history he was accustomed to make up
+his mind on the basis of his own researches, and to change his
+judgments without embarrassment when new facts presented themselves.
+His literary style is characterized by precision, a close texture and
+frequently by suppressed emotion. He thinks on an international scale
+and with a profundity that often dwarfs associates who are by no means
+pygmies themselves. An unbending will, an alert conscience, stubborn
+courage, restrained patience, political sagacity, a thoroughgoing
+belief in democracy and above all an instinctive understanding of the
+spiritual aspirations of the common people made him the most powerful
+political figure in America within a brief time after his accession to
+the presidency. On the other hand, his aloofness from counsel during
+the later part of his presidency exceeded that of Cleveland, and his
+abnormal self-reliance was greater than that of Roosevelt.
+
+In reviewing the history of the years following 1913, it is necessary
+to have a sense of the immensity of the problems involved, as well
+as a restrained judgment and some knowledge of the chief actors.
+Beginning in 1914, the great nations of Europe were constantly menaced
+by appalling dangers; their leaders were daily confronted with
+decisions of the utmost importance. Because of the close commercial,
+industrial and financial bonds between the two continents, America
+could not fail to be affected. She too was compelled to take her part
+in a drama which was far greater than any in which she had before
+engaged. Both the President and Congress were confronted with problems
+the solution of which would vitally affect not only the people of
+America, but the people of the world; never before had their decisions
+been so subject to the possibilities of mistakes which would certainly
+be momentous and might be tragic.
+
+When Wilson and his party came into power in 1913, as the result of
+the schism among the Republicans, their position was by no means
+secure. The President had been elected by a distinct minority in the
+popular vote and his practical political experience had been less than
+that of any chief executive since Grant. His party had been in power
+so little since the Civil War that it had no body of experienced
+administrators from which to pick cabinet officers, and no corps of
+parliamentary leaders practiced in the task of framing and passing a
+constructive program. The party as a whole was lacking in cohesion
+and had perforce played the role of destructive critic most of the
+time for more than half a century; its principles were untested in
+actual experience, and although its majority in the House was large,
+in the Senate its margin of control was so narrow as to suggest the
+near possibility of the failure of a party program. Wilson was under
+no illusions as to the circumstances of his election and he realized
+that both he and his party were on probation.
+
+The appointment of the cabinet occasioned unusual interest. Bryan, the
+one Democrat who had a large and devoted personal following, became
+Secretary of State. His influence in nominating Wilson had been very
+great and the adherence of his admirers was necessary if the party was
+to be welded into an effective organization. Several of the other
+members of the cabinet proved themselves to be men of unusual
+capacity, and their ability to cooperate with one another provided
+the "teamwork" which the President was anxious to obtain.[1]
+
+His conception of the part which the chief executive ought to play
+was a definite one. He looked upon the President as peculiarly the
+representative of the whole people in the federal government, as the
+leader of the party in power and as commissioned by the voting
+population to carry out the platform of principles upon which the
+party and its leader were elected. He believed that the unofficial
+leaders who are better known as "bosses" existed partly because of the
+absence of official leaders. As Governor of New Jersey he had acted on
+the principles that he had outlined for the chief executive of the
+nation, and upon his accession to the presidency he began at once to
+put into effect a similar program.
+
+Congress was called for a special session on April 7, 1913, in order
+to revise the tariff. It was a dangerous task--one which had
+discredited the Democrats in 1894 and divided the Republicans in
+1909--but plans had been laid with care in order to avoid previous
+mistakes. The Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means in the
+House, Oscar W. Underwood, had begun the preparation of a bill during
+the session before and had discussed it with Democratic members of the
+Senate Committee on Finance, and with the President.
+
+At the opening of the session Wilson broke the precedent established
+by Jefferson in 1801, and read his message personally to Congress,
+instead of sending it in written form to be read by a clerk. In
+substance the message expressed the President's conviction that the
+appearance of the chief executive in Congress would assist in
+developing the spirit of cooperation, and outlined the tariff problem
+which they were together called upon to settle. He declared that the
+country wished the tariff changed, that the task ought to be completed
+as quickly as possible and that no special privileges ought to be
+granted to anybody. He advocated a tariff on articles which we did not
+produce and upon luxuries, but he urged that otherwise the schedules
+be reduced vigorously but without undue haste. Other considerations
+were more important, however, than the substance of the message.
+Previous documents of this kind had been long and filled with a wide
+variety of recommendations concerning both international and domestic
+relations; Wilson's speech occupied but a few moments, it focused the
+attention of Congress upon one subject, and fixed the eyes of the
+country upon the problem. The nation knew that one task was in hand,
+and knew where to lay the blame if delay should ensue. It was a great
+responsibility that the President had assumed, but he assumed it
+without hesitation.
+
+Underwood presented his bill at once and it passed the House without
+difficulty, but in the Senate the Democratic majority of six was too
+small to guarantee success in the face of the objections of Louisiana
+senators to the proposal for free sugar, and the usual bargaining for
+the protection of special interests. When the lobby appeared--the
+group that had so mangled the Wilson-Gorman bill and discredited the
+Payne-Aldrich Act--the President issued a public statement warning the
+country of the "extraordinary exertions" of a body of paid agents
+whose object was private profit and not the good of the public. So
+vigorous an action resulted in hostility to Wilson, but Congress found
+itself unusually free from objectionable pressure. Hence while experts
+differed in regard to the wisdom of one part or another of the bill,
+it was not charged that its schedules bore the imprint of favoritism
+for any particular private interests. Discussion in the Senate was so
+extended that the Underwood act did not finally pass and receive the
+President's signature until October 3.
+
+The general character of the measure is indicated by the number of
+changes made in the tariffs as they existed at the time of the passage
+of the act. On 958 articles the duties were reduced; on 307 they were
+left unchanged; and on eighty-six (mainly in the chemical schedule),
+they were increased. Despite the numerous reductions, the Underwood
+law retained much of the protective purpose of preceding enactments.
+Attempts were made to decrease the cost of living by considerable
+reductions on certain agricultural products and by placing others on
+the free list; wool was to be free after December 1, 1913, and the
+duty on sugar was to be reduced gradually and taken off completely on
+May 1, 1916; duties on cotton goods and on woolens ("Schedule K") were
+heavily reduced. Underwood represented an iron manufacturing section
+of Alabama, but he showed an uncommon attention to the general
+interest by favoring large reductions on pig-iron and placing iron ore
+and steel rails on the free list. An important part of the law was a
+provision for an income tax, which had been made possible by the
+Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution proclaimed on February 25,
+1913. Incomes over $3,000 ($4,000 in the case of married persons),
+were to be taxed one per cent., with an additional one per cent. on
+incomes of $20,000 to $50,000, and similar graded "surtaxes" on higher
+incomes, reaching six per cent. on those above $500,000. The board
+which the Republicans had established for the scientific study of the
+tariff had been allowed to lapse by the Democrats, but was revived in
+1916 through the appointment of a bi-partisan Commission of six
+members with twelve-year terms.
+
+On June 23, 1913, after the tariff bill had been piloted around the
+chief difficulties in its way, the President again addressed
+Congress-this time on currency legislation. Again he laid down certain
+principles-a more elastic currency, some means of mobilizing bank
+reserves, and public control of the banking system. Before mentioning
+the further history of this recommendation, however, it is necessary
+to have in mind the main facts in the development of the monetary
+issue since 1900. Complaint had been common since that year. One
+difficulty lay in the fact that the volume of the currency could not
+quickly increase and decrease as busy times demanded more or quiet
+times required less of the circulating medium. At those parts of the
+year, for example, when the crops were being moved there was a greater
+demand for currency than the banks could conveniently meet. They
+could, to be sure, buy United States bonds and issue national bank
+notes upon them as security, but this was a slow and costly process.
+The dangers of the existing inelastic arrangement were illustrated in
+the panic of 1907.
+
+In that year occurred a financial crisis which resulted in business
+failures, unemployment and the indictment of prominent figures in the
+commercial world; it was precipitated by a gamble in copper stocks. An
+unsuccessful attempt to corner the stock of a copper company led to
+the examination of the Mercantile National Bank of New York, with
+which the speculators had intimate connections. Meanwhile the
+president of the bank and all the directors were forced to resign. One
+of the associates of a director in the Mercantile was the president of
+the Knickerbocker Trust Company, and depositors in the latter bank
+thereupon became frightened, and $8,000,000 were withdrawn in three
+hours. The alarm then spread to the depositors of the Trust Company of
+America--the president of the Knickerbocker was one of its
+directors--and $34,000,000 were withdrawn by the now thoroughly
+anxious depositors, who stood in line at night in order to be ready
+for the next day. The panic spread to other parts of the nation;
+country banks withdrew funds from the city banks, and they from New
+York; and at length the government came to the aid of the distressed
+institutions and deposited $36,000,000 between October 19 and 31.
+Nevertheless, at the time when depositors were trying to get their
+money there was sufficient currency in existence to satisfy all needs.
+The defect lay in the lack of machinery for pooling resources in such
+a way as to relieve any institution that was in temporary straits. The
+experts pointed also to the unscrupulous manipulation of the supplies
+of currency by New York financiers. There was widespread comment on
+the fact that if the magnates did not actually constitute a "money
+trust" they were nevertheless able to expand and contract the
+available supply to such an extent as to serve their own ends and
+embarrass the public.
+
+In the meanwhile many experts, among them Senator Nelson W. Aldrich,
+had been studying the entire banking system. The result of this work
+was the Aldrich-Vreeland Act of 1908 providing a temporary method for
+making the supply of currency more flexible and also arranging for a
+National Monetary Commission to investigate the currency and banking
+systems in this and other countries. The Commission published
+thirty-eight volumes of information and recommendations, which were a
+storehouse of facts concerning the problem, although no legislation
+resulted. All that Taft did was to pass the task along to Wilson.
+
+As has been seen, President Wilson seized the opportunity at once.
+Senator Owen and Carter Glass, Chairmen of the Senate and House
+Committees on Banking and 'Currency, together with William G. McAdoo,
+the Secretary of the Treasury, and the President himself drafted the
+Federal Reserve bill. This measure received careful attention, being
+the cause of extended hearings and debate in Congress and of
+discussion in banking circles. The special session wore on and came to
+an end, but the regular session began at once (December 1), and
+consideration of the measure continued without interruption. At length
+on December 22 the House acted favorably, thirty-four Republicans,
+eleven Progressives, and one Independent assisting the Democrats in
+passing the bill; on the following day the Senate passed it, one
+Progressive and three Republicans voting with the majority. In many
+details the act as passed differed from the original plan, but in its
+essential points it was not amended. Although its precise form was the
+work of a few men, the project in general, of course, represented the
+labors of many persons extending over many years, and for that reason
+embodied the best that American experts could give.
+
+The Act provided for the establishment of Federal Reserve Banks, to be
+placed in districts--the number being eventually fixed at twelve. The
+capital for each Reserve Bank was to be supplied by the banks in its
+district which became member banks. In other words the Reserve Banks
+were to act as banks for their members, but not for private
+individuals. In control of the twelve was a Federal Reserve Board,
+composed of the Secretary of the Treasury, the Comptroller of the
+Currency and five persons appointed by the president for terms of ten
+years. It was at this point that the chief controversies raged between
+the bankers and the proponents of the administration measure. The
+bankers desired one central bank, which the administration opposed
+because it feared centralized control over the currency supply; and
+the bankers disliked the proposal for a Reserve Board appointed by the
+president, because they apprehended the entrance of politics into the
+appointments. The President and his supporters were determined,
+however, not to allow the bankers to appoint the Board or any portion
+of it, because they wished the system to be operated solely in the
+public interest.
+
+Greater elasticity was given to the currency supply through the
+issuance of federal reserve notes, at the discretion of the Federal
+Reserve Board, to the several regional Federal Reserve Banks. These
+notes were to be obligations of the government and were expected to
+replace the former national bank notes. When a local bank requires
+more currency it may deposit with the Federal Reserve Bank such
+valuable commercial paper as may be acceptable--for example,
+promissory notes of reliable business firms--and receive at once a
+supply of federal reserve notes. When business is brisk and large
+supplies of currency are demanded, the local banks will deposit
+whatever paper may be necessary to meet their needs; when the
+emergency has passed they will withdraw notes from circulation, return
+them to the reserve bank and receive their paper again.[2] The second
+great purpose of the new system was to supply central reservoirs for
+the storage of the reserves of the member banks. Each local bank is
+required to keep certain prescribed balances in the reserve bank of
+its district, and the federal government may also deposit funds in it.
+In conformity with strict regulations the reserves thus accumulated in
+a Federal Reserve Bank may be directed here and there in the district
+as needed, and even from district to district, under the control of
+the Federal Reserve Board. Moreover they are not available for those
+speculative ventures which have caused so much trouble in the past.[3]
+The operation of the law has apparently more than met the expectation
+of its friends. It had hardly been established when a war broke out in
+Europe, but the unusual financial situation which resulted in America
+was cared for without great strain.
+
+The third major plank in the Democratic platform of 1912 called for
+legislation concerning trusts, and the President accordingly turned
+his attention to that topic in his address to Congress on January 20,
+1914. He declared that there was no intent to hamper business as
+conducted by enlightened men, but that, on the contrary, the
+antagonism between business and government had passed. He recommended
+the prohibition of interlocking directorates by which railroads, banks
+and industrial corporations became allied in one monopolistic group,
+and he suggested that the processes and methods of harmful restraint
+of trade be forbidden item by item in order that business men might
+know where they stood in relation to the law. Finally, he believed
+that the country demanded a commission which should act as a clearing
+house for facts relating to industry and which should do justice to
+business where the processes of the courts were inadequate. The
+results of this undertaking were the Federal Trade Commission act of
+September 26, 1914, and the Clayton Anti-trust act of October 15.
+
+The former of these laws created a Commission of five persons to
+administer the anti-trust laws and to prevent the use of unfair
+methods by any persons or corporations which were subject to the
+anti-trust laws. Whenever it had reason to believe that such
+expedients were being used, the Commission was to issue an order
+requiring the cessation of the practice. If the order was not obeyed,
+the Commission was to apply for assistance to the circuit court of
+appeals in the district where the offense was alleged to have been
+committed. The purpose of the provision was evidently to prevent
+unfair practices rather than to punish them. Another section of the
+law empowered the Commission to gather information concerning the
+practices of industrial organizations, to require them to file reports
+in regard to their affairs, and to investigate the manner in which
+decrees of the Courts against them were carried out. Under direction
+of the president or Congress, the Commission could investigate alleged
+violations of the law, and on its own initiative it might report
+recommendations to Congress for additional legislation.[4]
+
+The Clayton act specifically prohibited many of the practices common
+to industrial enterprises. Sellers of commodities were forbidden to
+discriminate in price between different purchasers--after making due
+allowance for differences in transportation costs; corporations were
+forbidden to acquire any of the stock of other similar industries,
+where the effect would be substantially to lessen competition; and
+directors of banks and corporations were prohibited, with stated
+exceptions, from serving in two or more competing organizations. The
+Clayton act also settled, at least for the time, several of the
+complaints raised by the labor interests, especially at the time of
+the Pullman strike. Labor and agricultural organizations were
+specifically declared not to be conspiracies in restraint of trade;
+injunctions were not to be granted in labor disputes unless necessary
+to prevent irreparable injury; and trials for contempt of court were
+to be by jury, except when the offense was committed in the presence
+of the court. The law also prohibited the railroads from dealing with
+concerns in which their directors were interested, except under
+specified conditions.
+
+The success of the President in pushing his party program made his
+prestige the outstanding fact in politics. His leadership was
+indisputable and it was evident that he regarded a party platform as a
+serious program, to the fulfilment of which the party was committed by
+its election. While the trust legislation was under discussion,
+however, he asked for an act which required all the strength that he
+could muster.
+
+It will be remembered that the Panama Canal act of 1912 had exempted
+American coast-wise traffic through the canal from the payment of
+tolls. The law had been passed under a Republican, President Taft, and
+both the Progressive and Democratic platforms of 1912 had favored
+exemption. On March 5, 1914, Wilson appeared before Congress and urged
+the repeal of the act on the ground that it was a violation of that
+part of the treaty with Great Britain in which this country agreed
+that the canal should be open to all nations upon an equality, and
+that it was based on a mistaken economic policy. He was opposed by
+Underwood and Champ Clark, two of the most powerful Democratic
+leaders, but he had the aid of Senator Root, a distinguished
+Republican who had been Secretary of State under President Roosevelt,
+and in the end he was victorious. The division in the party was
+quickly healed and forgotten.
+
+The Congressional elections of 1914 greatly reduced the Democratic
+majority in the House, although leaving control with that party, but
+they slightly increased its margin in the Senate. European affairs and
+the election of 1916 occupied political attention during the second
+half of the administration, nevertheless the President and Congress
+proceeded with their program of legislation. Important acts were those
+providing for the development of the resources of Alaska, the Newlands
+act for the arbitration of disputes among railway employees, a law
+providing for federal aid in the building of state highways, measures
+giving a larger amount of self-government to the Philippines and Porto
+Rico, and one establishing a series of Federal Farm Loan Banks
+intended to enable the agricultural population to get capital at low
+rates of interest.[5] The major items, as well as the smaller ones in
+the Democratic program were in line with many of the proposals made by
+the Progressives in their platform in 1912. Attracted by these
+accomplishments and by the forceful leadership of the President large
+numbers of the Progressives made the transition into the Democratic
+party, and from 1913 to 1916 much of the political strategy of both
+Democrats and Republicans was devoted to attracting the insurgent wing
+of the Republican organization.
+
+The enactment of such a body of legislation, with the resulting
+appointment of many officials and clerks, brought the President face
+to face with the same civil service problem that had caused so much
+trouble for Cleveland. Upon their accession in 1913 the Democrats had
+been out of power so long that they exerted the pressure, usual under
+such circumstances, for a share in the offices. The merit system,
+however, was even more firmly entrenched than in 1897 when Cleveland
+had made such additions to the classified lists, for both Roosevelt
+and Taft had extended the merit principle to certain parts of the
+consular and diplomatic service. Roosevelt had also made considerable
+extensions in the application of the system to deputy collectors of
+internal revenue, fourth-class postmasters, and carriers in the rural
+free-delivery service; Taft had also increased the number of employees
+who were appointed under the merit system, notably about 36,000
+fourth-class postmasters not touched by his predecessor. Some of the
+acts passed early in President Wilson's administration--the Federal
+Reserve law, for example--expressly excepted certain employees from
+civil service examinations. Bryan, as Secretary of State, showed a
+lack of devotion to the cause of reform in the conduct of his
+department. On the other hand the President took a most important step
+in relation to postmasters of the first, second and third classes,
+which had always been appointed by the president with the advice and
+consent of the Senate, and had been among the plums in the gift of the
+executive that had been most sought after. On March 31, 1917, Wilson
+announced that thereafter the nominees for postmasters of the first
+three classes would be chosen as the result of civil service
+examination.
+
+While the United States was absorbed, in these various ways, in the
+task of internal construction, an event was occurring in a town in
+Bosnia which was destined to affect profoundly the course of American
+history. On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir-apparent
+to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was assassinated by a
+youth of Serbian blood and sympathies in Sarajevo. In Austria the act
+was looked upon as an incident in a revolutionary movement intended to
+detach a part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and unite it with
+Serbia. A month later Austria declared war on Serbia, and in a brief
+time, such was the state of the European alliances, Austria and
+Germany were opposed to Serbia, Russia, Belgium, France, Montenegro
+and Great Britain in a devastating war. In August, Japan joined the
+"Allies," as the nations on Serbia's side were known, and Turkey, in
+November, took the side of the Teutonic powers. The act that brought
+Belgium into the war was of interest to the United States. Germany had
+declared war on Russia, the friend of Serbia, and expected that
+France, Russia's ally, would step into the fray. Being thoroughly
+prepared for war, Germany believed that she could crush France before
+the latter could take any effective steps. The most convenient path
+into France lay through Belgium, a small, neutral nation with no
+interest in the conflict, and the German armies were thereupon poured
+across the boundary. High German authority freely admitted the wrong
+of the act, but excused it on the ground of military necessity.
+Belgium felt that she could not do otherwise than resist the invader
+and was thus drawn into the vortex. Her danger helped bring Great
+Britain into the conflict.
+
+The relation of the United States to the conflict seemed remote, and
+President Wilson on August 4 issued a formal proclamation of
+neutrality, which was soon followed by an address to the people of the
+country urging them to be neutral both in thought and in act. For a
+time it was not difficult for the country to obey the injunction.
+Although stories of the ruthlessness, of the German soldiery in
+Belgium poured into the columns of American periodicals, the people
+found difficulty in believing them because they had long admired the
+efficiency and virility of the Germans. Scarcely a year before the war
+broke out, ex-Presidents Roosevelt and Taft had extolled the German
+Emperor as an apostle of peace, and President Butler of Columbia
+University had declared that the people of any nation would gladly
+elect him as their chief executive. More than a month and a half after
+the invasion of Belgium, Roosevelt published an article in _The
+Outlook_ in which he expressed pride in the German blood in his veins,
+asserted that either side in the European conflict could be sincerely
+taken and defended, and continued:
+
+    When a nation feels that the issue of a contest in which ... it
+    finds itself engaged will be national life or death, it is
+    inevitable that it should act so as to save itself.... The rights
+    and wrongs of these cases where nations violate the rules of
+    abstract morality in order to meet their own vital needs can
+    be precisely determined only when all the facts are known and
+    when men's blood is cool.... Of course it would be folly to jump
+    into the gulf ourselves to no good purpose; and very probably
+    nothing that we could have done would have helped Belgium. We
+    have not the smallest responsibility for what has befallen her.
+
+In view of the mass of conflicting rumors concerning the war, which
+reached American attention, it was natural to take the neutral
+position adopted by Roosevelt, but it was inevitable, because of our
+racial diversities, that sympathies and opinions should soon differ
+widely. Within a short time, pamphlets were published containing the
+correspondence among the several European powers which had taken place
+just before the outbreak of the war. These and other documents were
+widely studied in the United States and led to the belief that
+England, France and Russia had been the real peace lovers and that
+Germany had been the aggressor.
+
+The immediate economic effect of the war, in the meanwhile was the
+unsettlement of American financial and industrial affairs, but when
+the English navy obtained the mastery of the seas, the vessels of the
+Teutonic powers were driven to cover in neutral ports or kept
+harmlessly at home, and American trade with neutral nations and the
+Allies took on new life. Moreover the latter were in need of food,
+munitions and war materials of all kinds and they turned to American
+factories. Manufacturers who could accept "war orders" began at once
+to make fortunes; wages and prices rose, and it became evident that
+the United States would be profoundly affected by the struggle.
+England's control of the sea, moreover, early presented other
+problems. According to international practice, both sides in the
+European conflict might purchase munitions from neutrals, of which the
+United States was the largest, but on account of her weakness on the
+sea Germany was unable to take advantage of this opportunity, while
+the Allies constantly purchased whatever supplies were needed. At
+first, the German government protested through diplomatic channels,
+but our government was able to show not only that international
+practice approved the course followed by the United States, but also
+that Germany had herself followed it in previous wars.
+
+There then followed propaganda on a large scale by German agents
+under the direction of Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, which was intended to
+influence public opinion to demand the prohibition of the shipment of
+munitions to the Allies. As this activity failed of its purpose,
+resort was then had to fraudulent clearance papers by which military
+supplies for German use were shipped from the United States without
+conforming to our customs regulations; bombs were placed in ships
+carrying supplies to England; fires were set in munitions factories;
+strikes and labor difficulties were fomented by German agents and at
+length the government had to ask for the recall of the Austrian
+Ambassador, Dr. Dumba, and the German military and naval _attaches_
+at Washington, Captain Franz von Papen and Captain Karl Boy-Ed.
+
+Relations with the Allies, in the meantime, were far from
+satisfactory. The unprecedented scale on which the war was being
+fought made huge supplies of munitions, food and raw materials such as
+copper and cotton absolute necessities. England was able to shut off
+the direct shipment into Germany of stores having military value, but
+this advantage was of little use so long as the ports of Holland and
+the Scandinavian countries were open to the transit of such supplies
+indirectly to Teutonic soil. When England attempted to regulate and
+restrict trade with these countries, the United States was the chief
+sufferer. Ships were held up and their cargoes examined-during 1915,
+for example, copper valued at $5,500,000 was seized while on the way
+from the United States to neutral nations. On December 26, 1914, the
+United States protested against the number of vessels that were
+stopped, taken into British ports and held, sometimes, for weeks; and
+in reply England pointed out the large increase in the amount of
+copper and other materials sent to countries near Germany, and
+declared that the presumption was strong that these stores were being
+forwarded to the enemy.
+
+With her navy driven from the seas, Germany began to feel the effects
+of the blockade, and accordingly turned to the submarine as the hope
+for victory. On February 4, 1915, Germany declared the English channel
+and the waters around Great Britain a war zone, in which enemy
+merchant vessels would be destroyed "even if it may not be possible
+always to save their crews and passengers." Great Britain replied on
+March 11 by an order that merchant vessels going into Germany or out
+of her ports, as well as merchant vessels bound for neutral countries
+and carrying goods bound for the enemy, must stop at a British or
+allied port. At these points the cargoes were looked over and any war
+materials or goods which were regarded as "contraband" were seized.
+Even though the owners were eventually reimbursed for the cargoes
+taken, the delay and the interference with trade were burdensome, and
+the United States accordingly protested that England was establishing
+an illegal blockade and that the United States would champion the
+rights of neutrals. Some slight retaliatory legislation aimed at the
+Allies was passed by Congress, but for the most part interest in this
+controversy died in the face of the growing irritation with Germany.
+The German declaration of February 4, 1915, in regard to submarine
+warfare caused an energetic protest by the United States on the ground
+that an attack on a vessel made without any determination of its
+belligerent character and the contraband character of its cargo would
+be unprecedented in naval warfare. The American note declared Germany
+would be held to a "strict accountability" for any injury to American
+lives and property. Nevertheless, the results of the submarine
+campaign began to appear at once, and in ten weeks sixty-three
+merchant ships belonging to various nations were sunk, with a loss of
+250 lives. On May 7 the United States was astounded to hear that the
+passenger ship _Lusitania_ had been torpedoed, and 1,153 persons
+drowned, including 114 Americans. The allied and neutral nations were
+profoundly stirred, and from that moment there grew an increasing
+demand in the United States for war with Germany. The President called
+for a disavowal of the acts by which the _Lusitania _and other vessels
+had been sunk, all possible reparation, and steps to prevent the
+recurrence of such deeds.
+
+Within a few days of the _Lusitania _catastrophe and before the
+protest of our government was made public, President Wilson spoke in
+Philadelphia, and in the course of his remarks said, "There is such a
+thing as a man being too proud to fight." The address had no relation
+to the international situation, and moreover the objectionable phrase
+carried an unexpected and different meaning when separated from its
+context and linked to the _Lusitania_ affair. The words were seized
+upon by the President's critics, however, as an indication of the
+policy of the government in the crisis and were severely condemned. On
+the other hand the formal protest was received with marked
+satisfaction. It was understood to be the work of Wilson himself, who
+practically took over the conduct of the more important foreign
+affairs. When the German government replied without meeting the
+demands of the President, he framed a second note which brought the
+possibility of war so near that Secretary Bryan resigned rather than
+sign it.[6] A second reply merely prolonged the controversy and Wilson
+thereupon renewed his demands and declared that a repetition of
+submarine attacks would be regarded as "deliberately unfriendly." The
+statement brought the nation appreciably nearer war, but if the
+comments of the newspaper press may be relied upon as an index of
+public opinion, the President had again expressed the feelings of the
+people. In the meanwhile German submarine warfare was modified in the
+direction desired by the United States. Instead of sinking merchant
+vessels on sight and without warning, the commanders of submarines
+stopped them, visited and searched them, and gave the passengers and
+crews opportunity to escape. On August 19, 1915, the _Arabic _was sunk
+without warning, but the German government in conformity with its new
+policy disavowed the act, apologized and agreed to pay an indemnity
+for American lives lost. The negotiations concerning the _Lusitania_
+continued to drag on, but otherwise relations between Germany and the
+United States had reached the point where peace could be maintained if
+no further accident or provocation intervened.
+
+Despite the general approval of the President's firm stand against
+Germany, there was an inclination in some quarters to do everything
+possible to avoid a conflict, even if the effort necessitated the
+relinquishment of rights that had hitherto been well recognized. In
+February, 1916, Representative McLemore introduced a resolution
+requesting the President to warn American citizens to refrain from
+traveling on armed belligerent vessels, whether merchantmen or
+otherwise and to state that if they persisted they would do so at
+their own peril. The House, according to the Speaker, was prepared to
+pass the resolution. The positions taken on this subject by the
+administration had not been entirely consistent, but the President was
+now holding that Americans had the right under international law to
+travel on such vessels and that the government could not honorably
+refuse to uphold them in exercising their right. "Once accept a single
+abatement of right," he asserted, "and many other humiliations would
+certainly follow, and the whole fine fabric of international law might
+crumble under our hands piece by piece." Moreover he felt that the
+conduct of international relations lay in the hands of the executive
+and that divided counsels would embarrass him in dealing with Germany.
+He therefore asked the House to discuss the McLemore resolution at
+once and come to a vote. Under this pressure the House gave way and
+tabled the resolution, ninety-three Republicans joining with 182
+Democrats against thirty-three Democrats and 102 Republicans.
+
+On March 24 the French channel steamer _Sussex_ was sunk, with the
+loss of several Americans, and the submarine issue was thus brought
+forward again. The President accordingly appeared before Congress and
+reviewed the entire controversy. "Again and again," he reminded his
+hearers, "the Imperial German Government has given this Government its
+solemn assurances that at least passenger ships would not be thus
+dealt with, and yet it has again and again permitted its undersea
+commanders to disregard those assurances with entire impunity." He
+asserted that America had been very patient, while the toll of lives
+had mounted into the hundreds, and informed Congress that he was
+presenting a warning that "unless the Imperial German Government
+should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its
+present methods of warfare against passenger and freight carrying
+vessels this Government can have no choice but to sever diplomatic
+relations with the Government of the German Empire altogether." The
+_Lusitania _notes, the _Sussex_ address and other speeches made by the
+President wore read all over the United States and, indeed, throughout
+a great part of the world. He was attempting the novel and daring
+experiment of framing a foreign policy in public view, and was thus
+becoming the recognized spokesman of the neutral world.
+
+Our international relations were in a disturbed and critical condition
+when the presidential campaign of 1916 came on. The Republicans and
+the Progressives planned to meet in Chicago on June 7 for the
+nomination of candidates, in the hope that the two parties might unite
+upon a single nominee and platform, and thus defeat Wilson who was
+sure to be the Democratic candidate. At first, however, the two wings
+of the Republican party were in complete disagreement. As far as
+principles went they had not thoroughly recovered from the schism of
+1912. For their candidate the Progressives looked only to Roosevelt,
+whom the Republicans would not have. Roosevelt himself refused to
+enter any fight for a nomination and announced, "I will go further and
+say that it would be a mistake to nominate me unless the country has
+in its mood something of the heroic." After conferences between
+Republican and Progressive leaders which failed to bring about
+unanimity, the Republican convention nominated Justice Charles E.
+Hughes of the Supreme Court, and the Progressives chose Roosevelt.
+Hughes was a reformer by nature, recognized as a man of high
+principles, courageous, able and remembered as a vigorous and popular
+governor of New York.
+
+The Republican platform called for neutrality in the European war;
+peace and order in Mexico, preparedness for national defence, a
+protective tariff and women's suffrage. It also advocated some of the
+economic legislation favored by the-Progressives in 1912. The
+Progressive platform laid most emphasis on preparation for military
+defence-a navy of at least second rank, a regular army of 250,000 and
+a system for training a citizen soldiery. It also urged labor
+legislation, a protective tariff and national regulation of industry
+and transportation. The Republican platform severely denounced the
+administration, but the Progressives stated merely their own
+principles.
+
+In the course of his actions after the nomination, however, Roosevelt
+indicated his belief that the public welfare demanded the defeat of
+the Democrats. He declared that he did not know Hughes's opinions on
+the vital questions of the day and suggested that his "conditional
+refusal" be put into the hands of the National Progressive Committee
+and that a statement of the Republican candidate's principles be
+awaited. If these principles turned out to be satisfactory then
+Roosevelt would not run; otherwise a conference could be held to
+determine future action. Subsequently Roosevelt issued a declaration
+expressing his satisfaction with Hughes, condemning Wilson and urging
+all Progressives to join in defeating the Democrats. Such an action
+would, of course, spell the doom of the Progressives as a political
+organization, but he declared that the people were not prepared to
+accept a new party and that the nomination of a third party candidate
+would merely divide the Republicans and ensure a Democratic victory.
+The action of Roosevelt commended itself to a majority of the National
+Committee, but a minority were displeased and supported Wilson.
+
+The Democrats met at St. Louis on June 14 and renominated President
+Wilson in a convention marked by harmony and enthusiasm. For the first
+time in many years the party could point to a record of actual
+achievement and it challenged "comparisons of our record, our keeping
+of pledges, and our constructive legislation, with those of any party
+at any time." After recalling the chief measures passed during the
+administration, the party placed itself on record as favoring labor
+legislation, women's suffrage, the protection of citizens at home and
+abroad, a larger army and navy and a reserve of trained citizen
+soldiers.[7]
+
+The campaign turned upon the question whether the country approved
+Wilson's foreign policy, rather than upon the record of the Democratic
+party and its platform of principles, and in such a contest each side
+had definite advantages. As the candidate of the party which had been
+in power most of the time for half a century, Hughes had the support
+of the two living ex-presidents and the backing of a compact
+organization with plenty of money. He had been out of the turmoil of
+politics for six years as a member of the Supreme Court and hence had
+not made enemies. His party was strong in the most populous portions
+of the country and in the East where dissatisfaction with the
+President's foreign policy was strongest. In particular the unhappy
+Mexican difficulty, which has already been mentioned, had not been
+settled, and it was an easy matter for Hughes to point out real or
+alleged inconsistencies and mistakes in his opponent's acts. Wilson
+had been elected four years before by a minority vote and had served
+through a term of years that had brought forward an unusual number of
+perplexing questions on which sincere men disagreed, and had,
+therefore, aroused a host of enemies. On the other hand, he had the
+advantage of being in power, and his supporters could urge the danger
+of "swapping horses while crossing a stream." He had a foreign policy
+which the people knew about, experience in the Presidency and a record
+for leadership in constructive accomplishment.[8]
+
+The particular characteristics of the campaign were mainly the results
+of the activities of Hughes, Roosevelt and Wilson. In his speech
+accepting the nomination Hughes attacked the record of the
+administration in regard to the civil service, charged the President
+with interfering in Mexican affairs without protecting American
+rights, and asserted that if the government had shown Germany that it
+meant what it said by "strict accountability" the Lusitania would not
+have been sunk. He also announced that he favored a constitutional
+amendment providing for women's suffrage. Later he made extended
+stumping tours in which he reiterated his attacks on the
+administration, but he disappointed his friends by failing to reveal a
+constructive program. Roosevelt, meanwhile, assisted the Republican
+candidate by a series of speeches, one of the earliest of which was
+that of August 31, in Maine. That state held its local elections on
+September 11 and it was deemed essential by both parties to make every
+effort to carry it so as to have a good effect on party prospects
+elsewhere. Roosevelt's speech typified his criticisms of the
+administration. He declared that Wilson had ostensibly kept peace with
+Mexico but had really waged war there; he asserted that the President
+had shown a lack of firmness in dealing with Mexico and had kissed the
+hand that slapped him in the face although it was red with the blood
+of American women and children; he compared American neutrality in the
+European War with the neutrality of Pontius Pilate and believed that
+if the administration had been firm in its dealings with Germany there
+would have been no invasion of Belgium, no sinking of vessels and no
+massacres of women and children.
+
+Wilson followed the example of McKinley in 1896 and conducted his
+campaign chiefly through speeches delivered from the porch of "Shadow
+Lawn," his summer residence in New Jersey. In this way he emphasized
+the legislative record of the Democrats, defended his foreign policy
+and attacked the Republicans as a party, although not referring to
+individuals. An important part of his strategy was an attempt to
+attract the Progressives to his support. He met his opponent's
+vigorous complaints in regard to his attitude toward Mexico and the
+European War by pressing the question as to the direction in which the
+Republicans would change it. As Hughes was apparently unwilling to
+urge immediate war on Germany, he could only retort that a firm
+attitude in the beginning would have prevented trouble, and there the
+matter rested throughout the campaign. Supporters of Wilson also
+defended his foreign policy, summing up their contentions in the
+phrase, "He kept us out of war."
+
+Foreign policy as a political issue was pressed temporarily into the
+background by the sudden demand of the railroad brotherhoods for
+shorter hours and mote pay, threatening a nation-wide strike if their
+plea was unheeded. Neither party wished to risk the labor vote by
+opposing the unions, and the public did not desire a strike, much as
+it deprecated the attitude of the labor leaders in threatening trouble
+at this juncture. The President took the lead in pressing a program of
+railroad legislation, part of which was a law granting the men what
+they desired. This was immediately passed, although the remaining
+recommendations were laid aside. In the House the Republicans joined
+with the Democrats in putting the law through, although nearly thirty
+per cent. of the members refrained from voting at all, but in the
+Senate party lines were more strictly drawn. In many quarters the
+President was vigorously condemned on the ground that he had
+"surrendered" to a threat. Hughes joined in the dissent, but somewhat
+dulled its effect by giving no evidence of opposition until the law
+was passed and by stating that he would not attempt to repeal it if
+elected. During the closing days of the campaign Hughes issued a
+statement declaring that he looked upon the presidency as an executive
+office and stated that if chosen he would consider himself the
+administrative and executive head only, and not a political leader
+commissioned with the responsibility of determining policies. At the
+close of the campaign, also, the benefits of a protective tariff were
+urged as a reason for electing Hughes.
+
+[Illustration:
+Election of 1916, by Counties]
+
+The result of the balloting on November 7 was in doubt for several
+days because the outcome hinged on the votes of California and
+Minnesota, either of which would turn the scale. In the end Wilson was
+found to have received 9,128,837 votes and Hughes, 8,536,380. The vote
+in the electoral college was 277 to 254. The outcome was remarkable in
+several respects. Each candidate received a larger popular vote than
+had ever before been cast; Wilson won without New York or any of the
+other large eastern states, finding his support in the South and the
+Far West; each side was able to get satisfaction from the result, the
+Republicans because their party schism was sufficiently healed to
+enable them to divide the House of Representatives evenly with their
+opponents, and the Democrats because their candidate was successful in
+states which elected Republican senators and governors by large
+majorities.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+In the nature of the case, any bibliography which concerns the events
+of so recent and important a period is of temporary value only. Ogg
+presents an excellent one, but many important volumes have been
+printed since 1917, his date of publication.
+
+A reliable account of the chief events is contained in the _American
+Year Book_. The numerous biographies of President Wilson are written
+under the difficult conditions that surround the discussion of recent
+events. Available ones are: E.C. Brooks, _Woodrow Wilson as President_
+(1916), eulogistic, but contains extracts from speeches; W.B. Hale,
+_Woodrow Wilson, The Story of His Life_ (1912); H.J. Ford, _Woodrow
+Wilson_ (1916); A.M. Low, _Woodrow Wilson, an Interpretation_ (1918),
+a friendly and substantial analysis by an English newspaper
+correspondent; W.B. Dodd, _Woodrow Wilson and His Work_ (1920),
+sympathetic, written in the spirit of the investigator, and the best
+life up to the time of its publication. Better than any biography is a
+careful study of Wilson's addresses and speeches, editions of which
+have been prepared by A.B. Hart, J.B. Scott, A. Shaw and others.
+
+Periodical literature concerning the legislative program of the first
+Wilson administration is especially abundant. On the tariff, in
+addition to Taussig, consult: _Quarterly Journal of Economics_ (1913),
+"The Tariff Act of 1913"; _Journal of Political Economy_ (1914), "The
+Tariff of 1913." On the federal reserve system, _Political Science
+Quarterly_ (1914), "Federal Reserve System"; _Quarterly Journal of
+Economics_ (1914), "Federal Reserve Act of 1913"; _American Economic
+Review_ (1914), "Federal Reserve Act"; _Journal of Political Economy_
+(1914), "Banking and Currency Act of 1913"; H.P. Willis, _The Federal
+Reserve_ (1915); E.W. Kemmerer, _The A B C of the Federal Reserve
+System_ (1918). On the anti-trust acts, _Political Science Quarterly_
+(1915), "New Anti-Trust Acts"; _Quarterly Journal of Economics_
+(1914), "Trust Legislation of 1914"; _American Economic Review_
+(1914), "Trade Commission Act." For the early stages of the European
+conflict see the references under Chapter XXV.
+
+The best accounts of the election of 1916 are in the _American Year
+Book_, and in Ogg. Other readable accounts are: _Nineteenth Century_
+(Dec., 1916), "The Re-Election of President Wilson"; W.E. Dodd,
+_Woodrow Wilson_ (1920).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The cabinet, 1913-1920, was as follows: Secretary of State, W.J.
+Bryan (to 1915), R. Lansing (to 1920), B. Colby; Secretary of the
+Treasury, W.G. McAdoo, C. Glass, D.F. Houston; Secretary of War, L.M.
+Garrison, N.D. Baker; Attorney-General, J.C. McReynolds, T.W. Gregory,
+A.M. Palmer; Postmaster-General, A.S. Burleson; Secretary of the Navy,
+J. Daniels; Secretary of the Interior, F.K. Lane, J.B. Payne;
+Secretary of Commerce, W.C. Redfield, J.W. Alexander; Secretary of
+Labor, W.B. Wilson.
+
+[2] On Apr. 23, 1920, the amount of federal reserve notes outstanding
+was $3,068,307,000.
+
+[3] On Apr. 23, 1920, the reserves deposited by member banks reached a
+total of $2,083,568,000.
+
+[4] The Commission superseded the Bureau of Corporations.
+
+[5] The appointment of Louis D. Brandeis to the Supreme Court brought
+to that body a well-known proponent of the newer types of social and
+economic theory. At first the opposition to confirming his nomination
+in the Senate, based upon certain facts in his career and allegations
+concerning them, was uncommonly pronounced. Dissent diminished,
+however, in the face of investigation, and the nomination was
+confirmed by a large majority on June 1, 1916.
+
+[6] Bryan remained in sympathy with the administration in other
+respects, and aided in the campaign of 1916.
+
+[7] Despite Roosevelt's refusal to run, the Progressive
+Vice-Presidential candidate continued the campaign. The Socialist
+Labor party, the Socialist party and the Prohibitionists also
+presented candidates.
+
+[8] The Republican campaign fund was $2,445,421 contributed by 34,205
+persons; the Democratic fund, $1,808,348 given by 170,000 persons.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+THE UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD WAR
+
+The reelection of Wilson in November, 1916, could hardly be interpreted
+in any other light than as an approval of his patient foreign policy.
+Nevertheless, for the ensuing five months the problem of our
+international relations, and especially the question whether we ought
+to enter the World War, continued to divide the American people into
+hostile camps. The opponents of the President, led by Roosevelt,
+contended that Wilson was lacking in "patriotism, courage and
+foresight"; that the failure of the administration to protest against
+Germany's march across Belgium was due to timidity and a "mean
+commercial opportunism" which caused the President to act in the spirit
+of refusing to perform a duty unless there was a pecuniary profit to be
+gained thereby; and that the interchanges of diplomatic notes with the
+German government were "benevolent phrase-mongering" which did not
+accomplish anything. When Germany used the submarine to sink vessels
+despite the President's "strict accountability" note and when the
+administration did not then take forceful action against the offender,
+his opponents declared that the President meant "precisely and exactly
+nothing" by his words. Late in 1915 Wilson became convinced of the
+necessity of an increase in our means of defense, and in order to
+arouse Congress to action he went out into the Middle West where he
+addressed large audiences on "preparedness." After long discussion
+Congress passed the National Defense Act by the provisions of which the
+military strength of the country was to be expanded to 645,000 officers
+and men during a period of five years. The President's conversion to
+preparedness was interpreted as a tardy recognition of an obvious duty,
+and his plan deprecated as no more than a "shadow program." And later,
+as his attitude became more warlike, the opposition declared that he
+had at last acted because of "pressure" and "criticism," rather than
+because of a definite and positive purpose of his own. In brief, then,
+a considerable portion of the country insisted upon America's early
+entrance into the European conflict, and judged Wilson to be a timid
+politician who lacked a courageous foreign policy and who was being
+driven toward war by the force of public opinion.
+
+On the other hand, the traditional American disinclination to become
+entangled in foreign complications was the decisive force with the
+majority. In an address which the President delivered in New York he
+said that he received a great many letters from unknown and
+uninfluential people whose one prayer was, "Mr. President, do not allow
+anybody to persuade you that the people of this country want war with
+anybody." There were, moreover, Americans who still retained the
+traditional dislike of England and who hesitated to support an alliance
+with that nation; others did not relish association with Russia, which
+had long been looked upon as the arch-representative of autocracy; and
+others were indifferent or confused or inclined to the German side.
+
+The attitude of the President, meanwhile, constantly found expression
+in addresses to Congress and the people, which were so widely read and
+discussed and which had so great an influence in forming public opinion
+that the more prominent of them must be mentioned. Beginning with the
+proclamation of neutrality on August 18, 1914, and a speech at
+Indianapolis on January 8, 1915, he asserted the belief that the United
+States should remain neutral, not only because it was the traditional
+policy to stand aloof from European controversies but also because "it
+was necessary, if a universal catastrophe was to be avoided, that a
+limit should be set to the sweep of destructive war ... if only to
+prevent collective economic ruin and the breakdown throughout the world
+of the industries by which its populations are fed and sustained." He
+also hoped that the time might quickly come when both sides would
+welcome mediation by a great people that had preserved itself neutral,
+self-possessed and sympathetic with the burdens of the warring powers.
+Before the close of 1915 he gave up his earlier opposition to military
+preparation, as has been seen, and while the project for a larger
+defensive force was being discussed, he made a significant address on
+May 27, 1916, to the League to Enforce Peace. With the causes and
+objects of the war, he declared, America was not concerned; the
+"obscure fountains" of its origins we were not interested to explore;
+in its spread, however, it had so "profoundly affected" America that we
+were no longer "disconnected lookers-on," but deeply concerned. "We are
+participants," he asserted, "whether we would or not, in the life of
+the world. The interests of all nations are our own also. We are
+partners with the rest." Oddly enough the statement that the origins of
+the war and the purposes for which it was started did not concern us
+was widely circulated, and misinterpreted as indicating a lack of
+sympathy with the ideals for which the Allies were fighting at the time
+speech, while the remainder of the address, which was far more
+significant, was largely overlooked. Nevertheless the declaration that
+the war had become our concern was an important part of Wilson's series
+of utterances on the issues of the day, and demands emphasis at this
+point because the President was representative, in holding this
+opinion, of a great body of his countrymen. The conviction that the
+European war had become our affair was deepened in the minds of many
+Americans when news arrived late in 1916, that the Teutonic military
+authorities were seizing and deporting Belgian workmen and compelling
+them to labor in German fields and factories.
+
+In December, President Wilson again claimed the attention of the world
+by his reply to a proposal by Germany that peace negotiations be entered
+upon. He declared--and his note was sent to all belligerents--that the
+leaders of the two sides had stated their objects in general terms only:
+
+But, stated in general terms, they seem the same on both sides. Never
+yet have the authoritative spokesmen of either side avowed the precise
+objects which would, if attained, satisfy them and their people that
+the war had been fought out.
+
+The support of America in the war had long since become the great stake
+for which both sides in the conflict were playing, and the crisis of
+the game was at hand. On January 22, 1917, Wilson addressed the Senate
+and stated the results of his action. The reply of the Germans, he
+declared, had merely stated their readiness to meet their antagonists
+in conference to discuss terms of peace; the Allies had detailed more
+definitely the arrangements, guarantees and acts of reparation which
+would constitute a satisfactory settlement. He proceeded then to add
+that the, United States was deeply concerned in the terms of peace
+which would be made at the close of the conflict, and to enumerate some
+of those for which Americans would be most insistent: equality of
+rights among nations; the recognition of the principle that territories
+should not be handed about from nation to nation without the consent of
+the inhabitants of the territories; an outlet to the sea for every
+nation where practicable; the freedom of the seas; and the limitation
+of armaments. The interchange of notes had made two things clear; that
+the concern of the United States in the war was intimate, and that
+the people of this country would know definitely the purposes of the
+conflict before they decided to enter it.
+
+On January 31, Germany announced an extension of her submarine warfare.
+A wide area surrounding the British Isles, France, and Italy, and
+including the greater part of the eastern Mediterranean Sea was
+declared to be a barred zone. All sea traffic, neutral as well as
+belligerent, the note warned, would be sunk, except that one American
+ship would be allowed to pass through the zone each week provided that
+it followed a designated, narrow lane to the port of Falmouth, England,
+that it was marked with broad red and white stripes, and carried no
+contraband. The President promptly broke off relations with Germany,
+sent the German ambassador home and appeared before Congress to state
+to that body and to the people the reasons for his decision. He
+recounted the substance of his earlier correspondence with Germany in
+regard to submarine warfare and recalled the promise of the German
+government that merchant vessels would not be sunk without warning and
+without saving human lives. He declared that the American government
+had no alternative but to sever relations, although refusing to believe
+that Germany would ruthlessly use the methods which she threatened,
+until convinced of her determination by "overt acts." Information of
+the move made by the United States was sent to American diplomatic
+representatives in neutral countries with the suggestion that they take
+similar action. Shortly afterward the President requested Congress to
+pass legislation enabling him to supply armament and ammunition to
+merchant vessels, and an overwhelming majority of both houses was ready
+to accede to the request. A small minority in the Senate, however, was
+able, under existing rules, to prevent Congressional action, although
+the President found authority in existing statutes and was able to
+proceed.[1]
+
+Every important event in March, 1917, tended toward war between the
+United States and Germany. On the first day of the month the State
+Department made public a note from the German Secretary of State to the
+German minister in Mexico which suggested a German-Mexican alliance in
+case of the entry of the United States into the war. Germany was to
+contribute financial support to Mexico and the latter was to recover
+Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, which had been lost to the United States
+many years before. Knowledge of this intrigue gave a distinct impetus
+to the war spirit in all parts of the country. On March 5, President
+Wilson was inaugurated for the second time and took occasion to state
+again the attitude of the United States toward the war. Although
+disclaiming any desire for conquest or advantage, and reaffirming the
+desire of the United States for peace, he expressed the belief that we
+might be drawn on, by circumstances, to a more active assertion of our
+rights and a more immediate association with the great struggle. Once
+more he stated the things for which the United States would stand
+whether in war or in peace: the interest of all nations in world peace;
+equality of rights among nations; the principle that governments derive
+their just powers from the consent of the governed; the freedom of the
+seas; and the limitation of armaments. Later in the month information
+reached America that there had been a revolution in Russia, that the
+Czar had been compelled to abdicate and that a republican government
+had been established. The news was gladly heard in the United States as
+it seemed to presage the overthrow of autocracy everywhere. On March
+22, the new Russian government was formally recognized by the United
+States and later a loan of $100,000,000 was made.
+
+In the meanwhile the "overt acts" which the President and the American
+people hoped might not be committed became sufficiently numerous to
+prove that Germany had indeed entered upon the most ruthless use of the
+submarine. Seven American vessels were torpedoed, with the loss of
+thirteen lives, and many more vessels of belligerent and neutral
+nations were sunk, in most cases without warning. The President
+accordingly summoned Congress to meet in special session on April 2.
+When that body assembled he again and for the last time explained the
+character of German submarine warfare, charging that vessels of all
+kinds and all nations, hospital ships as well as merchant vessels were
+being sunk "with reckless lack of compassion or of principle."
+International law, he complained, was being swept away; the lives of
+non-combatant men, women and children destroyed; America filled with
+hostile spies and attempts made to stir up enemies against us; armed
+neutrality had broken down in the face of the submarine, and he
+therefore urged Congress to accept the state of war which the action of
+Germany had thrust upon the United States. Such action, he believed,
+should involve the utmost cooperation with the enemies of
+Germany--liberal loans to them, an abundant supply of war material of
+all kinds, the better equipment of the navy and an army of at least
+500,000 men chosen on the principle of universal liability to service.
+An important part of the President's address was that in which he
+distinguished between the German people and the German government. With
+the former, he asserted, we had no quarrel, for it was not upon their
+impulse that their government acted in entering the war. But the
+latter, the Prussian autocracy, "was not and never could be our
+friend." Once more he disclaimed any desire for conquest or dominion:
+
+    We are glad ... to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and
+    for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for
+    the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men
+    everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world
+    must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the
+    tested foundations of political liberty.
+
+The response of Congress was prompt and nearly unanimous. In the House
+by a vote of 373 to fifty, and in the Senate by eighty-two to six, a
+resolution accepting the status of war was quickly passed and proclaimed
+by the President on April 6.[2] His position was a strong one. His
+patience and self-control, to be sure, had been carried to the extreme
+where they seemed like cowardice and lack of policy to the more
+belligerent East; but they had convinced the more pacific West that he
+could not be hurried into war without adequate reasons. All sections and
+all parties were united as the country had never been united before. His
+insistence that the United States had no ulterior motives in entering
+the war and his constant emphasis on ideals and the moral issues of the
+conflict placed the struggle on a lofty plane, besides giving him and
+his country at that time a position of leadership in the world such as
+no man or nation had ever hitherto enjoyed. Moreover the evolution
+through which the President went, from adherence to the traditional
+aloofness from European affairs to throwing himself enthusiastically
+into the conflict, was an evolution through which most of his countrymen
+were passing. Every public address which the President delivered, every
+message to Congress, every request to the legislative branch of the
+government was read widely, disagreed to or received with enthusiasm in
+one quarter or another and discussed everywhere with interest and
+energy. The result was the education of America in a new foreign policy.
+It was no slight matter to discard the traditions of a century and a
+quarter, and the brevity and inconsiderable size of the controversy was
+the marvel, rather than its length and bitterness.[3]
+
+America had need of her unity and her enthusiasm. The size of the
+conflict, the number of men that must be raised and trained, the
+quantity of materials required, the amount of money needed, and, above
+all, the mental readjustment necessary in a nation that had hitherto
+buried itself in the pursuits of peace--all these considerations
+emphasized the importance of the task that the United States was
+undertaking. Into Washington there poured a bewildering stream of offers
+of assistance; organizations had to be built up over night to take hold
+of problems that were new to this country; men found themselves hurried
+into tasks for which they must prepare as best they might, and under
+crowded working conditions, changing circumstances and confusion of
+effort that beggar description. In many cases, America could learn
+valuable lessons from European experience, and to that end commissions
+of eminent statesmen and soldiers were sent to this country to give us
+the benefit of their successes and failures.
+
+An important step had already been taken in the creation of the Council
+of National Defense on August 29, 1916, an act which indicated a
+realization that the United States might at any time be drawn into the
+European struggle. The body was composed of six members of the Cabinet,
+with the Secretary of War as chairman, and was assisted by an Advisory
+Commission composed of seven experts in the various industries that
+would be most essential to the prosecution of the war. The Council
+furnished the means of coordinating the industries of the country and
+getting them into touch with the executive departments of the
+government. State councils of defense were likewise organized to arouse
+the people to the performance of their share in the nation's work, to
+circulate information and to assist the several agencies of the federal
+government. A National Research Council mobilized the scientific talent
+of the country and brought it to bear on certain of the problems of
+warfare. A Naval Consulting Board examined inventions offered to the
+Navy Department. The Committee on Public Information furnished condensed
+war news to town and country papers, circulated millions of pamphlets
+explaining the causes of the war and upholding America's purposes in it,
+and directing speakers who aided in campaigns for raising money and
+educating the people in their duty during the crisis. The War Industries
+Board developed plans for the production of the multifarious supplies
+needed. The United States Shipping Board took hold of the problem of
+building sufficient ships to transport troops and cargoes, and to
+replace vessels sunk by submarines. By means of a Committee on Labor the
+laboring men gave their support to the conduct of the war and agreed to
+delay controversies until the war was over.
+
+The exhausted condition of the supplies of food among the Allies, and
+the size of the armies which America decided to raise, made the Food
+Administration one of importance. At the time when the United States
+entered the war there was a dangerous shortage of food in Europe due to
+the decrease in production and to the lack of the vessels necessary to
+bring supplies from distant parts of the world. The problem centered
+mainly in wheat, meat, fats and sugar. The demand upon the United States
+was not only large but increasing. Accordingly, legislation was passed
+on August 10, 1917, which made it unlawful to destroy or hoard food; it
+provided for the stimulation of agriculture; and it authorized the
+President to purchase and sell foods and fix the price of wheat. Wilson
+appointed as the chief of the Food Administration Herbert C. Hoover,
+whose experience with the problem of Belgian relief enabled him to act
+promptly and effectively. Hoover's one great purpose was to utilize all
+food supplies in such a way as would most help to win the war. He
+cooperated with the Department of Agriculture which had already started
+a campaign for stimulating the cultivation of farms and gardens on all
+available land. Food administrators were appointed in the states and
+local districts. Speakers, posters, libraries and other agencies were
+utilized to urge the people to eat less wheat, meats, fats and sugar in
+order that more might be exported to the Allies. Millions of housewives
+hung cards in their windows to indicate that they were cooperating with
+the United States Food Administration. "Wheatless" and "meatless" days
+were set apart. These voluntary efforts were supplemented by government
+regulation, and dealers in food products were compelled to take out
+federal licenses which enabled the Administration to control their
+operations and to prevent prices from going to panic levels. The Food
+Administration established a Grain Corporation which bought and sold
+wheat; it placed an agency in Chicago to buy meat for ourselves and the
+Allies; it called a conference of the sugar refiners, who agreed to put
+in its hands the entire supply of that commodity. In a word, by
+stimulating voluntary efforts and by means of government regulations,
+the Food Administration increased production, decreased consumption, and
+coordinated the purchase of food for the army, the navy, the Allies, the
+Red Cross and Belgian relief. The Food Administration was hardly
+established before it became necessary to organize a Fuel Administration
+to teach economy in the use of coal, to stimulate production, adjust
+disputes between employers and employees, fix prices and control the
+apportioning of the supply among the several parts of the country.
+
+The vital relation of the transportation system of the country to the
+winning of the war was apparent at the start. As soon as war was
+declared, therefore, nearly 700 representatives of the railroads formed
+a Railroads' War Board to minimize the individual and competitive
+activities of the roads, coordinate their operation, and produce a
+maximum of transportation efficiency. The attempt of the railroad
+executives, however, quickly broke down. In the first place, as has been
+seen, our entire body of railroad legislation is based upon the idea of
+separating the several systems and compelling them to compete rather
+than cooperate. The habits and customs thus formed could hardly be done
+away with in an instant. In the second place the cost of labor and
+materials was constantly mounting, and the demand for more equipment was
+insistent. The railroads could meet these greater costs only by raising
+rates, a process which involved obtaining the assent of the Interstate
+Commerce Commission and required a considerable period for its
+accomplishment. The roads were also embarrassed by an unprecedented
+congestion of traffic on the eastern seaboard, from which men and
+cargoes must be shipped to Europe. Accordingly, on December 26, 1917,
+the President took possession of the railroad system for the government
+and appointed the Secretary of the Treasury, William G. McAdoo, as
+Director General. As rapidly as possible the railroads were merged into
+one great system. The entire country was divided into districts at the
+head of which were placed experienced railroad executives. Terminals,
+tunnels and equipment were used regardless of ownership in the effort to
+get the greatest possible service out of existing facilities. The
+passenger service was greatly reduced in order to free locomotives and
+crews for freight trains, duplication of effort was done away with where
+possible, officials who were not necessary under the new plan were
+dropped, and equipment was standardized. Existing legislation allowed
+the government to change freight and passenger rates, and on May 25,
+1918, these were considerably raised. The winter of 1917-1918 was
+memorable for its severity, and placed great difficulties in the way of
+the railroads; nevertheless, between January 1, 1918, and November 11 of
+the same year nearly six and a half million actual and prospective
+soldiers were carried for greater or smaller distances.
+
+An important part of American preparation for war was the attention paid
+to the "morale" organizations, which were designed to maintain the
+courage and spirit of the fighting man. As far as legislation could do
+it, the most flagrant vices were kept away from the camps. Moreover the
+Commissions on Training Camp Activities attempted to supply wholesome
+entertainment and associations. Under their direction, various
+organizations established and operated theatres, libraries and
+writing-rooms, encouraged athletics in the camps, and offered similar
+facilities for soldiers and sailors when on leave in towns and cities
+near by. The Red Cross conducted extensive relief work both in this
+country and abroad; surgical dressings were made, clothing and comfort
+kits supplied, and money contributed. In France, Belgium, Russia,
+Roumania, Italy and Serbia the Red Cross conducted a fight against the
+suffering incident to war.
+
+The legislation which established the system of allotments, allowances
+and War Risk Insurance was also designed in part to maintain the
+_morale_ of the army and navy. The pay of the "enlisted man" or private
+was $30.00 per month. In the case of men with dependents, an "allotment"
+of $15.00 was to be sent home and the government thereupon contributed
+an "allowance" which normally amounted to $15.00 or more, and was graded
+according to the number of the man's dependents and the closeness of
+their relationship to him. Provision was made also for compensation for
+officers and men injured or disabled in the line of duty, and for
+training injured men in a vocation. In addition, the War Risk Insurance
+plan provided means by which both officers and men could at low cost
+take out government insurance against death or total disability. In this
+way, it was hoped, some of the distresses of war would be alleviated so
+far as possible and a repetition of the pension abuses of the Civil War
+somewhat guarded against.
+
+The total direct money cost of the war from April, 1917, to April, 1919,
+was estimated by the War Department at $21,850,000,000, an average of
+over a million dollars an hour, and an amount sufficient to have carried
+on the Revolutionary War a thousand years. In addition, loans were
+extended to the Allies at the rate of nearly half a million dollars an
+hour. This huge amount was raised in part through increased taxes.
+Income taxes were heavily increased; levies were made on such profits of
+corporations as were in excess of profits made before the war, during
+the three years 1911-1913; additional taxes were laid upon spirits
+and tobacco, on amusements and luxuries; and the postage rates were
+raised. In part, also, the cost of the war was defrayed through loans. A
+portion of the amount borrowed was by the sale of War Savings This
+expedient was designed doubtless not merely to encourage persons of
+small means to aid in winning the war--a beginning could be made with
+twenty-five cents--but also to encourage thrift among all classes. Most
+of the borrowed money, however, was raised through the five "Liberty
+Loans," a series of popular subscriptions to the needs of the
+government. In each case the government called upon the people to
+purchase bonds, ranging from two billions at first to six billions at
+the time of the fourth loan. There were four and a half million
+subscribers for the first loan, but after a little experience the number
+was readily increased until 21,000,000 people responded to the fourth
+call. Popular campaigns such as never had been seen in America,
+campaigns of publicity, house-to-house canvassing and appeals to the
+win-the-war spirit resulted in unprecedented financial support. Isolated
+communities in the back country and people of slender means in the
+cities, no less than the great banks and wealthy corporations cooperated
+to make the Liberty loans of social and economic as well as financial
+importance.
+
+Evidence seems to be sufficient to indicate that the resources of the
+United States were thrown into the conflict none too soon. When it was
+determined to place armed guards on merchant ships, Rear Admiral W.S.
+Sims was sent to Great Britain to keep the Navy Department informed on
+problems connected with the possible entry of the United States into the
+conflict. After the American declaration of war the Admiral was placed
+in charge of the naval forces of the United States abroad and thereafter
+worked in close cooperation with our European associates. The German
+submarine policy had been put fully into effect; no solution of the
+submarine menace had been reached; and English officials were fearful
+that England could not last longer than November 1. In taking this view
+the British were probably in harmony with the Germans who expected to
+crush England before the weight of the United States could be felt.
+Although insufficient for so great a conflict, the American navy was
+thoroughly prepared for active service, and six destroyers were sent to
+European waters for a prolonged stay, within eighteen days of the
+declaration of war. This early force was quickly followed by others
+until, at the close of the war, 5,000 officers and 70,000 enlisted men
+were serving abroad. A three-year naval construction program which had
+been adopted in 1916 was pushed forward and somewhat expanded; new craft
+were commandeered wherever they could be found; private citizens loaned
+vessels or leased them at nominal sums; and German ships interned in
+American ports were taken over. Existing stations for the training of
+seamen were enlarged and new ones established, and schools were set up
+in colleges and at other points for radio operators, engineers and naval
+aviators. By such means the number of vessels in commission was
+increased from 197 to 2,003 and the personnel from 65,777 to 497,030.
+
+The most dreaded enemy of the navy, the submarine, was successfully met
+by two devices. When transports and merchant-vessels were being sent
+across the ocean, they were gathered into groups or convoys and were
+protected by war vessels, especially torpedo-boat destroyers. The depth
+charge was also used with telling effect. This consisted of a heavy
+charge of explosive which was placed in a container and dropped into the
+sea where the presence of a submarine was expected. The charge was
+exploded at a pre-determined depth by a simple device, and any
+under-seas craft within 100 feet was likely to be destroyed or to have
+leaks started that would compel it to come to the surface and surrender.
+
+Aside from combatting the submarine, the greatest activity of the navy
+was the transportation of men and supplies to France. First and last
+more than 2,000,000 troops were carried to Europe, and although Great
+Britain transported more than half the men, yet 924,578 made the passage
+through the danger zones under the escort of United States cruisers and
+destroyers. The cargo fleet was substantially all American. The
+transportation of supplies alone required the services of 5,000 officers
+and 29,000 enlisted men, and involved the accumulation of a vast fleet,
+the acquisition of docks, lighters, tugs, and coaling equipment, as well
+as the establishment of an administrative organization, at the precise
+time when the shipping facilities of the world were being strained to
+the breaking point by submarines.
+
+On the other side of the ocean naval bases were established in England,
+Ireland, Scotland, France and Italy; a considerable force operated from
+Gibraltar and others from Corfu, along the Bay of Biscay, in the North
+Sea and at Murmansk and Archangel. Besides cooperating with the navy of
+the Allies in keeping the Germans off the seas, the American navy laid
+about four-fifths of the great mine barrage which extended from the
+Orkney Islands to Norway, a distance of 230 miles. This astonishing
+enterprise--America alone laid 56,000 mines--together with a similar
+chain laid across the Strait of Dover was intended to pen the submarine
+within the North Sea.
+
+In the main the raising of an army for European service rested upon the
+act of May 18, 1917. It provided for the Increase of the regular army
+from approximately 200,000 to 488,000; for the expansion of the strength
+of the National Guard; and for the selection of a National Army by draft
+from men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty years inclusive. The
+determination to raise a draft army was based upon the belief that in
+this way successive and adequate supplies of men could be found without
+disproportionate calls on any section of the country and without undue
+disturbance of the industrial life of the nation. Although the plan ran
+counter to American practice during most of our history, the draft army
+became deservedly popular as a democratic and efficient method of
+finding men. Officers were supplied mainly through training camps, of
+which the best known was that at Plattsburg, New York. A novelty in the
+new army was a plan for the appointment and promotion of officers on a
+scientific rating system which took account of ability and experience,
+thereby doing away with some of the favoritism formerly connected with
+our military system. At a later time an organization was perfected by
+which enlisted men were grouped according to their ability and
+occupations, so that each division of the army might have assigned to it
+the number of mechanics, carpenters, clerks and the like that it might
+require. For the housing and training of the enlarged National Guard,
+sixteen tent-camps were established in the South; and for the National
+Army, sixteen cantonments, built of wood and capable of housing 40,000
+men each. A cantonment comprised 1,000 to 1,200 buildings, and was
+virtually a city with highways, sewers, water supply, laundries and
+hospitals.[4] The problem of obtaining supplies was as great as that of
+housing and training the army. An entire city was erected in West
+Virginia for the making of part of the smokeless powder required; the
+British Enfield rifle was modified to use American ammunition so that
+machinery already making arms for England could be utilized with a
+minimum of change; and European experience having indicated the value of
+the machine gun, a new and improved type was invented by John M.
+Browning. In many cases, however, it was impossible immediately to equip
+both the soldiers in training here, and those who could be sent abroad.
+Hence surplus equipment of certain kinds was supplied by France and
+England. Furthermore, actual combat had emphasized the vital importance
+of aviation and had developed warfare with poisonous gases and with
+tanks, so that it became necessary to establish new branches of the
+service to meet these needs.
+
+Shortly after the declaration of war, General John J. Pershing, who had
+already experienced active operations in the Philippines and on the
+Mexican border, was sent to France to act as Chief of the American
+Expeditionary Force--the A.E.F. as it was commonly called. General
+Pershing was followed by a division of regulars in June, 1917, and by
+the "Rainbow" division of the National Guard, a body composed of
+guardsmen from various states so as to distribute widely the honor of
+early participation in the war. In France the American troops were
+detailed either for the Service of Supply or for combat. The former,
+with headquarters at Tours, developed port facilities, constructed ship
+berths, built railroads and warehouses, and took care of the
+multifarious duties that have to be performed behind the lines.
+Divisions destined for combat were usually given one or two months of
+training in France before going to the front, and were then kept for
+another month in a quiet sector before engaging in more active service.
+
+[Illustration:
+The Western Front]
+
+Between April, 1917, when America declared war, and approximately a year
+later when her weight began to be felt, the Allies suffered reverses
+that were thoroughly disheartening and were almost disastrous. Russia,
+who had conducted a powerful offensive in 1916, began to retreat in the
+summer of 1917 and was thereafter no longer a military factor.[5] Italy
+had driven back the Austrians in the summer of 1916, but in the fall of
+1917 was compelled to conduct a retreat that became all but a disaster.
+Allied conferences were accordingly held in Paris in November and
+December, 1917, for the purpose of bringing about closer unity in the
+prosecution of the war. Nation after nation, on the other hand, had
+severed relations or declared war on the Teutonic powers until a great
+part of the world had ranged itself on the side of the Allies. In March,
+1918, the Germans precipitated a series of crises--the final ones as it
+turned out. In that month they began a terrific drive on a fifty-mile
+front against their opponents in the western theatre of the war. In
+order to meet this thrust the Allies decided to give over the supreme
+command of all their forces to Marshal Ferdinand Foch, chief in command
+of the French army, and General Pershing thereupon offered him all the
+American troops in France. American efforts were redoubled, in the face
+of the new danger, and forces were transported across the ocean in
+numbers which had not been anticipated and which soon began to give the
+Allies a substantial advantage. One vessel, the _Leviathan_, landed in
+France the equivalent of a German division each month. The enemy,
+nevertheless, continued to advance and on May 31 were at
+Chateau-Thierry, only forty miles from Paris, where the American Third
+Division assisted in preventing any further forward movement. The
+leading military experts in the United States, meanwhile, with the
+support of a large portion of the public were demanding a still larger
+army and the Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker, accordingly laid before
+Congress a plan which developed eventually into the "Man Power" act of
+August 31, 1918. It changed the draft ages and added more than
+13,000,000 registrants to the available supply of men. A clause of this
+law, designed in part to provide further supplies of officers, allowed
+the Secretary of War to send soldiers to educational institutions at the
+public expense, thus establishing the Students' Army Training Corps.[6]
+
+[Illustration:
+Strength of the American Expeditionary Force
+July 1, 1917-Nov. 1, 1918]
+
+At the time when General Pershing placed his forces at the disposal of
+Marshal Foch, the Americans numbered 343,000 and were used mainly to
+relieve the French and British at quiet parts or "sectors" on the
+western front. In April, 1918, however, the First Division was placed in
+a more active position, and on May 28 took Cantigny; the Second Division
+was on the Marne River early in June, and later in the month helped
+prevent a German advance at Belleau Wood. Other forces were sent to
+operate with the British, a regiment was sent to Italy, and a small
+force to northern Russia and Siberia. In mid-July the Germans renewed
+their attacks but were shortly turned back again at Chateau-Thierry, and
+Marshal Foch judged this to be the time for the Allies to make a general
+offensive movement. On the 18th the First and Second Divisions, with
+picked French troops, made a successful drive toward Soissons. On August
+30 the Americans were given a permanent portion of the front, and two
+weeks later came the first distinctly American action in the reduction
+of the St. Mihiel salient--a wedge driven by the Germans into the allied
+line. Infantry, artillery, aircraft, tanks and ambulances were
+gathered--about 600,000 men all told--mostly under cover of darkness.
+Preceding the drive a heavy artillery fire was directed upon the enemy
+for four hours, during which brief period thirty times as many rounds of
+ammunition were fired as were used by the Union forces at Gettysburg in
+three days. Then at five o'clock in the morning, on September 12, the
+troops fell upon an enemy which had been demoralized by the artillery,
+and routed them. The American losses were 7,000--injuries for the most
+part--and the gains, 16,000 prisoners, 443 guns and a great quantity of
+war materials, together with an advantageous position for further
+advance. The "American Army was an accomplished fact."
+
+The most important action in which the Americans participated was the
+Meuse-Argonne offensive. The goal of this attack was the
+Carignan-Sedan-Mezieres railroad, which ran parallel to the front and
+comprised the main supply line of the enemy. The drive began late in
+September and continued with greater or less intensity and with
+increasing success until November 11, when it became evident that the
+Germans were in serious difficulties. Their line was cut, and only
+surrender or an armistice could prevent thorough-going disaster.[7]
+
+While the allied armies were first stemming the German advance and later
+making their counter-offensive, the statesmen were attempting to
+preserve the morale of the Allies and break down that of the enemy by
+means of a wide-spread peace offensive. Because of his position as
+President of the United States and his skill in the expression of the
+purposes of the Allies, Wilson became by common consent the spokesman of
+the enemies of Germany, much as he had earlier been the representative
+of the neutral nations. In August, 1917, the Pope proposed peace on the
+basis of "reciprocal condonation" for past offenses, and the reciprocal
+return of territories and colonies. In reply Wilson contended that the
+suggested settlement would not result in a lasting peace. Peace, he
+believed, must be between peoples, and not between peoples on the one
+hand and "an ambitious and intriguing government" on the other. "We
+cannot," he declared, "take the word of the present rulers of Germany as
+a guarantee of anything that is to endure unless explicitly supported by
+such conclusive evidence of the will and purpose of the German people
+themselves as the other peoples of the world would be justified in
+accepting." The reply continued, of course, the attempt made in the
+address to Congress calling for a declaration of war--the attempt to
+drive a wedge between the German people and their rulers, but for the
+moment the attempt was fruitless.
+
+On January 8, 1918, President Wilson again explained the attitude of the
+United States, in an address to Congress in which he gave expression to
+the famous "fourteen points." "The program of the world's peace," he
+stated, must include: the beginning of an era of "open diplomacy" and
+the end of secret international understandings; the freedom of the seas
+in peace and war; the removal of economic barriers between nations; the
+reduction of armaments; the impartial adjustment of colonial claims; the
+evacuation of territories occupied by Germany, such as Russia, Belgium,
+France and the Balkan states; the righting of the wrong done to
+Alsace-Lorraine, the provinces wrested from France by Germany in 1871;
+an opportunity for peoples subject to Austria and Turkey to develop
+along lines chosen by themselves; the establishment of a Polish state
+which should include territories inhabited by indisputably Polish
+populations; and an association of nations to guarantee the safety of
+large and small states alike. Both Austria and Germany replied to this
+address, but not in a manner to make possible a cessation of warfare. In
+setting these replies before Congress, as well as in later speeches both
+to that body and to public audiences, the President reiterated the peace
+program of the Allies.
+
+In the meanwhile conditions in the Teutonic countries were reaching a
+serious point. Germany, Austria, Bulgaria and Turkey were facing an
+enraged world. Their man power was almost exhausted, the numbers of
+killed and wounded in Germany alone being estimated at 6,000,000 men;
+famine, agitation and mutiny were at the door and revolution on the
+horizon; food was scarce and of poor quality; Austria was
+disintegrating; signs were evident of dissensions in the German
+government and suggestions were even made that the Kaiser abdicate.
+Allied pressure in the field together with insistent emphasis on the
+Allied distrust of the German government were at last having their
+combined effect; the Teutonic morale was breaking down. On October 4 the
+German chancellor requested President Wilson to take steps toward peace
+on the basis of the "fourteen points." An interchange of notes ensued
+which indicated that the Teutonic powers were humbled and that the
+Chancellor was speaking in behalf of the people of Germany. The
+Inter-allied Council then met at Versailles and drew up the terms of an
+armistice which were delivered to Germany on November 7. That nation was
+already in a tumult, in the midst of which demonstrations in favor of a
+republic were prominent, and while the German government was considering
+the terms of the armistice the Kaiser abdicated and fled to Holland, and
+a new cabinet was formed with a Socialist at the head. The end was
+evidently at hand and on November 11 the world was cheered with the news
+that Germany had signed the armistice and the war was over.[8]
+
+As far as the United States was concerned the questions of greatest
+public interest after the close of the conflict, fell into two
+categories: one connected with the complicated question of the exact
+terms of settlement between the Allies and the Teutonic powers,
+including modifications of the foreign policy of the United States; the
+other, that concerning the readjustments necessary in the internal
+affairs of the nation--economic, social and moral, as well as political.
+Any adequate discussion of these matters requires so much more
+information and perspective than can now be had, that only the barest
+outlines can be given.
+
+The conference for the determination of the settlements of the war was
+to meet in Paris. The American representatives were to include Robert
+Lansing, the Secretary of State, Henry White, who had represented the
+United States in many diplomatic matters, especially as ambassador to
+Italy and to France, Colonel Edward M. House, a trusted personal advisor
+of the President, and General Tasker H. Bliss, the American military
+representative on the Inter-allied Council. President Wilson himself was
+to head the delegation.
+
+In November, 1918, shortly before the departure of the President for
+Paris, occurred the Congressional elections, which were destined to have
+an important effect on the immediate future. Until late October the
+usual display of partisan politics had been, on the surface at least,
+uncommonly slight. On the 25th, however, the President urged the country
+to elect a Democratic Congress, declaring that the Republican leaders in
+Washington, although favorable to the war, had been hostile to the
+administration, and that the election of a Republican majority would
+enable them to obstruct a legislative program. The Republicans asserted
+that the request was a challenge to the motives and fidelity of their
+party, and a partisan and mendacious accusation. As a result of the
+ensuing contest the control of both Senate and House were won by the
+Republicans. It is impossible to judge whether the President's appeal
+recoiled seriously against his own party or whether the tendency to
+reaction against the administration at mid-term, which has been so
+common since the Civil War, was the decisive force. In any case,
+however, Wilson was compelled to go to Paris encumbered with the
+handicap of political defeat at home.
+
+Nevertheless he was received with unbounded enthusiasm by the French
+people and at once became one of the central figures among the leaders
+at Paris. Not only did the American delegates work in conjunction with
+the representatives of the Allies, but Wilson became a member of an
+inner council, the other participants in which were Premier Lloyd George
+of England, Premier Georges Clemenceau of France and Premier Orlando of
+Italy. The "Big Four," as the group was known, led the conference and
+made its most important decisions. The day of the aloofness of the
+United States from international affairs, which had been ended only
+temporarily by the war with Spain, was apparently brought to a final
+close.[9]
+
+At length the treaty with Germany was completed, President Wilson
+returned to America, and on July 10, 1919, he appeared before the Senate
+to outline the purposes and contents of the agreement and to offer his
+services to that body and to its Committee on Foreign Relations in order
+to enable them intelligently to exercise their advisory function as part
+of the treaty-making power. The Treaty was seen to contain two general
+features: a stern reckoning with Germany which commended itself to all
+except a small minority of the Senate; and a plan for a League of
+Nations which provided for concerted action on the part of the nations
+of the world to reduce armaments and to minimize the danger of war.
+President Wilson's interest in the League was intense and of long
+standing. He had hoped--and in this he was supported doubtless by the
+entire American people--that the European conflict might be a "war to
+end war," and to this conclusion he believed that a world association
+was essential. Public interest in the project was indicated by the
+efforts put forth in its behalf by Ex-President Taft, George W.
+Wickersham, who had been Attorney-General in the Taft cabinet, President
+Lowell of Harvard University, and other influential citizens.
+
+[Illustration:
+The Cost of Food
+Jan. 1913-Jan. 1920]
+
+Although interest in the Treaty and the League of Nations overshadowed
+all other issues, nevertheless many problems relating to internal
+reconstruction pressed forward for settlement. It was commonly, if not
+universally felt that somehow the United States would be different after
+the war, but in what ways and to what degree remained to be determined.
+Reconstruction in the world of industry was complicated by the
+demobilization of several millions of men from the army and navy, as
+well as the freeing of a still larger number of both men and women from
+various kinds of war work.[10] When the armistice was signed, the
+industries of the country were under contract with the War Department to
+provide supplies valued at six billion dollars, and these contracts had
+to be terminated with as little dislocation of industrial life as might
+be consistent with the necessity of stopping the production of materials
+which the government could not use. The laboring classes had loyally
+supported the war and had largely relinquished the use of the strike for
+the time being. In the meantime the cost of living had doubled, while
+wages in most industries had not responded equally. After the war,
+therefore, it was inevitable that the laboring classes should become
+restive under prevailing economic conditions. No more important question
+faced the country, a keen observer declared, than that concerning the
+wages of the laboring man: "How are the masses of men and women who
+labor with their hands to be secured out of the products of their toil
+what they will feel to be and will be in fact a fair return!"
+
+The huge purchases of war materials in the United States by European
+nations had transformed this country to a creditor nation to which the
+chief countries of the world owed large interest payments. The situation
+was a distinct contrast to the past, for the industrial development of
+the country especially since the Civil War, had been made possible in
+considerable measure by capital borrowed in European countries.
+Hitherto, therefore, the United States had been a debtor nation sending
+large yearly interest payments abroad. Moreover, America was being
+increasingly looked to for raw materials as well as manufactured
+articles, and was likely to become more than ever an exporting nation.
+
+The mobilization of the large armies required for the war proved the
+need of energetic reforms in fields that had earlier been too much
+neglected. The fact that so many as twenty-nine per cent. of the young
+men examined for the army between the ages of twenty-one and thirty had
+to be rejected because of physical defects was a cause of astonishment.
+The need of greater efforts in behalf of education was proved by the
+large number of illiterates discovered, and the necessity of training
+immigrants in the fundamentals of American government was so clearly
+demonstrated as to give rise to wide-spread plans for Americanization.
+
+More definite were the effects of the war on the prohibition movement.
+For many years a small but growing minority of reformers had urged the
+adoption of means for stopping the use of intoxicating liquors and they
+had been successful in procuring constitutional amendments in about half
+the states by the close of 1916. The war presented an opportunity for
+further progress. In September, 1918, they procured the passage of a
+resolution in Congress allowing the President to establish zones around
+places where war materials were manufactured; liquors were not to be
+sold within these areas. Soon afterward the manufacture of beer and wine
+was forbidden until the conclusion of the war, on the ground that the
+grains and fruits needed for the production of these beverages could
+better be used as foods. In the meantime a federal constitutional
+amendment establishing prohibition had been referred to the states for
+ratification. By January 16, 1919, it had received the necessary
+ratification by three-fourths of the states and took effect a year
+later.[11]
+
+The railroads constituted another difficult problem. Agreement seemed to
+be general that they could not be relinquished by the government to
+private control without significant changes in existing legislation, and
+several forces, especially the insistence of the President and of the
+opponents of government ownership, combined to spur Congress to act on
+the matter at an early date. The Esch-Cummins law of February 28, 1920,
+was an important addition to the body of interstate commerce
+legislation. It enlarged and increased the powers of the Interstate
+Commerce Commission; it authorized the Commission to recommend
+government loans to the railroads; established a Railroad Labor Board to
+settle disputes between the carriers and their employees; empowered the
+Commission to require the joint use of track and terminal facilities in
+emergencies; forbade the construction of new lines and the issuance of
+stocks and bonds without the consent of the Commission; directed the
+preparation and adoption of plans for the consolidation of the railway
+properties into a limited number of systems; permitted pooling under the
+authorization of the Commission; and provided for the accumulation of
+reserve funds and a fund for purchasing additions to railway equipment.
+Whether a final solution of the transportation problem or not, the new
+act embodied much of the experience gained since the passage of the law
+of 1887.
+
+In the field of politics and government an important part of
+reconstruction was the readjustment of relations between the federal
+executive and Congress. During the war it was inevitable that the
+President should provide most of the initiative in legislation; but it
+was likewise inevitable that the legislative branch should reassert
+itself as soon as possible. The fact that the consideration of the
+Treaty of Versailles necessarily concerned the Senate rather than the
+House of Representatives, gave the upper chamber an opportunity to
+attempt the repression of executive power to the proportions which had
+characterized it immediately before the war. Moreover if the members of
+the Senate should imitate the example of their predecessors in the
+conflict with President Johnson in 1867, that body might attempt to
+regain for itself the primacy in the federal government which had been
+partially lost under Cleveland's regime and completely superseded
+through Roosevelt's development of the presidential office.
+
+The course of the Treaty in the Senate was such as to stimulate any
+friction which might result from the difficult process of
+reconstruction. Despite the early sentiment favorable to prompt
+ratification, that part of the Treaty which related to a League of
+Nations met a variety of opposing forces. Some of them were based on
+personal, political and partisan considerations, and some of them
+founded upon a sincere hesitancy about adventuring into new and untried
+fields of international effort. In the main, party lines were somewhat
+strictly drawn in the Senate, the Democrats favoring and the Republicans
+opposing ratification of the treaty as it stood.[12] All debates in the
+Senate relating to the treaty were for the first time in our history
+open to the public, and popular interest was keen and sustained. Among
+people outside of Congress party lines were more commonly broken than in
+the Senate, and members of that body were deluged with petitions and
+correspondence for and against ratification. At length it appeared that
+a considerable fraction of the Senate desired ratification without any
+change whatever, a smaller number desired absolute rejection and a
+"middle group" wished ratification with certain reservations which would
+interpret or possibly amend portions of the plan for a League of
+Nations--portions which they felt were vague or dangerous to American
+interests. After long-continued discussion, the friends of the project
+were unable to muster the necessary two-thirds for ratification, and its
+enemies failed to obtain the majority required to make amendments, and
+the entire matter was accordingly postponed, pending the results of the
+presidential election of 1920.
+
+The United States, therefore, found itself after the close of the World
+War in much the same position that it had been in more than half a
+century earlier at the end of the Civil War. The unity of purpose and
+the devotion to ideals which had overcome all difficulties during the
+combat had seemingly, at least, given way to partisan diversity of
+endeavor, to strife for supremacy in government and to the avoidance of
+the great problems of reconstruction. Time, patience and controversy
+would be necessary to bring about a wise settlement. The United States
+was face to face with the greatest problems that had arisen since the
+Civil War.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The opposition to the Wilson foreign policy is best expressed in
+Theodore Roosevelt, _Fear God and Take Your Own Part_ (1916).
+Roosevelt's condonation of the invasion of Belgium is in _The Outlook_
+(Sept., 1914), "The World War." Wilson's changing attitude toward the
+war is explained in A.M. Low, _Woodrow Wilson, an Interpretation_
+(1918), but is best followed in his addresses and messages. The early
+stages of the war and American interest in it are described in Ogg; _The
+American Year Book_; J.B. McMaster, _The United States in the World War
+_(1918); J.W. Gerard, _My Four Years in Germany_ (1918), superficial but
+interesting and written by the American Ambassador; Brand Whitlock,
+_Belgium_ (2 vols., 1919), verbose, but well written by the United
+States minister to Belgium; Dodd, already mentioned; J.S. Bassett, _Our
+War with Germany_ (1919), written in excellent spirit. The President's
+address calling for a declaration of war is contained in the various
+editions of his addresses, and in _War Information Series_, No. 1, "The
+War Message and Pacts Behind It," published by the Committee on Public
+Information.
+
+The subject of federal agencies for the prosecution of the war is fully
+discussed in W.F. Willoughby, _Government Organization in War Time and
+After_ (1919); there is no adequate account of the Committee on Public
+Information. On the government and the railroads, consult F.H. Dixon in
+_Quarterly Journal of Economics_ (Aug., 1919), "Federal Operation of
+Railroads during the War." E.L. Bogart, _Direct and Indirect Costs of the
+Great World War_ (1918), is useful.
+
+Combat operations are described in the general histories of the war
+already mentioned, and in "Report of General Pershing" in War
+Department, _Annual Report_, 1918.
+
+Accounts of the Peace Conference, the Treaty and the League of Nations
+labor under the attempt to prove President Wilson right or wrong, in
+addition to such insurmountable difficulties as lack of information and
+perspective. J.S. Bassett, _Our War with Germany_ (1919), has some
+temperate chapters; Dodd is friendly to Wilson, but not offensively
+partisan; R.S. Baker, _What Wilson did at Paris_ (1919) is readable;
+J.M. Keynes, _The Economic Consequences of the Peace_ (1920), is
+interesting and designed to prove a point; see also C.H. Haskins and
+R.H. Lord, _Some Problems of the Peace Conference_ (1920); the account
+in the _American Year Book_ for 1919 lacks something of its usual
+non-partisan balance. On the League of Nations a thorough study is
+S.P.H. Duggan, _The League of Nations_ (1919). Material opposing the
+treaty may be found in _The New Republic_, _The Nation_, and the _North
+American Review_; favorable to it is the editorial page of the New York
+_Times_, whose columns contain the best day-to-day accounts of the
+debates in the Senate.
+
+A full bibliography is A.E. McKinley (ed.), _Collected Materials for the
+Study of the War_ (1918).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] As a result of this incident the Senate decided to limit somewhat
+its rule allowing unlimited debate. Under the "closure" rule adopted
+March 8, 1917, a two-thirds majority may limit discussion on any measure
+to one hour for each member.
+
+[2] War was declared against Austria on December 7, 1917. The United
+States was followed immediately by Cuba and Panama, and before the close
+of the year by Siam, Liberia, China and Brazil. Many other Central and
+South American states severed relations with Germany and before the
+close of the struggle several of them declared war.
+
+[3] The purpose and effect of Wilson's patient foreign policy were
+briefly expressed by Joseph H. Choate, a Republican advocate of early
+entry into the war, in a speech in New York on April 25, 1917. Choate
+declared that a declaration of war after the _sinking of the Lusitania_
+would have resulted in a divided country and remarked: "But we now see
+what the President was waiting for and how wisely he waited. He was
+waiting to see how fast and how far the American people would keep pace
+with him and stand up for any action that he proposed."
+
+[4] An official of the War Department estimated that the lumber used in
+the sixteen cantonments if made into sidewalks would go four times
+around the world.
+
+[5] Roumania had entered the conflict in August, 1916, but had been
+immediately overrun, her capital Bucharest taken in December, and that
+country rendered no longer important before the entrance of America.
+
+[6] The earlier draft law resulted in about 11,000,000 registrants. The
+draft ages were 21-30 years. Under the later law the ages were 18-45.
+
+The so-called Training Detachments had already been established,
+providing for the training of mechanics, carpenters, electricians,
+telegraphers, and other necessary skilled artisans at a number of
+colleges and scientific institutions.
+
+Almost coincidently with the expansion of the army came an epidemic of
+the Spanish influenza. Hitherto the health of the army had been
+extraordinarily good, but the epidemic was so widespread and so
+malignant in its attack that during eight weeks there were more than
+twice as many deaths as in the entire army for the year preceding.
+
+[7] By November 11, 26,059 prisoners and 847 guns had been captured and
+at one point near Sedan the American advance had covered twenty-five
+miles. 1,200,000 American troops had been engaged and the weight of the
+ammunition fired was greater than that used by the Union armies during
+the entire Civil War. In November the American army held twenty-two per
+cent. of the western front. The losses of the A.E.F. during the entire
+period of its activities up to November 18, 1918, were by death 53,160;
+the wounded numbered 179,625.
+
+[8] An armistice had been signed with Turkey on October 31, and with
+Austria on November 4.
+
+[9] Something little short of a revolution in American international
+relations was taking place when the President of the United States
+received in Paris lists of callers such as that mentioned in the
+newspapers of May 17, 1919:
+
+    Prince Charron of the Siamese delegation; Dr. Markoff, of the
+    Carpatho-Russian Committee; M. Ollivier, President of the French
+    National Union of Railwayman; M. Jacob, a representative of the
+    Celtic Circle of Paris; Messrs. Bureo and Jacob of the Uruguyan
+    delegation; Turkhan Pasha, the Albanian leader; Enrique Villegas,
+    former Foreign Minister of Chile; Foreign Minister Benez and M.
+    Kramer, of the Czecho-slovak delegation, to discuss the question
+    of Silesia and Teschen; Deputy Damour, concerning the American
+    commemorative statue to be erected in the Gironde River; a
+    delegation from the Parliament of Kuban, Northern Caucasus; the
+    Archbishop of Trebizond, Joseph Reinach, the French historian, and
+    Governor Richard L. Manning of South Carolina.
+
+[10] The Secretary of War estimated the total of all these groups at
+13,650.000
+
+[11] The Eighteenth Amendment is as follows: Section 1. After one
+year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or
+transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof
+into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all
+territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes
+is hereby prohibited.
+
+Section 2. The Congress and the several states shall have concurrent
+power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
+
+Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been
+ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the
+several states, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from
+the date of the submission hereof to the states by the Congress.
+
+[12] As the Congress that which had been elected in 1918, the Senate was
+controlled by the Republicans.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The United States Since The Civil War
+by Charles Ramsdell Lingley
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK U.S. SINCE THE CIVIL WAR ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The United States Since The Civil War
+by Charles Ramsdell Lingley
+
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+Title: The United States Since The Civil War
+
+Author: Charles Ramsdell Lingley
+
+Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9868]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 25, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK U.S. SINCE THE CIVIL WAR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon, Beth Trapaga
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+THE UNITED STATES
+
+SINCE THE CIVIL WAR
+
+
+By
+
+CHARLES RAMSDELL LINGLEY
+Professor of History, Dartmouth College.
+
+
+TO MY WIFE
+
+
+1920.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+To write an account of the history of the United States since the
+Civil War without bias, without misstatements of fact and without the
+omission of matters that ought to be included, would be to perform a
+miracle. I have felt no wonder-working near me. I can claim only to
+have attempted to overcome the natural limitations of having been
+brought up in a particular region and with a traditional political,
+economic and social philosophy. I have tried to present as many sides
+of every question as the limitations of space permitted and to look
+sympathetically upon every section, every party and every individual,
+because the sympathetic critic seems to me most likely to discover the
+truth.
+
+It used to be believed that history could not be written until at
+least half a century had elapsed after the events which were to be
+chronicled. It is of course true that only after the lapse of time
+can students gain access to ample documentary material, rid themselves
+of partisan prejudice and attain the necessary perspective. Unhappily,
+however, the citizen who takes part in public affairs or who votes in
+a political campaign cannot wait for the labors of half a century. He
+must judge on the basis of whatever facts he can find near at hand.
+Next to a balanced intelligence, the greatest need of the citizen in
+the performance of his political duties is a substantial knowledge
+of the recent past of public problems. It is impossible to give a
+sensible opinion upon the transportation problem, the relation between
+government and industry, international relations, current politics, the
+leaders in public affairs, and other peculiarly American interests
+without some understanding of the United States since the Civil War. I
+have tried in a small way to make some of this information conveniently
+available without attempting to beguile myself or others into the
+belief that I have written with the accuracy that will characterize
+later work.
+
+Some day somebody will delineate the _spiritual_ history of America
+since the Civil War--the compound of tradition, discontent,
+aspiration, idealism, materialism, selfishness, and hope that mark the
+floundering progress of these United States through the last half
+century. He will read widely, ponder deeply, and tune his spirit with
+care to the task which he undertakes. I have not attempted this phase
+of our history, yet I believe that no account is complete without it.
+
+I have drawn heavily on others who have written in this field--Andrews,
+Beard, Paxson and Peck, and especially on the volumes written for the
+American Nation series by Professors Dunning, Sparks, Dewey, Latané
+and Ogg. Haworth's _United States in Our Own Time, 1865-1920_, was
+unfortunately printed too late to give me the benefit of the author's
+well-known scholarship. Many friends have generously assisted me. My
+colleagues, Professors F.A. Updyke, C.A. Phillips, G.R. Wicker, H.D.
+Dozier, and Malcolm Keir have read the manuscript of individual
+chapters. Professor E.E. Day of Harvard University gave me his counsel
+on several economic topics. Professor George H. Haynes of the Worcester
+Polytechnic Institute, Professor B.B. Kendrick of Columbia University,
+Professor W.T. Root of the University of Wisconsin, and Professors L.B.
+Richardson and F.M. Anderson of Dartmouth College have read the entire
+manuscript. Officials at the Dartmouth College Library, the Columbia
+University Library, and the Library of Congress gave me especial
+facilities for work. Two college generations of students at Dartmouth
+have suffered me to try out on them the arrangement of the chapters as
+well as the contents of the text. Harper and Bros. allowed me to use a
+map appearing in Ogg, _National Progress_, and D. Appleton and Co. have
+permitted the use of maps appearing in Johnson and Van Metre,
+_Principles of Railroad Transportation_; A.J. Nystrom and Co. and the
+McKinley Publishing Co. have allowed me to draw new maps on outlines
+copyrighted by them. At all points I have had the counsel of my wife
+and of Professor Max Farrand of Yale University.
+
+CHARLES R. LINGLEY.
+Dartmouth College, June 14, 1920.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+    I RECONSTRUCTION AND ITS AFTERMATH
+   II IN PRESIDENT GRANT'S TIME
+  III ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS OF THE NEW ERA
+   IV POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND OF THE NEW ISSUES
+    V THE NEW ISSUES
+   VI THE ADMINISTRATION OF RUTHERFORD B. HAYES
+  VII THE POLITICS OF THE EARLY EIGHTIES
+ VIII THE OVERTURN OF 1884
+   IX TRANSPORTATION AND ITS CONTROL
+    X EXTREME REPUBLICANISM
+   XI INDUSTRY AND _LAISSEZ FAIRE_
+  XII DEMOCRATIC DEMORALIZATION
+ XIII THE TREND OF DIPLOMACY
+  XIV THE RISE OF THE WAGE EARNER
+   XV MONETARY AND FINANCIAL PROBLEMS
+  XVI 1896
+ XVII REPUBLICAN DOMINATION AND WAR WITH SPAIN
+XVIII IMPERIALISM
+  XIX THE BEGINNING OF A NEW CENTURY
+   XX THEODORE ROOSEVELT
+  XXI POLITICS, 1908-1912
+ XXII ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL TENDENCIES SINCE 1896
+XXIII LATER INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
+ XXIV WOODROW WILSON
+  XXV THE UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD WAR
+
+INDEX
+
+
+
+
+MAPS AND DIAGRAMS
+
+The growth of the United States from 1776 to 1867
+
+Popular vote in presidential elections, 1868 to 1896
+
+Economic interests, 1890
+
+Relative prices, 1865 to 1890
+
+The New West
+
+Railroad mileage, 1860 to 1910, in thousands of miles
+
+Map of the United States showing railroads in 1870
+
+Map of the United States showing railroads in 1890 (The maps showing
+the railroads are from Johnson and Van Metre, Principles of Railroad
+Transportation, by courtesy of the publishers, D. Appleton & Co.)
+
+Financial operations, 1875 to 1897, in millions of dollars
+
+Total silver coinage, 1878 to 1894, in millions of dollars
+
+Net gold in the treasury, by months, January, 1893, to February,
+1896, in millions of dollars
+
+The presidential election of 1896
+
+The Philippines
+
+The Spanish-American War in the West Indies
+
+Campaign about Santiago
+
+The chief foreign elements in the population of the United States
+
+The cost of food, 1900 to 1912
+
+Morgan-Hill railroads as listed shortly after 1900
+
+Daily newspaper circulation, 1918
+
+Election of 1904 by counties
+
+Caribbean interests of the United States
+
+Election of 1916 by counties
+
+The Western Front
+
+Strength of the American Expeditionary Force, July 1, 1917, to
+November 1, 1918
+
+The United States--1920
+
+The cost of food, January, 1913, to January, 1920
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+RECONSTRUCTION AND ITS AFTERMATH
+
+Abraham Lincoln in the presidential chair was regarded by many of the
+politicians of his party as an "unutterable calamity"; and while the
+news of Lincoln's assassination was received with expressions of genuine
+grief, the accession of Vice-President Andrew Johnson was looked upon as
+a "Godsend to the country." As the Civil War came to a close, Lincoln
+opposed severe punishments for the leaders of the Confederacy; he urged
+respect for the rights of the southern people; he desired to recognize
+the existence of a Union element in the South, to restore the states to
+their usual relations with as little ill-feeling as possible, and in the
+restoration process to interfere but little with the normal powers of
+the states. Johnson, on the contrary, "breathed fire and hemp."
+"Treason," he asserted over and again, "should be made odious, and
+traitors must be punished and impoverished. Their great plantations must
+be seized, and divided into small farms and sold to honest, industrious
+men." For a time it seemed that the curtain would go down on the tragedy
+of Civil War only to rise immediately on the execution of the
+Confederate leaders and the confiscation of their property. A large and
+active group of Washington politicians believed in the necessity of a
+stern accounting with the "rebels." Lincoln's gentleness seemed to these
+bitter northerners like a calamity; Johnson's vindictiveness like a
+Godsend to the country. In the conflict between the policy of clemency
+and the policy of severity is to be found the beginning of the period of
+reconstruction.
+
+Andrew Johnson was a compact, sturdy figure, his eyes black, his
+complexion swarthy. In politics he had always been a Democrat. So
+diverse were his characteristics that one is tempted to ascribe two
+personalities to him. He was a tenacious man, possessed of a rude
+intellectual force, a rough-and-ready stump speaker, intensely loyal,
+industrious, sincere, self-reliant. His courage was put to the test
+again and again, and nobody ever said that it failed. His loyalty held
+him in the Union in 1861, although he was a senator from Tennessee and
+his state as well as his southern colleagues were withdrawing. His
+public and private integrity withstood a hostile investigation that
+included the testimony of all strata of society, from cabinet officers
+to felons in prison. Later, at the most critical moment of his whole
+career, when he had hardly a friend on whom to lean, he was unflurried,
+dignified, undismayed.
+
+Although Johnson was born in North Carolina, the greater part of his
+life was spent in eastern Tennessee. His education was of the slightest.
+His wife taught him to write, and while he plied his tailor's trade she
+read books to him that appealed to his eager intellect. When scarcely of
+voting age he became mayor of the town in which he lived and by sheer
+force of character made his way up into the state legislature, the
+federal House of Representatives and the Senate. President Lincoln made
+him military governor of Tennessee in 1862. In 1864 many Democrats and
+most Republicans joined to form a Union party, and in order to emphasize
+its non-sectional and non-partisan character they nominated Andrew
+Johnson as Lincoln's running mate. And now this unschooled, poor-white,
+slave-holding, Jeffersonian, states-rights Democrat had become President
+of the United States.
+
+It was scarcely to be expected that a man who had fought his way to the
+fore in eastern Tennessee during those controversial years would possess
+the characteristics of a diplomat. Even his friends found him
+uncommunicative, too often defiant and violent in controversy,
+irritating in manners, indiscreet, and lacking flexibility in the
+management of men. The messages which he wrote as President were
+dignified and judicious, and his addresses were not lacking in power,
+but he was prone to indulge in unseemly repartee with his hearers when
+speaking on the stump. He exchanged epithets with bystanders who were
+all too ready to spur him on with their "Give it to 'em, Andy!" and
+"Bully for you, Andy!" giving the presidency the "ill-savor of a corner
+grocery" and filling his supporters with amazement and chagrin. The
+North soon looked upon him as a vulgar boor and remembered that he had
+been intoxicated when inaugurated as Vice-President. Unhappily, too, he
+was distrustful by nature, giving his confidence reluctantly and with
+reserve, so that he was almost without friends or spokesmen in either
+house of Congress. His policies have commended themselves, on the whole,
+even after the scrutiny of half a century. The extent to which he was
+able to put them into effect is part of the history of reconstruction.
+
+The close of the Civil War found the nation as well as the several
+sections of the country facing a variety of complicated and pressing
+social, economic and political problems. Vast armies had to be
+demobilized and re-absorbed into the economic life of the nation.
+Production of the material of war had to give way to the production of
+machinery, the building of railroads and the tilling of the soil. The
+South faced economic demoralization. The federal government had to
+determine the basis on which the lately rebellious states should again
+become normal units in the nation, and the civil, social and economic
+status of the negro had to be readjusted in the light of the outcome of
+the war. Most of these problems, moreover, had to be solved through
+political agencies, such as party conventions and legislatures, with all
+the limitations of partisanship that these terms convey. And they had
+obviously to be solved through human beings possessed of all the
+prejudices and passions that the war had aroused: through Andrew Johnson
+with his force and tactlessness; through able, domineering and
+vindictive Thaddeus Stevens; through narrow and idealistic Charles
+Sumner and demagogic Benjamin F. Butler; as well as through finer
+spirits like William Pitt Fessenden and Lyman Trumbull.
+
+In their attitude toward the South, the people of the North, as well as
+the politicians, fell into two groups. The smaller or radical party
+desired a stern reckoning with all "rebels" and the imprisonment and
+execution of the leaders.[1] They hoped, also, to effect an immediate
+extension to the negroes of the right to vote. It was this faction that
+welcomed the accession of Johnson to the Presidency. The other group was
+much the larger and was inclined toward gentler measures and toward
+leaving the question of suffrage largely for the future. Lincoln and his
+Secretary of State, Seward, were representative of this party. The
+attitude of the South toward the North was more difficult to determine.
+To be sure the rebellious states were beaten, and recognized the fact.
+There was general admission that slavery was at an end. But careful
+observers differed as to whether the South accepted its defeat in good
+faith and would treat the blacks justly, or whether it was sullen,
+unrepentant and ready to adopt any measures short of actual slavery to
+repress the negro.
+
+In theory, the union of the states was still intact. The South had
+attempted to secede and had failed. Practically, however, the southern
+states were out of connection with the remainder of the nation and some
+method must be found of reconstructing the broken federation. President
+Lincoln had already outlined a plan in his proclamation of December 8,
+1863. Excluding the leaders of the Confederacy, he offered pardon to all
+others who had participated in the rebellion, if they would take an oath
+of loyalty to the Union and agree to accept the laws and proclamations
+concerning slavery. As soon as the number of citizens thus pardoned in
+each state reached ten per cent. of the number of votes cast in that
+state at the election of 1860, they might establish a government which
+he would recognize. It was his expectation that a loyal body of
+reconstructed voters would collect around this nucleus, so that in no
+great while the entire South would be restored to normal relations. At
+the same time he called attention to the fact that under the
+Constitution the admission into Congress of senators and representatives
+sent by these governments must rest exclusively with the houses of
+Congress themselves. In pursuance of his policy he had already appointed
+military governors in states where the federal army had secured a
+foothold, and they directed the re-establishment of civil government.
+The radicals opposed the plan because it left much power, including the
+question of negro suffrage, in the hands of the states. A contest
+between Congress and the executive was clearly imminent when the
+assassin's bullet removed the patient and conciliatory Lincoln.
+
+Lincoln's determination to leave control over their restoration as far
+as possible in the hands of the states was in line with Johnson's
+Democratic, states-rights theories. Moreover, the new executive retained
+his predecessor's cabinet, including Seward, whose influence was
+promptly thrown on the side of moderation. To the consternation of the
+radicals the President issued a proclamation announcing a reconstruction
+policy which substantially followed that of Lincoln. Like his
+predecessor he intended to confine the voting power to the whites,
+leaving to the states themselves the question whether the ballot should
+be extended to any of the blacks. Wherever Lincoln had not already
+acted, he appointed military governors who directed the establishment of
+state governments, the revival of the functions of county and municipal
+officials, the repeal of the acts of secession, the repudiation of the
+war debts, and the election of new state legislatures, governors,
+senators and representatives. The Thirteenth Amendment to the
+Constitution, abolishing slavery, was ratified by the new legislatures
+and declared in effect December 18, 1865.
+
+During the last half of the year, the President's policy met with wide
+approval among the people of the North, where both Republicans and
+Democrats expressed satisfaction with his conciliatory attitude. The
+South was not unpleased, as was indicated by the speed with which men
+presented themselves for pardon and assisted in setting up new state
+governments. Nevertheless there were disquieting possibilities of
+dissension. Northern radicals could be counted upon to oppose so
+moderate a policy. There was a reaction, too, against the great power
+which the executive arm of the government had exercised in war time.
+Congress felt that it had been thrust aside, its functions reduced and
+its prestige diminished. It could be looked to for an assertion of its
+desire to dominate reconstruction. Finally when ex-confederates began to
+be elected to office, many a northerner shook his head and wondered
+whether the South was attempting to get into the saddle once more.
+
+When Congress convened in December, 1865, its members held a wide
+variety of opinions in regard to the best method of restoring the
+confederate states to the Union. On one point, however, there was some
+agreement--that Congress ought to withhold approval of executive
+reconstruction until it could decide upon a program of its own. Led by
+Thaddeus Stevens, the radical leader of the House, a joint congressional
+committee of fifteen was appointed to report whether any of the southern
+state governments were entitled to representation in Congress. For the
+present, all of them, even the President's own state, were to be denied
+representation. With Stevens as chairman of the House Committee on
+Reconstruction and Johnson in the President's chair, a battle was
+inevitable, in which quarter would be neither asked nor given.
+
+Unhappily for themselves, the southern states played unwittingly into
+the hands of Stevens and his radical colleagues. The outcome of the war
+had placed upon the freedmen responsibilities which they could not be
+expected to carry. To many of them emancipation meant merely cessation
+from work. Vagabondage was common. Rumor was widespread that the
+government was going to give each negro forty acres of land and a mule,
+and the blacks loafed about, awaiting the division. The strict
+regulations which had surrounded the former slave were discarded and it
+was necessary to accustom him to a new regime. "The race was free, but
+without status, without leaders, without property, and without
+education." Fully alive to the dangers of giving unrestricted freedom
+to so large a body of ignorant negroes, the southern whites passed the
+"black codes," which placed numerous limitations on the civil liberty
+of "persons of color." In some cases they were forbidden to carry arms,
+to act as witnesses in court except in cases involving their own race,
+and to serve on juries or in the militia. Vagrancy laws enabled the
+magistrates to set unemployed blacks at work under arrangements that
+amounted almost to peonage. It is now evident that the South was
+actuated by what it considered the necessities of its situation and
+not merely by a spirit of defiance. Yet the fear on the part of the
+North that slavery was being restored under a disguise was not
+unnatural. Radical northern newspapers and leading extremists in Congress
+exaggerated the importance of the codes until they seemed like a
+systematic attempt to evade the results of the war. As Republican
+leaders in Congress saw the satisfaction created in the South by the
+President's policy, and discovered that northern Democrats were rallying
+to his support, the jealousies of partisanship caused them still further
+to increase their grip on the processes of reconstruction. A disquieting
+by-product of the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, also began
+to appear. Hitherto only three-fifths of the negroes had been counted in
+apportioning representation in the House of Representatives. As soon as
+the slaves became free, however, they were counted as if they were
+whites, and thereby the strength of the South in Congress would be
+increased. It was hardly to be expected that the North would view such a
+development with satisfaction.
+
+The first action of the leaders in Congress was the introduction of a
+bill to continue and extend the powers of the Freedmen's Bureau, a
+federal organization which supervised charitable relief given the
+negroes, protected them in making contracts for labor and assumed a sort
+of guardianship over the race in making its transition out of slavery.
+The new measure was intended to continue this federal tutelage of the
+blacks. The President's veto of the bill, February 19, 1866, served to
+widen the breach between him and Congress and thereby postponed still
+further the admission of the representatives of the southern state
+governments. Three days later Johnson addressed a crowd which collected
+before the White House. In the course of his speech he lost control of
+himself to such an extent as to indulge in undignified remarks and
+personalities, and even to charge leaders in Congress with seeking to
+destroy the fundamental principles of American government. Thoughtful
+men everywhere were dismayed. In the meantime a Civil Rights bill was
+pending in Congress, the purpose of which was to declare negroes to be
+citizens of the United States and to give them rights equal to those
+accorded other citizens, notwithstanding local or state laws and codes.
+The President objected to the bill as an unconstitutional invasion of
+the rights of the states, but it was promptly passed over the veto.
+Scarcely any members of Congress now supported him except the Democrats.
+The conservative or conciliatory Republicans were lost to him for good.
+Throughout the North it was felt that protection must be accorded the
+freedmen against the black codes, and when the President opposed it he
+lost ground outside of Congress as well as in it. "From that time
+Johnson was beaten."
+
+Stevens in the House and Sumner and others in the Senate were now in a
+position to press successfully a stern, congressional reconstruction
+policy to replace that of the executive. The first item in the radical
+program was the Fourteenth Amendment, which passed Congress in June,
+1866, although it did not become of force until 1868. It contained four
+sections: (1) making citizens of all persons born or naturalized in the
+United States and forbidding states to abridge their rights; (2)
+providing for the reduction of the representation in Congress of any
+state that denied the vote to any citizens except those guilty of
+crimes; (3) disabling confederate leaders from holding political office
+except with the permission of Congress; and (4) prohibiting the payment
+of confederate debts. The first section was, of course, designed to put
+the civil rights of the negro into the Constitution where they would be
+safe from hostile legislation. The second sought to get negro suffrage
+into the South by indirection at a time when a positive suffrage
+amendment could not be passed. The third was to take the pardoning
+power out of executive hands.
+
+At this point there came a halt in the controversy until the country
+could be heard from in the congressional elections of 1866. Both sides
+made unusual efforts to organize political sentiment. Both attempted to
+demonstrate their thoroughly national character by holding conventions
+attended by southern as well as northern delegates. Each angled for the
+soldier vote by encouraging conferences of veterans. Late in July
+occurred an incident which the radicals were able to use to advantage.
+A crowd of negroes attending a convention in New Orleans in behalf of
+suffrage for their race became engaged in a fight with white
+anti-suffragists and many of the blacks were killed. The riot was
+commonly referred to in the North as a "massacre," the moral of which
+was that the negroes must be protected against the unrepentant rebels.
+But it was Johnson himself who furnished greatest aid to his
+adversaries. Having been invited to speak in Chicago, he determined
+upon an electioneering trip, "swinging around the circle," he called
+it. Again he was guilty of gross indiscretions. He made personal
+allusions, held angry colloquies with the crowd and at one place met
+such opposition that he had to retire unheard. It mattered little that
+the greater part of his speeches were sound and substantial. His lapses
+were held up to public scorn and he returned to Washington amid the
+hoots of his enemies. It was commonly believed that he had been
+intoxicated. Probably no orator, _The Nation_ sarcastically remarked,
+ever accomplished so much by a fortnight's speaking. There could be
+little doubt as to the outcome of the elections. The Republicans
+carried almost every northern state and obtained a two-thirds majority
+in each house of Congress, with which to override vetoes.
+
+As if impelled by some perverse fate the southern whites during the fall
+and winter of 1866-67 did the thing for which the bitterest enemy of the
+South might have wished. Except in Tennessee, the legislature of every
+confederate state refused with almost complete unanimity to ratify the
+Fourteenth Amendment. Natural as the act was, it gave the North
+apparently overwhelming proof that the former "rebels" were still
+defiant. Encouraged by the results of the election and aroused by the
+attitude of the South toward the Amendment, Congress proceeded to
+encroach upon prerogatives that had hitherto been considered purely
+executive, and also to pass a most extreme plan of reconstruction.
+
+The first of these measures, the Tenure of Office Act, was passed over a
+veto on March 2, 1867. By it the President was forbidden to remove civil
+officers except with the consent of the Senate. Even the members of the
+Cabinet could not be dismissed without the permission of the upper
+house, a provision inserted for the protection of Edwin M. Stanton, the
+Secretary of War. Stanton was in sympathy with the radical leaders in
+Congress and it was essential to them that he be kept in this post of
+advantage. General Grant, who had charge of the military establishment,
+was made almost independent of the President by a law drafted secretly
+by Stanton. On the same day, and over a veto also, was passed the
+Reconstruction Act, the most important piece of legislation during the
+decade after the war. It represented the desires of Thaddeus Stevens and
+was passed mainly because of his masterful leadership. At the outset the
+new Act declared the existing southern state governments to be illegal
+and inadequate, and divided the South into five military districts. Over
+each was to be a commanding general who should preserve order, and
+continue civil officers and civil courts, or replace them with military
+tribunals as he wished. Under his direction each state was to frame and
+adopt a new constitution which must provide for negro suffrage. When
+Congress should approve the constitution and when a legislature elected
+under its provisions should adopt the Fourteenth Amendment, the state
+might be readmitted to the Union.
+
+The Reconstruction Act was remarkable in several features. The provision
+imposing negro suffrage was carried through the Senate with difficulty
+and only as the result of the tireless activity of Charles Sumner.
+Sumner and other radicals were determined that the blacks should be
+enfranchised in order that they might protect themselves from hostile
+local legislation and also in order that they might form part of a
+southern Republican party. Even more noteworthy was the military
+character of the Act. The President had already exercised his
+prerogative of declaring the country at peace on August 20, 1866, more
+than six months before the Act was passed. In the decision in the
+Milligan case, which preceded the Act by nearly three months, the
+Supreme Court had decided that military tribunals were illegal except
+where war made the operation of civil courts impossible. Military
+reconstruction was illogical, not to say unlawful, therefore, but
+Congress was more interested in a method that promised the speedy
+accomplishment of its purposes than it was in the opinions of the
+executive and judicial departments.
+
+Despite his dissent from its provisions, the President at once set
+military reconstruction in operation. When he mitigated its harshness,
+however, where latitude was allowed him, Congress passed additional
+acts, over the veto, of course, extending and defining the powers of
+the commanding generals. Armed with complete authority, the generals
+proceeded to remove many of the ordinary civil officers and to replace
+them with their own appointees, to compel order by means of the
+soldiery, to set aside court decrees and even to close the courts and
+to enact legislation. In the meanwhile a total of 703,000 black and
+627,000 white voters were registered, delegates to constitutional
+conventions were elected, constitutions were drawn up and adopted which
+permitted negro suffrage, and state officers and legislators elected.
+In conformity with the provisions of the Act, the newly chosen
+legislatures ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution,
+sent representatives and senators to Washington, where they were
+admitted to Congress, and by 1871 the last confederate state was
+reconstructed.
+
+The commanding generals were honest and efficient, in the main, even if
+their stern rule was distasteful to the South, but the regime of the
+newly elected state officers and legislators was a period of dishonesty
+and incapacity. Most of the experienced and influential whites had been
+excluded from participation in politics through the operation of the
+presidential proclamations and the reconstruction acts. In all the
+legislatures there were large numbers of blacks--sometimes, indeed, they
+were in the majority. Two parties appeared. The radical or Republican
+group included the negroes, a few southern whites, commonly called
+"scalawags," and various northerners known as "carpet-baggers." These
+last were in some cases mere adventurers and in others men of ability
+who were attracted to the South for one reason or another, and took
+a prominent part in political affairs. The old-time whites held both
+kinds in equal detestation. The other party was called conservative or
+Democratic, and was composed of the great mass of the whites. Many of
+them had been Whigs before the war, but in the face of negro-Republican
+domination, nearly all threw in their lot with the conservatives.
+
+Not all the activities of the legislatures were bad. Provisions were
+made for education, for example, that were in line with the needs of
+the states. Nevertheless, their conduct in the main was such as to
+drive the South almost into revolt. In the South Carolina legislature
+only twenty-two members out of 155 could read and write. The negroes
+were in the majority and although they paid only $143 in taxes
+altogether, they helped add $20,000,000 to the state debt in four
+years. In Arkansas the running expenses of the state increased 1500
+per cent.; in Louisiana the public debt mounted from $14,000,000 to
+$48,000,000 between 1868 and 1871. Only ignorance and dishonesty could
+explain such extravagance and waste. Submission, however, was not
+merely advisable; it presented the only prospect of peace. Open
+resentment was largely suppressed, but it was inevitable that the
+whites should become hostile to the blacks, and that they should
+dislike the Republican party for its ruthless imposition of a system
+which governed them without their consent and which placed them at the
+mercy of the incompetent and unscrupulous. A system which made a negro
+the successor of Jefferson Davis in the United States Senate could
+scarcely fail to throw the majority of southern whites into the ranks
+of the enemies of the Republican organization.[2]
+
+One step remained to ensure the continuance of negro suffrage--the
+adoption of a constitutional provision. In 1869 Congress referred to the
+states the Fifteenth Amendment, which was declared in force a year
+later. By its terms the United States and the states are forbidden to
+abridge the right of citizens to vote on account of race, color or
+previous condition of servitude.
+
+While radical reconstruction was being forced to its bitter conclusion,
+the opponents of the President were maturing plans for his impeachment
+and exclusion from office. By the terms of the Constitution, the chief
+executive may be impeached for "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes
+and Misdemeanors." Early in the struggle between President Johnson and
+Congress a few members of the House of Representatives urged an attempt
+to impeach him. Such extremists as James M. Ashley of Ohio, and Benjamin
+F. Butler of Massachusetts, believed that he had even been implicated in
+the plot to assassinate Lincoln. A thorough-going search through his
+private as well as his public career failed to produce any evidence that
+could be interpreted as sufficient to meet constitutional demands, and a
+motion to impeach was voted down in the House by a large majority. So
+indiscreet a man as the President, however, was likely at some time to
+furnish a reason for further effort. The occasion came in the removal of
+the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton.
+
+Stanton, although of a domineering and brusque personality, had ably
+administered the War Department under Lincoln and Johnson. During the
+controversy between the President and Congress, Stanton had remained in
+the Cabinet but was closely in touch with his chief's opponents and
+had even drafted one of the reconstruction acts. Johnson had tolerated
+the questionable conduct of his Secretary, despite the advice of many
+of his supporters, until August 5, 1867, when he requested Stanton's
+resignation. The latter took refuge behind the Tenure of Office Act,
+denying the right of the President to remove him, but yielding his
+office at Johnson's insistence. This episode had occurred during a
+recess of Congress and, in accord with the law, the removal of Stanton
+was reported when it convened in December. The Senate at once refused
+to concur and Stanton returned to his office. The President now found
+himself forced, by what he regarded as an unconstitutional law, into
+the unbearable position of including one of his enemies within his
+official family, and once more he ordered the Secretary to retire. But
+meanwhile the House of Representatives had been active and had on
+February 24, 1868, impeached the President for "high crimes and
+misdemeanors."
+
+The trial was conducted before the Senate, as the Constitution
+provides, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court acting as the
+presiding officer. The House chose a board of seven managers to conduct
+the prosecution, of whom Thaddeus Stevens and Benjamin F. Butler were
+best known. The President was defended by able counsel, including
+former Attorney-General Stanbery, Benjamin R. Curtis, who had earlier
+sat upon the Supreme Court, and William M. Evarts, an eminent lawyer
+and leader of the bar in New York. The charges, although eleven in
+number, centered about four accusations: (1) that the dismissal of
+Secretary Stanton was contrary to the Tenure of Office Act; (2) that
+the President had declared that part of a certain act of Congress was
+unconstitutional; (3) that he had attempted to bring Congress into
+disgrace in his speeches; and (4) that in general he had opposed the
+execution of several acts of Congress. The President's counsel asked
+for forty days in which to prepare their case. They were given ten,
+although members of the House had been preparing for more than a year
+to resort to impeachment. The trial lasted from early March to late
+May.
+
+As the trial wore on, it became increasingly evident that the House had
+but little substance on which to base an impeachment, and that the force
+back of it was intense hatred of the President. It was made clear to
+senators who were inclined to waver towards the side of acquittal that
+their political careers were at an end if they failed to vote guilty.
+The general conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church even appointed
+an hour of prayer that the Senate might be moved to convict. The lawyers
+for the defense so far outgeneraled the prosecutors that one who reads
+the records at the present day finds difficulty in thinking of them as
+more than the account of a pitiful farce. At length on May 16 the Senate
+was prepared to make its decision. The last charge was voted upon first.
+It was a very general accusation, drawn up by Stevens, and seemed most
+likely to secure the necessary two-thirds for conviction. Fifty-four
+members would vote. Twelve of them were Democrats and were known to be
+for acquittal. The majority of the Republicans were for conviction. A
+small group had given no indication of their position, and their votes
+would be the decisive ones. As the roll was called each senator replied
+"Guilty" or "Not guilty," while floor and galleries counted off the vote
+as the knitting women clicked off the day's toll of heads during the
+days when the guillotine made a reign of terror in France. The result
+was thirty-five votes for conviction and nineteen for acquittal. As
+thirty-six were necessary, Johnson had escaped. A recess of ten days was
+taken during which the prosecution sought some shred of evidence which
+might prove that some one of the nineteen had accepted a bribe for his
+vote, but to no avail. When the Senate convened again there was no
+change in the vote on the second and third articles, and the attempt to
+convict was abandoned.
+
+For the first time in many months Johnson enjoyed a respite from the
+attacks of his foes. Stanton relinquished his office, and the integrity
+of the executive power was preserved. The race of the dictator of the
+House had been run, for Stevens lived less than three months after the
+trial.
+
+The continuous controversies of the Johnson administration almost
+completely pressed into the background two diplomatic accomplishments of
+no little importance. The more dramatic of these related to the French
+invasion of Mexico. During 1861, naval vessels of England, France and
+Spain had entered Mexican ports in order to compel the payment of debts
+said to be due those countries, but England and Spain had soon withdrawn
+and had left France to proceed alone. French troops thereupon had
+invaded the country, captured Mexico City and established an empire with
+Archduke Maximilian of Austria as its head, despite the protests and
+opposition of the Mexicans under their leader Juarez. The United States
+had expressed dissent and alarm, meanwhile, but because of the war was
+in no position to take action.
+
+As soon as civil strife was finished, however, Johnson and Seward took
+vigorous steps. An army under General Sheridan was sent to the border,
+and diplomatic pressure was exerted to convince France of the
+desirability of withdrawal. The occupation of Mexico was, apparently,
+not popular in France, and in the face of American opposition the French
+government sought a means of dropping the project. Accordingly the
+invading forces were withdrawn early in 1867, leaving the hapless
+Maximilian to the Mexicans, by whom he was subsequently seized and
+executed.
+
+While the Mexican difficulty was being brought to a successful outcome,
+the government of Russia offered to sell to the United States her
+immense Alaskan possessions west and northwest of Canada. Secretary
+Seward was enthusiastically disposed to accept the offer and a treaty
+was accordingly drawn up on March 30, 1867, providing for the
+acquisition of the territory for $7,200,000. The Senate, however, was
+far less inclined to seize the opportunity. Little was known about
+Alaska, and the cost seemed almost prohibitive in view of the financial
+strains caused by the war. Nevertheless the inclination to acquire
+territory was strong and there was a widespread desire to accede to the
+wishes of Russia who was understood to have been well-disposed toward
+the United States during the war. Under the operation of these forces
+the Senate changed its attitude and ratified the treaty on April 9,
+1867. By this act the United States came into possession of an area
+measuring nearly 600,000 square miles, and stores of fish, furs, timber,
+coal and precious metals whose size is even yet little understood.
+
+It was not long before it became apparent that radical reconstruction
+had been founded too little upon the hard facts of social and political
+conditions in the South, and too much upon benevolent but mistaken
+theories, and upon prejudices, partisanship and emotion. It was
+inevitable that there should be an aftermath.
+
+At the close of reconstruction in 1871, the southern negro was a citizen
+of civil and political importance. As a voter, he was on an equality
+with the whites; he belonged to the Republican party and his party was a
+powerful factor in the politics of the South; his position was secured,
+or at least seemed to be secured, by amendments to the federal
+Constitution. Legally and constitutionally his position appeared to be
+impregnable. In the minds of the southern white, however, the amendments
+vied with military reconstruction in their injustice and unwisdom. To
+his mind they constituted an attempt to abolish the belief of the white
+man in the essential inferiority of the black, to make the pyramid of
+government stand on its apex, and to place the very issues of existence
+within the power of the congenitally unfit. To the discontent aroused by
+war were added political and racial antagonism, which blazed at times
+into fury. The southern whites began to invent methods for overcoming
+the power of the freedmen in politics and for insuring themselves
+against possible danger of violence at the hands of the blacks.
+
+The most famous device was the Ku Klux Klan or the Invisible Empire, a
+somewhat loosely organized secret society which originated in Tennessee
+during the turmoil immediately after the close of the war. In theory and
+practice its operations were simple and effective. Its chief officials
+were the Grand Wizard, the Grand Dragon, the Grand Titan. Local branches
+were Dens, each headed by a Grand Cyclops. The Den worked usually at
+night, when the members assembled clad in long white robes and white
+masks or hoods, discussed cases which needed attention, and then rode
+forth on horses whose bodies were covered and whose feet were muffled.
+The exploits of the Klan expanded, in the exaggerated stories common
+among the negroes, into the most amazing achievements. The members were
+thought to be able to take themselves to pieces, drink entire pailfuls
+of water, and devour "fried nigger meat." Usually the person about to be
+"visited" received a notice that the dreaded Klan was upon him. He was
+warned to cease his political activities or perhaps to leave the
+neighborhood. If the threat proved ineffective, whipping or some worse
+punishment was likely to follow.
+
+In 1872 Congress unintentionally aided in the process of overcoming
+negro domination by the passage of the Amnesty Act, which restored to
+all but a few hundreds of the former Confederates the political
+privileges which had been taken from them by the Fourteenth Amendment.
+Under the latter the great majority of former southern leaders had been
+deprived of the right to hold office. On the restoration of this right
+such men as Alexander H. Stephens, former Vice-President of the
+Confederate States, and Wade Hampton, one of the most influential South
+Carolinians, could again take an active part in politics. With their
+return, the cause of white supremacy received a powerful impetus.
+
+In taking this step, however, Congress did not intend to allow the legal
+and constitutional rights of the blacks to be waived without a contest.
+Reports reached the North concerning the activities of the southern
+whites--reports which in no way minimized the amount of intimidation and
+violence involved--and in response to this information Congress passed
+the enforcement laws of 1870-1871, generally known as the "Force
+Acts."[3] These laws laid heavy penalties upon individuals who should
+prevent citizens from exercising their constitutional political
+powers--primarily the right to vote. As offences under these acts were
+within the jurisdiction of the federal courts and as the federal
+officials manifested an inclination to carry out the law, the number of
+indictments was considerable. Convictions, however, were infrequent. The
+famous Ku Klux Act of 1871 amplified the law of 1870 and was aimed at
+combinations or conspiracies of persons who resorted to intimidation. It
+authorized the President to suspend the privilege of the writ of _habeas
+corpus_ and made it his duty to employ armed force to suppress
+opposition.
+
+Additional sting was given the enforcement laws by provision for the
+superintendence of federal elections, under specified conditions, by
+federal officials called "supervisors of election." The supervisors were
+given large powers over the registration of voters and the casting and
+counting of ballots, so as to ensure a fair vote and an honest count.
+Since here, again, federal troops stood behind the law, it was manifest
+that the central government would show some degree of determination in
+its handling of the southern situation. Nevertheless, the result was
+merely to delay the gradual elimination of the blacks from political
+activity, not to prevent it. In practice the Republican state
+governments in the South were continued in the seats of authority only
+through the presence of the federal soldiery. In one way or another the
+whites gained the upper hand, so that by 1877 only South Carolina and
+Louisiana had failed to achieve self-government unhampered by federal
+force.
+
+In the meantime the enforcement acts were being slowly weakened by the
+Supreme Court in several decisions bearing upon the Fourteenth
+Amendment. The significant portion of Section I of the Amendment is as
+follows:
+
+    No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge
+    the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;
+    nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
+    property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person
+    within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
+
+In several cases involving the enforcement acts, the Court found
+portions of the laws in conflict with the Constitution and finally, in
+1883, the decision in United States _v._ Harris completed their
+destruction. Here the court met a complaint that a group of white men
+had taken some negroes away from the officers of the law and ill-treated
+them. Such conduct seemed to be contrary to that part of the Ku Klux Act
+which forbade combinations designed to deprive citizens of their legal
+rights. The Court, however, called attention to the important words, "No
+_State_ shall make or enforce," and was of opinion that the
+constitutional power of Congress extends only to cases where _States_
+have acted in such a manner as to deprive citizens of their rights. If
+_individuals_, on the contrary, conspire to take away these rights,
+relief must be sought at the hands of the state government. As the great
+purpose of the Ku Klux Act had been to combat precisely such individual
+combinations, it appeared that the Court had, at a blow, demolished the
+law. Not long afterwards the Court declared unconstitutional the Civil
+Rights Act of 1875, which had been designed to insure equal rights to
+negroes in hotels, conveyances and theatres. Here again the Court was of
+opinion that the Fourteenth Amendment grants no power to the United
+States but forbids certain activities by the states.[4]
+
+Stuffing the ballot box was common in South Carolina and other states.
+In one election in this state the number of votes cast was almost double
+the number the names on the polling list. In some places the imposition
+of a poll tax peacefully eliminated the impecunious freedman. In
+Mississippi the state legislature laid out the "shoestring" election
+district, 300 miles long and about 20 miles wide, which included many of
+the sections where the negroes were most numerous, in order that their
+votes might have as little effect as possible. By hook or by crook,
+then, in simple and devious ways, the dangers of negro domination were
+averted. Nevertheless the provisions of the law for federal supervision
+of elections remained, becoming a bone of contention during a later
+administration.
+
+About 1890 there began a new era in the elimination of the negro from
+politics in the South. The people of that section disliked the methods
+which they felt the necessity of using, and searched about for a less
+crude device. Furthermore the rise of a new political movement in some
+parts of the South in the late eighties and early nineties was making
+divisions among the Democrats and was encouraging attempts by the two
+factions to control the negro vote. Suddenly, a relatively small number
+of negro voters became a powerful and purchasable make-weight. Both
+sides, perhaps, were a bit disturbed at this development. At any rate,
+additional impetus was given to the movement for the suppression of the
+negro. Eventually plans were originated, some of which were clearly
+constitutional and all of which carried a certain appearance of
+legality.
+
+The first steps were taken by Mississippi in 1890. The new state
+constitution of that year required as prerequisite to the voting
+privilege, the payment of all taxes which were legally demanded of the
+citizen during the two preceding years--a provision to which no
+constitutional exception could be taken, and which effectively debarred
+large numbers of colored voters. Further, it provided that after January
+1, 1892, every voter must be able to read any section of the state
+constitution or be able to give an interpretation of it _when read to
+him_. As the election officials who would judge the ability of the
+applicant properly to interpret the constitution would certainly be
+whites, it was clear that the ignorant black would have scant chance of
+passing the educational test. Several other states followed in the wake
+of Mississippi, until in 1898 Louisiana discovered a new barrier through
+which only whites might make their way to the voting lists. This was the
+famous "grandfather clause." In brief, it allowed citizens to vote who
+had that right before January 1, 1867, together with the descendants of
+such citizens, regardless of their educational and property
+qualifications. As no negroes had voted in the state before that date,
+they were effectively debarred. Under the influence of such pressure,
+the negro vote promptly dwindled away to negligible proportions. In
+Louisiana, to cite one case, there were 127,263 registered colored
+voters in 1896, and 5,354 in 1900. Between these two years the new state
+constitution had been passed. In 1915 the Supreme Court finally declared
+a grandfather clause unconstitutional on the ground that its only
+possible intention was to evade that provision of the Fifteenth
+Amendment which forbids the states to abridge, on account of color, the
+rights of citizens of the United States to vote.
+
+The history of the effects of the war and of reconstruction on the
+political status of the negro has been concisely summarized as falling
+into three periods. At the close of the war: (1) the negroes were
+more powerful in politics than their numbers, intelligence and
+property seemed to justify; (2) the Republican party was a power in
+the South; and (3) the negroes enjoyed political rights on a legal and
+constitutional equality with the whites. By 1877 the first of these
+generalizations was no longer a fact; by 1890 the Republican party had
+ceased to be of importance in the South; and by the opening of the
+twentieth century, the negro as a possible voter was not on a legal
+and constitutional equality with the white.
+
+In the sphere of government the war and reconstruction were of lasting
+importance. Preeminently it was definitely established that the federal
+government is supreme over the states. Although the Constitution had
+seemed to many to establish that supremacy in no uncertain terms, it can
+not be doubted that only as a result of the war and reconstruction did
+the theory receive a degree of popular assent that approached unanimity.
+Temporarily, at least, reconstruction added greatly to the prestige and
+self-confidence of Congress. During the war the powers of the President
+had necessarily expanded. The reaction, although hastened by the
+character and disposition of President Johnson, was inevitable. The
+depression of the executive elevated the legislature and not until the
+beginning of the twentieth century did the scales swing back again
+toward their former position.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+General. The best general account of the period 1865-1917 is to be found
+in the following volumes of _The American Nation: A History_: W.A.
+Dunning, _Reconstruction Political and Economic, 1865-1877_ (1907); E.E.
+Sparks, _National Development, 1877-1885_ (1907); D.R. Dewey, _National
+Problems, 1885-1897_ (1907); J.H. Latané, _America as a World Power,
+1897-1907_ (1907); F.A. Ogg, _National Progress, 1907-1917_ (1918). The
+volumes vary in excellence and interest, but set a high standard,
+especially in their recognition of the importance of economic facts, and
+contain excellent bibliographical material. The following single volumes
+are useful: E.B. Andrews, _United States in Our Own Time, 1870-1903_
+(1903); C.A. Beard, _Contemporary American History_ (1914); P.L.
+Haworth, _Reconstruction and Union, 1865-1912_ (1912); P.L. Haworth,
+_United States in Our Own Time, 1865-1920_; E.P. Oberholtzer, _History
+of the United States since the Civil War_ (to be in several volumes, of
+which one appeared in 1917, covering 1865-1868); F.L. Paxson, _The New
+Nation_ (1915); H.T. Peck, _Twenty Years of the Republic, 1885-1905_
+(1907), readable and especially valuable in its interpretation of the
+period which it covers; J.F. Rhodes, _History of the United States from
+Hayes to McKinley, 1877-1896_ (1919), lacks understanding of the period
+covered. J.S. Bassett, _Short History of the United States_ (1913),
+has excellent chapters on the years 1865-1912; F.J. Turner in the
+_Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (11th ed.), article "United States, History
+1865-1910," is brief but inclusive; the later chapters of Max Farrand,
+_Development of the United States_ (1918), present a new point of view.
+_The Chronicles of America Series_ (1919 and later), edited by Allen
+Johnson, contains valuable volumes on especial topics. For party
+platforms and election statistics consult Edward Stanwood, _A History
+of the Presidency_ (2 vols., 2nd ed., 1916).
+
+Reconstruction. The most valuable single volume on the reconstruction
+period is the volume by Dunning already referred to; W.L. Fleming,
+_Sequel of Appomattox_ (1919), is also excellent; J.F. Rhodes, _History
+of the United States since the Compromise of 1850_, vols. VI, VII
+(1906), is the best detailed account; James Schouler, _History of the
+United States_, vol. VII (1913), presents a new view of President
+Johnson. Valuable biographies are J.A. Woodburn, _The Life of Thaddeus
+Stevens_ (1913); G.H. Haynes, _Charles Sumner_ (1909); Horace White,
+_The Life of Lyman Trumbull_ (1913). On impeachment, D.W. Dewitt, _The
+Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson_ (1903), is best. W.A. Dunning,
+_Essays on Civil War and Reconstruction_ (ed. 1910), is strong on the
+constitutional changes. Studies on reconstruction in the several states
+have been published by W.W. Davis (Florida), (1913); W.L. Fleming
+(Alabama), (1905); J.W. Garner (Mississippi), (1901); J.G. deR.
+Hamilton (North Carolina), (1914); C.W. Ramsdell (Texas), (1910); and
+others. For documentary material, W.L. Fleming, _Documentary History of
+Reconstruction_ (2 vols., 1906-7), is essential. Edward Channing, A.B.
+Hart and F.J. Turner, _Guide to the Study and Reading of American
+History_ (1912), provides full references to a wide variety of works
+covering 1865-1911. Consult also Appleton's _Annual Cyclopaedia_,
+_1861-1902_. On foreign relations J.B. Moore, _Digest of International
+Law_, 8 vols., (1906).
+
+Periodical literature. The most useful periodicals are:
+
+_American Economic Review_ (1911-); _American Historical Review_
+(1895-); _American Political Science Review_ (1907-); _Atlantic
+Monthly_ (1857-); _Century Magazine_ (1870-); _Harper's Weekly_
+(1857-1916); _Harvard Law Review_; _History Teachers' Magazine_,
+continued as _Historical Outlook_ (1909-); _Journal of Political
+Economy_ (1892-); _Nation_ (1865-); _North American Review_ (1815-);
+_Political Science Quarterly_ (1886-); _Quarterly Journal of Economics_
+(1886-); _Scribner's Magazine_ (1887-); _Yale Review_ (1892-1911, _new
+series_, 1912-).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States, was held
+in prison until 1867 and then released. He died in 1889. Suggestions
+that General Lee, the most prominent military leader, be arrested and
+tried met with such opposition from General Grant, the Union leader,
+that the project was dropped. Lee died in 1870.
+
+[2] A number of these states later repudiated their debts.
+
+[3] The threats used to keep the negroes away from the polls are
+typified in the following, which was published in Mississippi:
+
+    "The Terry Terribles will be here Monday to see there is a fair
+    election."
+
+    "The Byram Bulldozers will be here Monday to see there is a fair
+    election.
+
+    "The Edwards Dragoons will be here Monday to see there is a fair
+    election.
+
+    "Who cares if the McGill men don't like it?
+
+    "The whole State of Mississippi is interested in the election.
+
+    "It _shall_ be a Democratic victory."
+
+[4] In regard to segregation of the races in railroad coaches, the
+Court decided, 1910, that constitutional rights are not interfered with
+when separate accommodations are provided, if the accommodations be
+equally good. Chiles _v._ Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Co., 218 U.S.,
+71.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+IN PRESIDENT GRANT'S TIME
+
+Aside from President Lincoln, the most prominent personality on the
+northern side during the latter part of the Civil War was General
+Ulysses S. Grant. His successes in the Mississippi Valley in the
+early days of the war, when success was none too common, his capture
+of Vicksburg at the turning point of the conflict, and his dogged
+drive toward Richmond had established his military reputation. When
+the drive toward Richmond resulted at last in the capture of Lee's
+army and its surrender at Appomattox, the victorious North turned
+with gratitude to Grant and made him a popular idol, while the
+politicians began to question whether his popularity might not be put
+to account in the field of politics.
+
+Grant himself had never paid any attention to matters of government.
+In only one presidential election had he so much as voted for a
+candidate, and then it was for a Democrat, James Buchanan. In 1860 he
+was prevented from voting for Senator Stephen A. Douglas and against
+Abraham Lincoln only by the fact that he had not fulfilled the
+residence requirement for suffrage in the town where he was living.
+Nevertheless in his capacity as general of the army his headquarters
+after the war were in Washington and his duties brought him into
+contact with the politicians and eventually entangled him in the
+controversy between the President and Congress. Circumstances at
+first threw him into close association with Johnson, but at the time
+of the Stanton episode late in 1867 a misunderstanding arose between
+them which developed into a question of veracity, and then into open
+hostility. The opponents of the President took up the General's case
+with alacrity and from then on the popular hero was looked upon as
+the inevitable choice for the next Republican nomination.
+
+The convention of the National Union Republican Party, as it was
+called at that time, was held in Chicago, May 20, 1868, during the
+interval between the votes on the eleventh and second charges of the
+impeachment of President Johnson. General Grant was unanimously
+nominated for the presidency and Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the
+House of Representatives, for the second place on the ticket. The
+platform portrayed the benefits of radical reconstruction and
+defended negro suffrage in the South. In the North at that time the
+black was commonly denied the vote--the Fifteenth Amendment having
+not yet been ratified--and the convention accordingly declared that
+the question of suffrage in all the "loyal" states properly belonged
+in the states themselves. Other planks asserted that the public debt
+ought to be paid in full, that pensions for the veterans were an
+obligation and that immigration ought to be encouraged. The
+administration of President Johnson was denounced and the thirty-five
+senators who voted for his conviction in the impeachment trial were
+commended.
+
+The Democrats met at Tammany Hall in New York on July 4. Their
+platform approved the pension laws, advocated the sale of public land
+to actual occupants, praised the administration of President Johnson,
+arraigned the radicals and declared the reconstruction acts
+"unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void." If the radical party
+should win in the election, the Democrats asserted, the result would
+be "a subjected and conquered people, amid the ruins of liberty and
+the scattered fragments of the Constitution." The regulation of the
+suffrage, one plank declared, had always been in the hands of the
+individual states. The most prominent place in the platform, however,
+was given to the question of the public debt. Part of the bonds
+issued during the war had, by acts of Congress, been made payable
+in "dollars," a word which might mean either paper dollars or gold
+dollars. Paper, however, was much less valuable than gold, times were
+hard, and many people held the opinion that the debt could properly
+be paid in paper. Such was the "Ohio idea," which was made part of
+the Democratic platform.
+
+The choice of a candidate required twenty-two ballots. Early trials
+indicated the strength of George H. Pendleton, popularly known as
+"Gentleman George" and the chief exponent of the "Ohio idea." Johnson
+also had support. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, having failed to
+obtain the Republican nomination, allowed it to be known that he was
+willing to become the Democratic candidate. At length, on the
+twenty-second ballot, a few votes were cast for Governor Horatio
+Seymour of New York, the chairman of the convention. The move met
+with enthusiastic approval, despite Seymour's insistence that he
+would not be a candidate, and he was unanimously chosen.
+
+[Illustration:
+Popular vote in presidential elections, 1868-1896]
+
+The developments of the campaign depended largely upon occurrences in
+the South. Military reconstruction had not been wholly completed in
+Virginia, Mississippi, Texas and Georgia. The last of these states
+had once been readmitted to the Union, but had immediately expelled
+the negro members of its legislature, and was thereupon placed again
+under military rule. The Ku Klux Klan was meanwhile in general
+operation throughout the South and its activities, both real and
+imaginary, received wide advertisement in the North. Public interest,
+therefore, in the underlying issues of the campaign centered upon the
+attitude of the candidates toward the southern question. General
+Grant was understood to be with the radicals and Seymour with the
+conservatives. The result of the election was the choice of the
+Republican leader by an apparently large majority. He carried
+twenty-six out of thirty-four states, with 214 out of 294 electoral
+votes, but he received a popular majority of only 300,000. Examination
+of the returns indicated a strong conservative minority in many of the
+solid Republican states. The strength of the radicals in the South,
+moreover, was due, in the main, to negro-carpetbag domination, and when
+these states should become conservative, as they were sure to do, the
+political parties would be almost evenly divided.[1]
+
+The man who was now entering upon his first experience as the holder
+of an elective office had risen from obscurity to public favor in the
+space of a few years. Although a graduate of West Point, with eleven
+years of military experience afterward, his career before 1861 had
+been hardly more than a failure. He had left the army in 1854 rather
+than stand trial on a charge of drunkenness; had grubbed a scanty
+living out of "Hard Scrabble," a farm in Missouri; had tried his hand
+at real estate, acted as clerk in a custom-house and worked in a
+leather store at $800 a year. Then came the war, and in less than
+three years Grant had received the title of Lieutenant-General, which
+only Washington had borne before him, and had become General-in-Chief
+of all the armies of the United States. Always an uncommunicative
+man, he kept his own counsel during the interval between his election
+and his inauguration. He saw few politicians, asked no advice about
+his cabinet, sought no assistance in preparing his inaugural address
+and made no suggestions to the leaders of his party concerning
+legislation that he would like to see passed. His first act, the
+appointment of his cabinet, caused a gasp of surprise and dismay.
+Most of the men named were but little known and some of them were not
+aware that they were being chosen until the list was made public. The
+Secretary of State, Elihu Washburne, was a close personal friend, and
+was appointed merely that he might hold the position long enough to
+enjoy the title and then retire. He was succeeded by Hamilton Fish,
+of New York, who proved to be a wise choice. The Secretary of the
+Treasury was A.T. Stewart, a rich merchant of New York, but he had to
+withdraw on account of a law forbidding any person "interested in
+carrying on the business of trade or commerce" to hold the office.
+The Secretary of the Navy, A.E. Borie, was a rich invalid of
+Philadelphia, who had almost no qualifications for his office and
+resigned at once. Better appointments were former Governor J.D. Cox,
+of Ohio, as Secretary of the Interior, and Judge E.R. Hoar, of
+Massachusetts, as Attorney-General.
+
+When the Congress elected with Grant assembled in 1869 its first act
+was a measure providing for the payment of the public debt in coin.
+Part of the Tenure of Office Act was repealed, the President having
+indicated his opposition to it. On the southern question General
+Grant had earlier inclined toward moderation, but radical counsels
+and the logic of events led him to join Congress in the passage of
+the enforcement act and the Ku Klux Act, both of which have already
+been mentioned.
+
+It was during this, the first year of Grant's administration, that
+there occurred the famous gold conspiracy of 1869. Jay Gould and
+James Fisk, Jr., two of the most unscrupulous stock gamblers of the
+time, determined to corner the supply of gold and then run its market
+price up to a high level, in order to further certain interests which
+they had recently purchased. The likelihood that the conspirators
+could carry out the plan depended largely on the Secretary of the
+Treasury, George S. Boutwell, who was accustomed to sell several
+millions of dollars' worth of gold each month. If the sales could be
+stopped Gould and Fisk might be successful. Accordingly, they got on
+friendly terms with the President through cultivating the acquaintance
+of his brother-in-law, were seen publicly with him at the theatre and
+other places, and subsequently he wrote to the Secretary expressing
+his opinion that the sales had better stop. Gould apparently was
+informed of this decision by the brother-in-law, even before the
+message reached the Secretary, and immediately bought up so much gold
+as to run the price to an unparalleled figure. This was on "Black
+Friday," September 24. The Secretary became alarmed, rumors were abroad
+that the administration was implicated in the conspiracy, and at noon,
+after consultation with the President, he decided to place four
+millions in gold on the market. At once the price dropped, brokers went
+bankrupt, and Gould and Fisk had to take refuge behind armed guards to
+save their lives. The President had not been a party to the plans of
+the speculators, but his blindness to their real purposes and his
+association with them during the period when their scheme was being
+perfected made him a target for all manner of accusations.
+
+Further astonishment was caused by the attitude of the President toward
+two of the three really able men in his cabinet. In June, 1870, he
+suddenly called for the resignation of Judge Hoar. It appeared that he
+was seeking votes in the Senate for a treaty in which he was interested
+and that certain southern members demanded the post of attorney-general
+for a southern man in return for their support. Secretary Cox's
+resignation came soon afterward. He had taken his department out of
+politics, had furthered the cause of civil service reform and had
+protected his employees from political party assessments. These acts
+brought him into collision with the politicians, who had the ear of the
+President, and Cox had to retire. Both Hoar and Cox were succeeded by
+mediocre men.
+
+The treaty which caused the removal of Secretary Hoar was one that the
+President had arranged providing for the annexation of San Domingo. The
+Senate was opposed to ratification, but General Grant was accustomed
+to overcoming difficulties and he urged his case with all the power at
+his command. One result was an unseemly wrangle between the President
+and Senator Charles Sumner over the latter's refusal to support
+ratification. General Grant, in resentment, procured the withdrawal
+of the Senator's friend, John Lothrop Motley from England, whither he
+had been sent as minister, and later the exclusion of Sumner from the
+chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations, a post in which he
+had displayed great ability for ten years. Eventually the President had
+to give way on San Domingo, as the Senate did not agree with him in his
+estimate of its probable value.
+
+In its conduct of our relations with England, on the other hand, the
+administration met with success and received popular approval. Ever
+since the war the people of the North had desired an opportunity to
+make Great Britain suffer for her attitude during that struggle.
+Senator Sumner struck a popular chord when he suggested that England
+should pay heavy damages on the ground that her encouragement of the
+South had prolonged the war. Specifically, however, the United States
+demanded reparation for destruction committed by the _Alabama_ and
+other vessels that had been built in English ports. In 1870 Europe
+was in a state of apprehension on account of the Franco-Prussian War,
+and Secretary Fish seized the opportunity to press our claims upon
+England. The latter, meanwhile, had abated somewhat her earlier
+attitude of unwillingness to arbitrate, and Fish placed little
+emphasis on Senator Sumner's suggestions of a claim for indirect
+damages. The Treaty of Washington, signed and ratified in May, 1871,
+provided for the arbitration of the _Alabama_ claims under such rules
+that a decision favorable to the American side of the case was made
+exceedingly probable. Each of five governments appointed a
+representative--the United States, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland
+and Brazil. The meeting took place in Geneva and resulted favorably
+to the American demands. England was declared to have failed to
+preserve the proper attitude for a neutral during the war and was
+ordered in 1872 to make compensation in the amount of $15,500,000.
+
+The United States had need of any feeling of national pride that
+might come as the result of the Geneva award, to offset the shame of
+domestic revelations, for one of the characteristics of the decade
+after the war was the wide-spread corruption in political and
+commercial life. One of the most flagrant examples was the Tweed Ring
+in New York. The government of that city was in the hands of a band
+of highwaymen, of whom William M. Tweed, the leader of Tammany Hall,
+was chief. Through the purchase of votes and the skilful distribution
+of the proceeds of their control, they managed to keep in power
+despite a growing suspicion that something was wrong. A favorite
+method of defrauding the city was to raise an account. One who had a
+bill against the city for $5,000 would be asked to present one for
+$55,000. When he did so, he would receive his $5,000 and the
+remainder would be divided among the members of the Ring. The
+plasterer, for example, who worked on the County Court House
+presented bills for nearly $3,000,000 in nine months. The New York
+_Times_ and the cartoons of Thomas Nast in _Harper's Weekly_ were the
+chief agents in arousing the people of the city to their situation.
+The former obtained and published proofs of the rascality of the
+Ring, mass meetings were held and an election in November, 1871,
+overturned Tweed and his associates. Some of them fled from the
+country, while Tweed himself died in jail.
+
+More important both because of its effect on national politics and
+because of its influence on railway legislation for many years
+afterward was the Credit Mobilier scandal. The Credit Mobilier was a
+construction company composed of a selected group of stockholders of
+the Union Pacific Railroad, the transcontinental line which was being
+built between 1865 and 1869. In their capacity of railroad
+stockholders they awarded themselves as stockholders of the
+construction company the contract to build and equip a large part of
+the railway. The terms which they gave themselves were so generous as
+to insure a handsome profit. Chief among the members of the Credit
+Mobilier was Oakes Ames, a member of Congress from Massachusetts.
+Late in 1867 Ames became fearful of railroad legislation that was
+being introduced in Washington and he therefore decided to take steps
+to protect the enterprise. He was given 343 shares of Credit Mobilier
+stock, which he placed among members of Congress where, as he said,
+they would "do most good." Rumors concerning the nature of the
+transaction resulted finally in accusations in the New York _Sun_
+during 1872, which involved the names of many prominent politicians.
+Congressional committees were at once appointed to investigate the
+charges, and their reports caused genuine sensations. Ames was found
+guilty of selling stock at lower than face value in order to
+influence votes in Congress and was censured by the House of
+Representatives. The Vice-President, Schuyler Colfax, and several
+others were so entangled in the affair as to lose their reputations
+and retire from public life for good. Still others such as James A.
+Garfield were suspected of complicity and were placed for many years
+on the defensive.
+
+Fear was wide-spread that political life in Washington was riddled
+with corruption. Corporations which were large and wealthy for that
+day were already getting a controlling grip on the legislatures of
+the states, and if the Credit Mobilier scandal were typical, had
+begun to reach out to Congress. Had the charges been made a little
+earlier they might have influenced the election of 1872, which turned
+largely on certain omissions and failings of the administration, and
+especially of General Grant himself.
+
+There is something intensely pathetic in General Grant as President
+of the United States--this short, slouchy, taciturn, unostentatious
+man who was more at ease with men who talked horses than with men who
+talked government or literature; this President who was unacquainted
+with either the theory or the practice of politics, who consulted
+nobody in choosing his cabinet or writing his inaugural address, who
+had scarcely visited a state capital except to capture it and had
+been elected to the executive chair in times that were to try men's
+souls. An indolent man, he called himself, but the world knew that he
+was tireless and irresistible on the field when necessity demanded,
+persistent, imperturbable, simple and direct in his language, and
+upright in his character. The tragedy of President Grant's career was
+his choice of friends and advisors. In Congress he followed the
+counsels of second-rate men who gave him second-rate advice; outside
+he associated too frequently with questionable characters who
+cleverly used him as a mask for schemes that were an insult to his
+integrity, but which his lack of experience and his utter inability
+to judge character kept hidden from his view. Honorable himself and
+loyal to a fault to his friends, he believed in the honesty of men
+who betrayed him, long after the rest of the world had discovered
+what they were. He could accept costly gifts from admirers and
+appoint these same men to offices, without dreaming that their
+generosity had sprung from any motive except gratitude for his
+services during the war.[2]
+
+It was inevitable, in view of these facts, that the presidential
+campaign of 1872 should be essentially an anti-Grant movement, but
+its particular characteristics had their origin before the General's
+first election. In 1865 a constitutional convention in Missouri had
+deprived southern sympathizers of the right to vote and hold office.
+A wing of the Republican party, led by Colonel B. Gratz Brown, had
+begun a counter-movement, intended to remove the restrictions on the
+southerners, and also to reform other abuses in the state. Colonel
+Brown had early received the assistance of General Carl Schurz, a man
+of ability with the temperament of a reformer. The Brown-Schurz
+faction had quickly increased in numbers, had become known as the
+Liberal Republican party and had attracted such interest throughout
+the country that a national conference was called for May, 1872, at
+Cincinnati. In adopting a conciliatory southern policy, the Liberal
+Republicans became opposed to the President, who had by this time
+become thoroughly committed to the radical program. Other critics of
+the administration, mainly Republicans, became interested in the
+Liberal revolt--those who deprecated the President's choice of
+associates and advisors, the civil service reformers who were aroused
+by the dismissal of Secretaries Hoar and Cox, and the tariff
+reformers who had vainly attempted to arouse enthusiasm for their
+plans.
+
+On account of the varied character of the elements which composed it
+and the independent spirit of its members, the Cincinnati assembly
+resembled a mass meeting rather than a well-organized political
+conference. It numbered among its members, nevertheless, many men of
+influence and repute. Some of the most powerful newspaper editors of
+the country, also, were friendly to its purpose, so that it seemed
+likely to be a decisive factor in the coming campaign. In most
+respects the platform reflected the anti-Grant character of the
+convention. It condemned the administration for keeping unworthy men
+in power, favored the removal of all disabilities imposed on
+southerners because of the rebellion, objected to interference by the
+federal government in local affairs--a reference to the use of troops
+to enforce the radical reconstruction policy--and advocated civil
+service reform. The convention found difficulty in stating its
+attitude toward the tariff question. It was deemed necessary to get
+the support of Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York _Tribune_,
+the most powerful northern newspaper of Civil War times, but Greeley
+was an avowed protectionist. The platform, therefore, evaded the
+issue by referring it to the people in their congressional districts,
+and to Congress. But the rock on which the movement met shipwreck was
+the nomination of a candidate. Many able men were available--Charles
+Francis Adams, who had been minister to England, Senator Lyman
+Trumbull, B. Gratz Brown and Judge David Davis of the Supreme Court.
+Any one of them would have made a strong candidate. The convention,
+however, passed over all of them and nominated Greeley, long known as
+being against tariff reform, against civil service reform and hostile
+to the Democrats, whose support must be obtained in order to achieve
+success. Although a journalist of great influence and capacity,
+Greeley was an erratic individual, whose appearance and manner were
+the joy of the cartoonist.
+
+The Republican convention met on June 5, and unanimously re-nominated
+Grant. The platform recited the achievements of the party since 1861,
+urged the reform of the civil service, advocated import duties and
+approved of the enforcement acts and amnesty.
+
+To the Democrats the greatest likelihood of success seemed to lie in
+the adoption of the Liberal Republican nominee and platform. Such a
+course, to be sure, would commit them to a candidate who had
+excoriated their party for years in his newspaper, and to the three
+war amendments to the Constitution, which the Liberal Republicans had
+accepted. Yet it promised the South relief from military enforcement
+of obnoxious laws, and that was worth much. Both Greeley and his
+platform were accordingly accepted.
+
+The enthusiasm for the Liberal movement which was observable at the
+opening of the campaign rapidly dwindled as the significance of the
+nomination became more clear. Greeley was open to attack from too
+many quarters. The cartoons of Nast in _Harper's Weekly_, especially,
+held him up to merciless ridicule. In the end he was defeated by
+750,000 votes in a total of six and a half million, a disaster which,
+together with the death of his wife and the overwork of the campaign
+resulted in his death shortly after the election. As for the
+Republicans they elected not only their candidate but also a
+sufficient majority in Congress to carry out any program that the
+party might desire.
+
+On March 3, 1873, as Grant's first term was drawing to a close,
+Congress passed a measure increasing the salary of public officials
+from the President to the members of the House of Representatives.
+The increase for Congressmen was made retroactive, so that each of
+them would receive $5,000 for the two years just past. To a country
+whose fears and suspicions had been aroused by the Credit Mobilier
+scandal, the "salary grab" and the "back pay steal" were fresh
+indications that corruption was entrenched in Washington. Senators
+and Representatives began at once to hear from their constituencies.
+Many of them returned the increase to the treasury and when the next
+session opened, the law was repealed except so far as it applied to
+the president and the justices of the Supreme Court.
+
+The congressional elections of 1874 indicated the extent of the
+popular distrust of the administration. In New York, where Samuel J.
+Tilden was chosen governor, and in such Republican strongholds as
+Massachusetts and Pennsylvania the Democrats were successful. In the
+House of Representatives the Republican two-thirds majority was wiped
+out and the Democrats given complete control. Even the redoubtable
+Benjamin F. Butler lost his seat.
+
+Further apprehensions were aroused by rumors concerning the
+operations of a "Whiskey Ring." For some years it had been suspected
+that a ring of revenue officials with accomplices in Washington were
+in collusion with the distillers to defraud the government of the
+lawful tax on whiskey. Part of the illegal gains were said to have
+gone into the campaign fund for Grant's re-election, although he was
+ignorant of the source of the revenue. Benjamin H. Bristow, who
+became Secretary of the Treasury in 1874, began the attempt to stop
+the frauds and capture the guilty parties. This was no simple task,
+because information of impending action was surreptitiously sent out
+by officials in Washington. Finally Secretary Bristow got the
+information which he sought, and then moved to capture the criminals.
+One of the most prominent members of the Ring was an internal revenue
+official in St. Louis who, it was recollected, had entertained
+President Grant, had presented him with a pair of horses and a wagon,
+and had given the General's private secretary a diamond shirt-stud
+valued at $2,400. Public opinion was yet further shocked, however,
+when the trail of indictments led to the President's private
+secretary, General Babcock. On first receiving the news of Bristow's
+discoveries, Grant had written "Let no guilty man escape"; but later
+he became secretly and then openly hostile to the investigation.
+During the trial of Babcock, the President asked to be a witness in
+his behalf. A verdict of acquittal was given, but afterwards the two
+men had a private conference, and when "Grant came out, his face was
+set in silence." Babcock never returned to the White House as
+Secretary, but was given the post of Superintendent of Public
+Buildings and Grounds. Several of the members of the Ring were
+imprisoned but were later pardoned by the President. In the meanwhile
+Grant seems to have been brought to believe that Bristow was
+persecuting Babcock with a view to getting the favor of the reform
+element in the party and eventually the presidential nomination.
+Relations between the two became strained and Bristow resigned.
+
+The last year of Grant's second administration was blackened by the
+case of W.W. Belknap, who was then Secretary of War. Investigation by
+a House committee uncovered the fact that since 1870 an employee in
+the Indian service had paid $12,000 and later $6,000 a year for the
+privilege of retaining his office. The money had been paid at first
+to Mrs. Belknap, who had made the arrangement, and after her death to
+the Secretary himself. The House unanimously voted to impeach him,
+but on the day when the vote was taken he resigned and the President
+accepted the resignation. Only the fact that he was out of office
+prevented the Senate from declaring him guilty, and critics of the
+administration noted that the President had saved another friend from
+deserved punishment.
+
+It would be easy to over-estimate the responsibility of General Grant
+for the political corruption of his administrations. For the most
+part the wrong-doing of the time began before his first election.
+Democrats as well as Republicans participated in many of the
+scandals. Politicians in the cities, the states and the nation seemed
+to be determined to have a share in the enormous wealth that was
+being created in America, and they got it by means that varied from
+the merely unethical and indiscreet, to the openly corrupt. As for
+the President, his own defence, given in his last message to
+Congress, may be taken as the best one: "Failures have been errors of
+judgment, not of intent."
+
+Under the circumstances, however, it was natural that the
+presidential campaign of 1876 should turn upon the failings of the
+administration. Popular interest in the southern issue was on the
+wane. Early in the election year, nevertheless, James G. Blaine,
+Republican leader in the House, made a forceful attack on Jefferson
+Davis, as the wilful author of the "gigantic murders and crimes at
+Andersonville," the southern prison in which federal captives had
+been held. Instantly the sectional hatred flared up and Blaine,
+already a well-known leader, became a prominent candidate for the
+nomination. Republican reformers generally favored Bristow. A
+third-term boom for Grant was effectively crushed by an adverse
+resolution in the House.
+
+The Republican nominating convention met on June 14. The virtues of
+Blaine were set forth in a famous speech by Robert G. Ingersoll in
+which he referred to the attack on Davis: "Like an armed warrior,
+like a plumed knight James G. Blaine marched down the halls of the
+American Congress and threw his shining lance full and fair against
+the brazen forehead of every traitor to his country." The "plumed
+knight," however, was open to attack concerning a scandal during the
+Grant regime, and the convention turned to Governor Rutherford B.
+Hayes, of Ohio, a man of quiet ability who had been unconnected with
+Washington politics, was relatively unknown and, therefore, not
+handicapped by the antagonisms of previous opponents. The platform
+emphasized the services of the party during the war, touched lightly
+on the events of the preceding eight years, advocated payment of the
+public debt, and favored import duties and the reform of the civil
+service.
+
+The Democrats met on June 27. There was little opposition to the
+nomination of Governor Samuel J. Tilden, of New York, a wealthy
+lawyer who had made a record as a reformer in opposition to "Boss"
+Tweed and a corrupt canal ring. The platform was distinctly a reform
+document. It demanded reform in the governments of states and nation,
+in the currency system, the tariff, the scale of public expense, and
+the civil service. An eloquent paragraph exhibited those corruptions
+of the administration which had caused such general dismay.
+
+There was little in the campaign that was distinctive, and on
+November 8, the morning after the election, it seemed clear that
+Tilden had been successful. He had carried the doubtful states of
+Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Indiana. When the figures were
+all gathered, it was found that his popular vote exceeded that of his
+rival by more than 250,000. But there were disputes in three states,
+Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina. Hayes would be elected only if
+the electoral votes of all these states could be obtained for him.
+If, however, Tilden received even one electoral vote from any of the
+states, the victory would be his. Hayes was conceded 166 electoral
+votes; Tilden 184. Nineteen were in dispute. The Republican leaders
+at once claimed the nineteen disputed votes, and asserted that their
+candidate was elected. The Democrats had no doubt of the victory of
+Tilden.[3] The capitals of the three doubtful states now became the
+centers of observation. Troops had long been stationed in South
+Carolina and Louisiana, and others were promptly sent to Florida.
+Prominent politicians from both parties also flocked thither, in
+order to uphold the party interests.
+
+In South Carolina it became evident that a majority of the popular
+vote was for Hayes, although both the Democratic and the Republican
+electors sent in returns to Washington. In Florida there was a board
+of canvassers which had power to exclude false or fraudulent votes.
+It was composed of two Republicans and one Democrat. When all ballots
+had been sent in, the Democrats claimed a majority of ninety; the
+Republicans a majority of forty-five. The board went over the returns
+and by a partisan vote threw out enough to make the Republican
+majority 924. Republican electoral votes were thereupon sent to
+Washington, but so also were Democratic votes. The situation in
+Louisiana was still more complicated. Political corruption and
+intimidation had been commonplaces in that state. On the face of the
+returns, Tilden's electors had received majorities varying from 6,000
+to 9,000. As in Florida there was a board of canvassers which was
+here composed of four Republicans, three of whom were men of low
+character. The vote of the state was offered to the Democrats, once
+for $1,000,000 and once for $200,000, but the offer was not taken.
+The board then threw out enough ballots to choose all the Hayes
+electors. As in the other cases, Democratic electors also sent
+ballots to Washington.
+
+There was no federal agency with power to determine which sets of
+electors were to be counted, and the fact that the federal Senate was
+Republican and the House Democratic seemed to preclude the
+possibility of legislation on the subject. No such critical situation
+had ever resulted from an election, and a means of settlement must
+quickly be discovered, for only three months would elapse after the
+electoral votes were sent to Washington, before the term of General
+Grant would expire. The means devised was the Electoral Commission.
+This body was to be composed of five senators, five representatives,
+and five justices of the Supreme Court. The Senate and the House were
+each to choose their five members, and four members of the Court were
+designated by the Act which established the Commission, with power to
+choose a fifth. It was understood that seven would be Republicans,
+seven Democrats and that the fifteenth member would be Justice David
+Davis, an Independent, who would be selected by his four colleagues.
+On him in all probability, the burden of the decision would fall. On
+the day when the Senate agreed to the plan, however, the Democrats
+and Independents in the Illinois legislature chose Justice Davis as
+United States Senator and under these circumstances he refused to
+serve on the Commission. It was too late to withdraw, and since all
+the remaining justices from whom a commissioner must be chosen were
+Republicans, the Democrats were compelled to accept a body on which
+they were outnumbered eight to seven.
+
+The Electoral Commission sat all through the month of February, 1877.
+Its decisions were uniformly in favor of Hayes electors by a vote of
+eight to seven, always along party lines, and on March 2, it was
+formally announced that Hayes had been elected. The disappointment of
+the Democrats was bitter and lasting, for their candidate had
+received over a quarter of a million popular votes more than his
+opponent, and yet had been declared defeated. For a time there was
+some fear of civil war. Tilden, however, accepted the decision of the
+Commission in good faith, and forbade his friends and his party to
+resist. Moreover, close friends of the Republican candidate assured
+southern Democratic politicians that Hayes if elected would adopt a
+conciliatory policy toward the South, and would allow the southern
+states to govern themselves unhampered by federal interference.
+Peaceful counsels prevailed, therefore, and the closing days of
+President Grant's administration were undisturbed by threats of
+strife.
+
+The question whether Hayes was fairly elected is a fascinating one.
+There is no doubt that there was fraud and intimidation on both
+sides, in the disputed states. In Louisiana, for example, the
+Democrats prevented many negroes from voting by outrageous
+intimidation, while the Republicans had many negroes fraudulently
+registered. Little is known, also, of the activities of the "visiting
+statesmen," as those politicians were called who went to the South to
+care for their party interests. It is known that they were well
+provided with money and that the boards of canvassers contained many
+unscrupulous men. Nor is it likely that politicians who lived in the
+days of the Credit Mobilier and the Whiskey King would falter at a
+bargain which would affect the election of a president. Republicans
+looked upon the Democrats as being so wicked that they were justified
+in "fighting the devil with fire." Democrats looked upon the election
+as so clearly theirs that no objection ought to be made to their
+taking what belonged to them. It seems certain, however, that Hayes
+had no hand in any bargains made by his supporters. As for Tilden,
+his wealth was such that he could have purchased votes if he had
+desired to do so, and the fact that all the votes went to his rival
+indicates that he did not yield to the temptation. Moreover, one of
+his closest associates, Henry Watterson, the journalist, tells of one
+occasion when the presidency was offered to Tilden and refused by
+him. Perhaps a definitive statement of the rights and wrongs of this
+famous election will never be made; for one after another the men
+most intimately associated with it have died leaving some account of
+their activities, but none of them has told much more than was
+already known.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+Dunning, Rhodes and Schouler, together with most of the works
+referred to at the close of Chapter 1, continue to be useful. L.A.
+Coolidge, _Ulysses S. Grant_ (1917), is not as partisan as most of
+the biographies of the time and is valuable despite a lack of a
+thorough understanding of the period. The following are valuable for
+especial topics: H. Adams, _Historical Essays_ (1891); C.F. Adams,
+Jr., and H. Adams, _Chapters of Erie_ (1886), (gold conspiracy); C.F.
+Adams, Jr., _Charles Francis Adams_ (Treaty of Washington); C.F.
+Adams, Jr., "The Treaty of Washington" in _Lee at Appomattox, and
+Other Papers_ (1902); James Bryce, _American Commonwealth_ (vol. II,
+various editions since 1888, contains famous chapter on the Tammany
+Tweed ring); A.B. Paine, _Thomas Nast, His Period and His Pictures_
+(1904), (Tweed ring). P.L. Haworth, _Hayes-Tilden Disputed
+Presidential Election of 1876_ (1906), is a thorough study; on this
+election, see also John Bigelow, _The Life of S.J. Tilden_ (2 vols.,
+1895), and C.R. Williams, _Life of Rutherford B. Hayes_ (2 vols.,
+1914).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The closing months of Johnson's administration found him almost in
+a state of isolation. The incoming President refused to have any
+social relations with him, or even to ride with him from the White
+House to the Capitol on inauguration day. After the installation of
+his successor, Johnson returned to Tennessee but was later chosen to
+the Senate, where he served but a short time before his death.
+
+[2] In 1884, a year before his death, the dishonesty of a trusted
+friend left him bankrupt, while a painful and malignant disease began
+slowly to eat away his life. Nevertheless, with characteristic courage
+he set himself to the task of dictating his _Memoirs_, or more often
+penciling sentences when he was unable to speak, in order that he
+might repay his debts with the proceeds.
+
+[3] There was also a technical question concerning one elector in
+Oregon, which was easily settled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS OF THE NEW ERA
+
+With the close of Grant's administration, the main immediate problems
+connected with political reconstruction came to an end. During the war,
+however, important economic and social developments had been taking
+place throughout the United States which were destined to take on
+greater and greater significance. The reconstruction problem looked
+backward to the war; the new developments looked forward to a new
+America. Reconstruction affected fewer and fewer people as time went
+on; the later changes ultimately transformed the daily life of every
+individual in the nation. Not only did they determine the means by
+which he earned his livelihood, but the comforts which he enjoyed, the
+conditions of rural or urban life which surrounded him, the ease with
+which he visited other portions of the country or obtained information
+concerning them, the number and variety of the foreign products that
+could be brought to him, the political problems upon which he thought
+and voted, and the attitude of the government toward his class in
+society. Most of these changes were distinguishable during the
+twenty-five years following the war and could be stated in brief and
+definite terms.
+
+From the standpoint of population, the growth of the country before
+1890, although not so rapid as it had been before the war, was both
+constant and important. Between 1870 and 1890 the numbers of people
+increased from nearly thirty-nine millions to nearly sixty-three
+millions, the rate each decade being not far from twenty-five per cent.
+Six states added more than a million each to their population--New York
+and Pennsylvania in the Northeast; Ohio, Illinois and Kansas in the
+Middle West; and Texas in the South. No fewer than seventeen others
+expanded by half a million or more--ten of the seventeen being in the
+valley drained by the Mississippi River system.
+
+Detailed study of particular sections of the country discloses a
+continuous shifting of population which indicates changes in the
+economic life of the people. In northern New England, the numbers
+increased slowly. Both Maine and New Hampshire lost from 1860 to 1870;
+nearly half of Maine's counties and nearly two-thirds of Vermont's lost
+population between 1880 and 1890; the people were abandoning the rural
+districts to flock to the cities or migrate to the West. Shipbuilding
+fell off in Maine; the dairy interests languished in Vermont, less
+wheat was being planted and the farmers, no longer growing wool, were
+selling their flocks. Most of the growth was to be found in the
+industrial counties. The traditional New England thrift, however, was
+not lost with the migration of the people, for savings bank deposits
+were increasing, and the state of Vermont was free from debt in 1880,
+and all its counties in 1890. The South, between 1870 and 1890,
+increased in numbers a little less rapidly than the country as a whole.
+On the Atlantic Coast the greatest relative expansion was in Florida;
+in the western South, in Texas. The increase was almost wholly native,
+as immigration did not flow into that section.
+
+The great expansion of the Middle West, from Ohio to Kansas, was based
+upon the public land policy of the federal government. Substantially
+all this region had once been in the possession of the United States,
+which had early adopted the system of laying out townships six miles
+on a side, with subdivisions one mile square, (containing 640 acres),
+called sections. An important feature of the policy had been the
+encouragement of education and of transportation through the gift
+of large grants of the public land. Moreover, settlement had been
+stimulated by the disposal of land to purchasers at extremely liberal
+figures. In 1862 the famous Homestead Act had inaugurated a still
+more generous policy. Under this law the citizen might settle upon a
+quarter-section and receive a title after five years of actual
+occupation, with no charge other than a slight fee. Millions of acres
+were taken up in this way both by natives and by immigrants. 1,300,000
+people poured into Illinois between 1870 and 1890; over 1,000,000 into
+Kansas, and nearly that number into Nebraska; in the Dakotas a young
+man of college age in 1890 might have remembered almost the entire
+significant portion of the history of his state and have been one of
+the oldest inhabitants. The frontier of settlement advanced from the
+western edge of Missouri into mid-Kansas, and almost met the growing
+population of the Far West, whose economic possibilities had already
+attracted attention.
+
+The discovery of gold-dust in a mill-race in California had drawn the
+"Forty-niners" to
+
+    ... lands of gold
+    That lay toward the sun.
+
+For a few years fabulous sums of the precious metal had been extracted
+from the ground by the hordes of treasure-seekers who had come from
+all over the world by boat, pack-animal or "prairie schooner," around
+Cape Horn, across the Isthmus of Panama or over the western mountains.
+When the yield of the mines had slackened, some of the population had
+filtered off to newer fields, but more had settled down to exploit the
+agricultural and lumber resources of California. In Nevada a rich vein
+of silver called the "Comstock Lode" had been discovered; in 1873 a
+group operating the "Virginia Consolidated" mine struck the great
+"bonanza," and the output reached unheard of proportions. The success
+of the mines, however, was essential to Nevada, which had few other
+resources to develop, and when the yield slowed down the population
+growth of the state noticeably slackened. In Colorado during the late
+fifties some prospectors had struck gold, and another rush had made
+"Pike's Peak or Bust" its slogan. Some had returned, "Busted by
+Thunder," but others had better fortune, discovered gold, silver or
+lead, and helped lay the foundations of Denver and Leadville. In Idaho
+and Montana, in Wyoming and South Dakota and other states, prospectors
+found gold, silver, copper and lead, and thus attracted much of the
+population that later settled down to occupations which were less
+feverish and more reliable than mining. In general, the advance of
+population into the Middle West was more or less regular, as wave on
+wave made its way into the Mississippi Basin; in the Far West,
+however, population extended in long arms up the fertile valleys of
+Washington, Oregon and California, or was found in scattered islands
+where mineral wealth had been discovered in the Rocky Mountain region.
+
+From the standpoint of absolute growth, the expansion of most of the
+far western states was not imposing, but the relative increase was
+suggestive of the future. Colorado nearly quadrupled in a decade,
+(1870-1880), and Washington equalled the record in the following ten
+years. California grew faster from 1870 to 1890 than it had done in
+the gold days, indicating that its development was based on something
+more lasting than a fickle vein of ore. Meanwhile politicians were
+fanning the desire of the growing territories to become states, and in
+1889 Montana and Washington were admitted, and in the following year
+Idaho and Wyoming. Of these, Washington alone had a population
+equivalent to the federal ratio for representation in the House.[1]
+
+Utah was kept outside for a few years longer, until the Mormon Church
+gave satisfactory indication that anti-polygamy laws were being
+enforced.
+
+The migration westward, which has been a constant factor in American
+development since early times, continued unabated after the Civil War;
+indeed the restless spirit aroused by the four years of conflict
+undoubtedly tended to increase this steady shift toward the West. By
+1890 approximately a fifth of the native Americans were to be found in
+states other than those in which they had been born. 95,000 natives of
+Maine, for example, were to be found in Massachusetts; 17,000 were in
+California; and considerable numbers in every state between the two.
+The North Carolinians were equally well distributed. 43,000 were in
+South Carolina, 18,000 in Texas, and 5,500 in Washington. Every state
+had contributed to populate every other, although in general the
+migration tended to take place on east and west lines, and
+predominantly westward.
+
+Within the westward-moving tide of population were swirling
+eddies--cities--which tended to attract to themselves larger and larger
+proportions of the surrounding people. In 1870 two men in every ten
+lived in cities whose population was 8,000 or more; by 1890 another man
+in every ten had forsaken rural life. Large cities like Boston and New
+York sucked in surrounding districts, and so constituted metropolitan
+centers with problems new to American life. Such cities as Birmingham,
+Kansas City, and Seattle were just appearing in 1880, but their growth
+was very rapid; Los Angeles increased ten fold and Minneapolis
+thirteen, between 1870 and 1890; Denver, having received ten newcomers
+between 1860 and 1870, added 102,000 in the following twenty years.
+In the country as a whole the concentration in cities was most marked
+in the area north of the Potomac and Ohio rivers and east of the
+Mississippi; the South remained rural, as before the war. With the
+growth of urban population came questions of lighting and water supply,
+street railway transportation and municipal government, industry,
+education, health and morals.[2]
+
+Immigration, another constant factor in American development,
+underwent important changes during the twenty-five years from 1865
+to 1890. Greater in prosperous years and smaller during years of
+depression, the inward tide reached its climax in 1882, when 789,000
+aliens reached the new world. That year, in several respects, was a
+turning point in the history of immigration into the United States.
+It was in this year that the Chinese were excluded; that immigration
+from Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia became of sufficient size to be
+impressive; and that the first inclusive federal immigration act was
+passed. The immigration law of 1882 defined, in general, the policy
+which the nation has pursued ever since. It placed a tax of fifty
+cents on all incomers to be paid by the ship companies; it forbade the
+landing of objectionable persons, such as convicts and lunatics; and
+it placed on the owners of vessels the expense of returning immigrants
+not permitted to land. All these provisions were amended or developed
+in later laws, like that of 1885 forbidding persons or corporations to
+prepay the transportation of laborers or to encourage immigration
+under contract to perform work. The greater part of the foreign
+population settled in the manufacturing and urban North. Put into
+simplest terms, the census of 1890 showed that of every hundred aliens
+who had come to the United States between 1870 and 1890, thirty-seven
+were to be found in the states from Maine to Pennsylvania, four from
+Delaware to Texas, forty-seven from Ohio to Kansas and twelve in the
+Far West (for the most part Chinese).
+
+Of the great economic interests of the United States, the most
+widespread was agriculture. In the Northeast, to be sure, the amount
+of improved farm land had been growing steadily less since 1850 and
+the people had been turning their energies into other activities. In
+the South, on the other hand, agriculture formed the main economic
+resource and the twenty-five years following the war were, for the
+most part, consumed in recovering from that struggle. Although
+conditions varied from place to place, the situation in many portions
+of the South was little short of pitiable. Not only were factories,
+public buildings and railroads, houses and barns, tools and seeds
+destroyed, capital and credit gone, mining at a standstill and banks
+ruined, but bands of thieves infested many districts, federal officers
+were frequently dishonest and defrauded the people, and the entire
+labor system was wiped out at a stroke. The negroes had not been ideal
+workmen as slaves; now, as freedmen, they found difficulty in
+adjusting themselves to the economic obligations of their new status,
+and evinced a tendency to rove about restlessly, instead of settling
+down to the stern task of helping to rebuild the shattered South.
+
+It was manifest that the first problem was to revive the agricultural
+activities of the old days, and that the main resource must be cotton,
+the demand for which in the markets of the North and of Europe was
+such as to make it the best "money crop." A labor system was
+introduced known as share-farming or cropping. Under this system the
+plantation owner who had more property than he could cultivate under
+the new conditions let parts of his land to tenants, supplying them
+with buildings, tools, seed and perhaps credit at the village store
+for the supplies necessary for the year. The tenant, who had neither
+money nor credit with which to buy land, furnished the labor, and at
+the harvest each received a specified share of the product, commonly a
+half. The system had its disadvantages; it kept the farmer always in
+debt, and since the only valuable security which the plantation owner
+had was the crop--the land being almost unsalable--he insisted on
+the cultivation of cotton, which was a safe crop, and avoided
+experimentation and diversification. On the other hand, the system
+enabled the land owner to take advantage of the labor supply and to
+supervise the untutored negro,--and it kept the South alive. In
+addition to the large plantations, cultivated by several tenant
+farmers, the number of small farms tilled by independent owners or
+renters increased. Due to this tendency and to the opening of many
+small holdings in the Southwest, the size of the average farm
+diminished, so that the small farmer began to replace the plantation
+owner as the typical southerner.
+
+Owing to the insistence of land owners upon cotton culture, the South
+first caught up with its _ante-bellum_ production in the cultivation
+of this staple, for shortly before 1880 the crop exceeded that of
+1860. The production of tobacco, the second great southern crop,
+sharply shifted after the war from the Atlantic Coast states, except
+North Carolina, to the Mississippi region, especially to Kentucky.
+Maryland, indeed, never again produced much more than half as great a
+crop as she did in 1860, while Virginia did not equal her former
+record until the opening of the twentieth century, although the South
+as a whole recovered in the late eighties. Rice culture, likewise, did
+not recover readily for South Carolina alone produced almost as much
+in 1860 as the entire South in 1890, and not until the development of
+production in Louisiana after 1890 did the crop assume its former
+importance. The production of sugar in Louisiana in 1890 was but
+little greater than it had been in 1860, and in the production of
+cereals the South did not keep pace with the upper Mississippi Valley
+before 1890. On the other hand the rapid growth of Texas was one of
+the outstanding features of southern development during the period,
+for that state improved an amount of farm land between 1870 and 1890,
+roughly equivalent to the combined areas of New Hampshire, Vermont,
+and Massachusetts. There was observable, moreover, a certain
+hopefulness, a certain resiliency of purpose, a pride in the
+achievements of the past and in the possibilities of the future. In
+these respects the South was a new South by 1890.
+
+Greater than the South as a food-producing area, was the belt of
+states from Ohio and Michigan to Kansas and the Dakotas:
+
+    Where there's more of reaping and less of sowing,
+    That's where the West begins.
+
+The increased occupation of the public lands, the growth of population,
+improvements in transportation and the greater use of agricultural
+machinery, which could be employed to advantage on the large and
+relatively level farms, led to developments that were destined to have
+an important effect on the history of the nation. Agricultural
+machinery, such as the reaper, had been known long before the war, but
+the reduction of the labor supply from 1861 to 1865 had compelled
+farmers to replace men with machines. A reaper that merely cut the
+grain and tossed it aside, gave way at last to one which not only cut
+the grain, but gathered it into sheaves and bound the sheaves with
+twine. So great was the effect of the harvester upon western
+agriculture that William H. Seward declared that it "pushed the
+frontier westward at the rate of thirty miles a year."
+
+Due to the facts already mentioned, the number of mid-western farms
+increased nearly a million from 1870 to 1890, and the acreage in
+improved farm land grew by an amount equivalent to the combined areas
+of the British Isles, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark, with a
+generous margin to spare. The production of corn, wheat, oats and other
+cereals became so great as to demand an outlet to the East and to the
+markets of the world. Elevators for the storage of grain were
+constructed with a capacity of 300,000 to 1,000,000 bushels, and
+improvements were made in the methods of loading and unloading the
+product. Despite the growth of the agricultural interests of the Middle
+West, however, the farmer did not reach prosperity. For twenty years
+after 1873 prices fell steadily both in the United States and in other
+countries of the world, and the agricultural classes found themselves
+receiving a smaller and smaller return for their products. Unrest grew
+to distress, and distress to acute depression, while the demands of the
+farmers for relief frequently determined the trend of mid-western
+politics.[3]
+
+[Illustration:
+Relative Prices--1865-1890]
+
+Less general than agriculture, but more characteristic of the period
+after the war, was the development of manufacturing. The census of 1870
+was faulty and inadequate, but it was sufficiently accurate to indicate
+that the manufacturing region was preeminently that north of the
+Potomac-Ohio river line and east of the Mississippi. By 1890 it was
+apparent that the industrial interests were shifting slightly toward
+the West; nevertheless the leading states were those of southern New
+England, and New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In these states no
+fewer than four hundred and forty-seven industries employed more than a
+million dollars of capital each. The manufacturing of cotton, woolen
+and silk for the rest of the country was done here; foundry products,
+iron and steel manufactures, silver and brass goods, refined petroleum,
+boots and shoes, paper and books, with a host of other articles, were
+sent from this section to every part of the world. All along the line,
+from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania, capital engaged in manufacturing
+doubled between 1880 and 1890, and the number of employees greatly
+increased.
+
+Although the industrial life of the South belongs, for the most part,
+to the years since 1890, the coal and iron deposits of Alabama were
+known and utilized before that year, the number of cotton mill spindles
+in North Carolina tripled between 1880 and 1890, and cotton expositions
+were held in Atlanta in 1881 and New Orleans in 1884. It was in the
+eighties, also, that the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and the Norfolk
+and Western led to the exploitation of the coal deposits of Virginia
+and West Virginia, especially the famous Pocahontas field.
+
+Some aspects of the growth of manufacturing in the North are well
+illustrated in the development of the mineral resources around Lake
+Superior. The presence of copper and iron in this region had long been
+known, but they had not been utilized until a decade before the Civil
+War, and even then the output had been greatly restricted by
+insufficient transportation facilities. By the close of the war,
+however, a canal had been constructed which allowed the passage of
+barges from Lake Superior to Lake Huron, and railroads had been laid to
+a few important mining centers. The Marquette iron range in northern
+Michigan, the Gogebic in Wisconsin and Michigan, the Menominee near
+Marquette, the Vermilion Lake and Mesabec ore-beds near Duluth,--all
+these combined to yield millions of tons of ore, caused the development
+of numerous mining towns and laid the foundations of a gigantic
+expansion in the production of steel. As the iron and steel industry
+with its furnaces, machinery and skilled labor was already established
+at points in Illinois, Ohio and western Pennsylvania, it was cheaper to
+transport the ore to these places than to transfer the industry to the
+mines. Ore vessels were constructed capable of carrying mammoth
+cargoes; docks, railroads and canals were built; and the products of
+the mines taken to lake and inland cities. Improvements, meanwhile,
+were being continually made in the steel industry, such as the Bessemer
+process, by which the impurities were burned out of the iron ore, and
+exactly enough carbon introduced into the molten metal to transform it
+into steel.
+
+Although the steel industry was established in many places, its most
+dramatic growth occurred in those parts of eastern Ohio and western
+Pennsylvania that center about the city of Pittsburg. Placed
+strategically at the point where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers
+join to form the Ohio, in the midst of an area rich in coal, petroleum
+and natural gas, Pittsburg rapidly became the center of a region in
+which the development of manufacturing and the construction of
+railroads dwarfed other interests. A large portion of the ore mined in
+the Lake Superior fields was carried to the Pittsburg district to be
+transformed into steel products of all kinds. Moreover, the fortunes
+made by private individuals in the region, and the inflow of alien
+laborers to work in the factories and on the railroads raised weighty
+social and industrial problems.
+
+Manifestly the extension of agriculture and industry in so large a
+country as the United States was dependent upon the corresponding
+growth of the means of transportation, both by water and by rail. A
+detailed account of the expansion of the railway net, with the
+accompanying' implications in the fields of finance and politics, is a
+matter for later consideration. Certain of its general features may be
+mentioned, however, because they are intimately interwoven with the
+economic developments which have just been explained. The concentration
+of the population in the cities, of which New York and Chicago were
+outstanding examples, was one of these features. From the time of the
+first census, the city of New York continued to maintain its position
+as the most populous city of the nation. Between 1850 and 1890 it added
+a round million to its numbers, containing 1,515,000 persons at the
+later date. Moreover it was the center of a thriving and thickly
+settled region extending from New Haven on the one side to Philadelphia
+on the other--the most densely populated area in America. The
+uninterrupted expansion of the city indicated that the reasons for its
+growth were constant in their operation. And, in fact, the reasons were
+not difficult to find. It was blessed with one of the world's finest
+harbors and had access to the interior of the state by way of the
+Hudson and Mohawk rivers. These natural advantages had long since been
+recognized and had been increased by the construction of the Erie Canal
+in 1825 which, with the Great Lakes and the several canals connecting
+the Lakes with the Ohio Valley, had given New York an early hold and
+almost a monopoly on the trade between the upper Mississippi, the Lakes
+and the coast. The city, therefore, became an importing and exporting
+center; its shipping interests grew, immigration flowed in, and its
+manufacturing establishments soon outstripped those of any other
+industrial center; the great printing and publishing, banking and
+commercial firms were drawn irresistibly to the most populous city, and
+Wall Street became the synonym for the financial center of the nation.
+
+In 1840 Chicago had been an unimportant settlement of 4500 persons, but
+by the opening of the war it had grown to twenty-five times that size,
+and added 800,000 between 1870 and 1890. It had early become evident
+that the city was the natural outlet toward the East for the grain
+trade and the slaughtering and meatpacking industry of the upper
+Mississippi Valley. Before the late sixties, however, railway
+connection was defective, being composed of many short lines rather
+than of one continuous road, so that freight had to be loaded and
+unloaded many times during its passage to the seaboard. This situation,
+which had been merely inconvenient before the war, had become little
+short of intolerable during the struggle, because the closing of the
+Mississippi had cut off from the Middle West its water outlet toward
+the South and had diverted more freight to the railroads. After the
+war, Cornelius Vanderbilt, president of the Hudson River Railroad,
+combined a number of the shorter roads so as to give uninterrupted
+communication between Chicago and New York, to tap the trade of the
+Mississippi Valley, and to compete with water traffic by way of the
+Great Lakes and the Erie Canal. Other railroads saw the possibilities
+in the western trade, and the Baltimore and Ohio, the Grand Trunk, and
+the Erie followed the lead of Vanderbilt. A similar development,
+although on a smaller scale, accompanied the growth of other northern
+cities. The retroactive effects of the roads on the distribution of the
+population are too detailed for discussion, but a single example may
+typify many. In 1870 the Maine farmer supplied much of the meat
+consumed in Boston; by 1895, he was getting his own meat from the West.
+He must, therefore, adapt himself to the new conditions if he could,
+move to the manufacturing cities as so many of his neighbors did, or
+migrate to the West.
+
+Like the growth of New York and Chicago, the development of California
+had an important effect on the history of American railway
+transportation. Although it had been agitated for many years, the
+project for a railroad from the Mississippi to the Pacific Coast had
+not reached the construction stage until the congressional acts of 1862
+and 1864 provided for a line to be built from Omaha to San Francisco.
+The Union Pacific Railroad had been incorporated to build the eastern
+end, while the western end was to be constructed by the Central Pacific
+Railroad Company, a California corporation. The latter act, that of
+1864, had given the roads substantial financial assistance and half the
+public land on a strip forty miles wide along the line of the track.
+Many difficulties had stood in the way--lack of funds, problems of
+construction and inadequate labor supply. Eventually they had all been
+overcome by the energy and skill of such men as Stanford, Crocker and
+Huntington. Imported Chinese coolies had met the labor demand and
+construction was speeded up. Actual building had begun in 1863 and six
+years later the two roads met at Promontory Point near Ogden in Utah,
+where the last spike was driven, the engines
+
+    Facing on the single track,
+      Half a world behind each back.
+
+During the four years following the completion of the transcontinental
+line, 24,000 miles of new railroad were constructed, much of which was
+built into the wilderness ahead of settlement. So great an expansion,
+coming at a time when immense stretches of new land were being opened
+and industry being developed on a large scale, could hardly fail to
+result in over-speculation. The results appeared in 1873. Jay Cooke and
+Company, the most important financial concern in the country had been
+back of the Northern Pacific Railroad, marketing large quantities of
+its bonds and so providing capital for construction, the purchase of
+equipment, the payment of wages and so on. Obviously a large amount of
+money was thus being put into an enterprise from which returns would
+come only after a considerable period; and yet construction had to be
+continued, or what was already invested would be lost. What Cooke was
+doing for the Northern Pacific was being done for the Chesapeake and
+Ohio by Fisk and Hatch, and by other firms for speculative enterprises
+in every corner of the land.
+
+The process of putting capital into fixed form could hardly go on
+forever, and several events led to a final crash. In 1871 and 1872
+great fires in Chicago and Boston destroyed millions of dollars' worth
+of property. Early in 1873 the government investigation of the Credit
+Mobilier Company led to widespread distrust of the roads and made
+investors conservative about buying bonds. On September 18, 1873, Jay
+Cooke and Company found itself unable to continue business and closed
+its doors. The failure was a thunderbolt to the financial world.
+Indeed, so unbelievable was the news that an energetic policeman
+arrested a small newsboy who shouted his "Extra--All about the failure
+of Jay Cooke."
+
+If Jay Cooke and Company fell, the sky might fall. People rushed to
+withdraw their funds from the banks. Fisk and Hatch opened their doors
+for fifteen minutes and received calls for $1,500,000. They closed at
+once. The smaller financial institutions followed the bigger ones.
+Stocks fell, the Exchange was closed, there was a money famine.
+Industrial concerns, dependent on the banks, failed by scores.
+Industrial paralysis, with railroad receiverships, laborers out of
+employment, riots and their accompaniments, showed how deep-seated had
+been the trouble. Not until late in the decade did business recover its
+former prosperity.
+
+With the return of more stable conditions the construction of railroads
+continued unabated. The Northern Pacific ran near the Canadian line and
+connected the upper Mississippi Valley with the coast, carrying in its
+trail the manners and customs of the East. Two lines in the South were
+extended to the Pacific, so that by the middle eighties four great main
+avenues gave passage through a region over which, so recently, the
+miner and the trapper had forced a dangerous path.
+
+The fact that it was often necessary, in building the railroads across
+the plains, to detail half the working force to protect the remainder
+against the Indians, calls attention to one unmistakable result of the
+conquest of the Far West. The construction of the railroads spelled the
+doom of the wild Indian. Far back in 1834 the government had adopted
+the policy of setting aside large tracts of land west of the
+Mississippi for the use of the Indian tribes. Most of the savages had
+been stationed in an immense area between southern Minnesota and Texas,
+while other smaller reservations had been scattered over most of the
+states west of the river. On the whole, the government had dealt with
+the Indians in tribes, not as individuals. The rapid inflow of
+population to the fertile lands, together with the rush of prospectors
+to newly discovered supplies of gold and silver, caused increasing
+demands from the Indians for protection, and from the whites for the
+extinguishment of Indian land titles.
+
+The classical illustration of this tendency is found in the case of the
+Sioux Indians in South Dakota. The discovery of gold in the region of
+the Black Hills, on the Sioux reservation, aroused agitation for the
+removal of the tribe to make way for settlers and miners. But the
+execution of the scheme was not so simple as its conception. The
+removal of the Sioux necessitated the transfer of the Poncas, a
+peaceful tribe which lay immediately east. The latter, not unnaturally,
+objected, quarrels arose and eventually the Poncas were practically
+broken to pieces. The Sioux, not satisfied, attempted to regain the
+Black Hills, fought the famous Sioux War of 1876, led by Sitting Bull,
+but were crushed and forced to give up the unequal contest.
+
+It would not be worth while to enter into the details of the numerous
+Indian conflicts after the Civil War. It is enough to notice that
+stirring accounts of them may be read in the memoirs of such soldiers
+as Custer, Sheridan and Miles, and that they cost millions of dollars
+and hundreds of lives. Finally it became evident that the attempt to
+deal with the Indians in tribes was a failure and it was determined to
+break up the tribal holdings of land so as to give each individual a
+small piece for his private property, and to open the remainder to
+settlement by the whites. In pursuance of such a policy, the Dawes Act
+of 1887 provided for the allotment of a quarter-section to each head of
+a family, with the proviso that the owner should not sell the land
+within twenty-five years. This was intended to protect the Indian from
+shrewd "land-sharks." Citizenship was given with the ownership of the
+land, in the hope that a sort of assimilation might gradually take
+place, and earnest attempts were made to provide education for the
+red-man. Not all these hopes were realized, however, and the later
+Burke Act, 1906, attempted further protection.
+
+While the Indian was being restricted to a small part of the great
+region west of the Mississippi, there was being enacted on the plains
+one of the most picturesque of all American dramas. Beyond the settled
+parts of the states just west of the "Father of Waters," bounded north
+and south by Canada and the Rio Grande, and extending west to the Rocky
+Mountain foot-hills, lay a huge empire of rolling territory. It was
+grass-covered, but lacked sufficient rainfall to make it fertile, so
+that it was considered, as part of it had early been called, "the great
+American desert."
+
+Cattle turned loose long before by Spanish ranchers down in the
+Southwest had multiplied, spread out over the plains, and run
+wild--wild as Texas steers. A combination of circumstances disclosed
+the fact that these cattle could be improved by breeding, corraled and
+driven north over the "Long Trail," to be slaughtered in Omaha, Kansas
+City, St. Louis and Chicago for the people of eastern cities. The
+round-up, when the cattle were collected; the drive, under command of
+the boss and his cow-boys,
+
+    loose in the unfenced blue riding the sunset rounds;
+
+the great ranches in the North, where the herds were fattened for the
+market;--all this formed the background of an attractive romance.
+Obviously, however, the drive was dependent on great stretches of open
+country, with free grazing and free access to water, and it is also
+manifest that these conditions could not long endure in the face of
+constant westward migration. Homesteaders followed the railroads out
+across the plains, and the cheapening of wire fence led to the
+enclosure of great farms including the best grazing lands and the water
+supply. By 1890, therefore, the great drives were a tale that is told.
+The less romantic packing business remained, however; ranches supplied
+the cattle, the railroads transported them, and improvements in
+refrigerating and canning made possible another development in domestic
+and foreign trade.
+
+In addition to the expansion of the several economic interests of the
+various sections of the country, inventions and improvements were
+taking place which affected the general problems of production and
+distribution. Improvements in machinery saved forty to eighty per cent.
+of the time and labor demanded in the production of important
+manufactured goods. Cheapened steel affected all kinds of industry. The
+development of steam-power and the beginnings of the practical use of
+electricity for power and light multiplied the effectiveness of human
+hands or added to human comfort. Cheaper and quicker transportation
+almost revolutionized the distribution of economic goods. The increased
+use of the telegraph and cable shortened distances and brought together
+producers and consumers that had in earlier times been weeks of travel
+apart.
+
+The necessarily statistical character of an account of economic
+development should not obscure the meaning of its details. Increased
+population, with its horde of incoming aliens, created a demand for
+standing room, necessitated westward expansion, and made the West more
+than ever a new country with new problems. The growth of agriculture
+enlarged a class that had not hitherto been as influential as it was
+destined to be, and brought into politics the economic needs of the
+farmer. Manufacturing brought great wealth into the hands of a few,
+created an increasing demand for protective tariffs and gave rise to
+strikes and other industrial problems. The concentration of especial
+interests in especial sections made likely the emergence of sectional
+antagonisms. Back of tariff and finance, therefore, back of
+transportation and labor, of new political parties and revolts in the
+old ones, of the great strikes and the increasing importance of some of
+the sections, lay the economic foundations of the new era.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+No thorough study of the economic history of the United States after
+the Civil War has yet been made. E.L. Bogart, _Economic History of the
+United States_ (1907), and various later editions, is the best single
+volume; E.E. Sparks, _National Development_ (1907), is useful. On the
+South, consult articles by St. G.L. Sioussat, in _History Teachers'
+Magazine_ (Sept., Oct., 1916); P.A. Bruce, _Rise of the New South_
+(1905); J.C. Ballagh (ed.), _South in the Building of the Nation_
+(1909), vol. VI; M.B. Hammond, _Cotton Industry_ (1897). R.P. Porter,
+_West from the Census of 1880_ (1882), is a useful compendium. The
+Plains in the day of the cowboy are well described in Emerson Hough,
+_Passing of the Frontier_ (1918); Emerson Hough, _Story of the Cowboy_
+(1898); F.L. Paxson, _Last American Frontier_ (1910); and F.L. Paxson,
+"The Cow Country," in _American Historical Review_, Oct., 1916. N.A.
+Miles, _Serving the Republic_ (1911), contains reminiscences of Indian
+conflicts. On the Far West, in addition to Porter, Hough and Paxson,
+Katharine Coman, _Economic Beginnings of the Far West_ (2 vols., 1912);
+H.K. White, _Union Pacific Railway_ (1898); L.H. Haney, _Congressional
+History of Railways_ (2 vols., 1908-1910); S.E. White, _The
+Forty-Niners_ (1918).
+
+There is also an abundance of useful illustrative fiction, such as:
+Bret Harte, _Luck of Roaring Camp_, and other stories (Far West);
+Edward Eggleston, _Hoosier Schoolmaster_ (Indiana); W.D. Howells,
+_Rise of Silas Lapham_ (New England); G.W. Cable, _Old Creole Days_
+(New Orleans); C.E. Craddock, _In the Tennessee Mountains_; F.H.
+Smith, _Colonel Carter_ (Virginia); Hamlin Garland, _Main Travelled
+Roads_ and _Son of the Middle Border_ (Middle West); P.L. Ford, _Hon.
+Peter Sterling_ (New York); S.E. White, _Gold_ (California); and
+_Riverman_ (Lake Superior lumber); John Hay, _Breadwinners_ (industrial).
+
+For other references to economic aspects of the period, see chapters
+IX, XI, XIV.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The ratio was 151,912 but, by a provision of the Constitution,
+states are given a representative even if they do not contain the
+requisite number.
+
+[2] The most important advances in municipal street railway
+transportation were made between 1875 and 1890. In 1876 New York began
+the construction of an overhead or elevated railway on which trains
+were drawn by small locomotives. The first electric street railways
+were operated in Richmond, Va., and in Baltimore. Electric street
+lighting was introduced in San Francisco in 1879.
+
+[3] Hamlin Garland, _Main Travelled Roads_, portrays the hardships of
+western farm life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND OF THE NEW ISSUES
+
+Powerful as economic forces were from 1865 to 1890, they did not alone
+determine the direction of American progress during those years.
+Different individuals and different sections of the country reacted
+differently to the same economic facts; a formula that explained a
+phenomenon satisfactorily to one group, carried no conviction to
+another; political parties built up their platforms on economic
+self-interest, and yet they sometimes had their ideals; theories that
+seemed to explain economic development were found to be inadequate and
+were replaced by others; and practices that had earlier been regarded
+with indifference began to offend the public sense of good taste or
+morals or justice, and gave way to more enlightened standards. Some
+understanding is necessary, therefore, of the more common theories,
+ideals, creeds and practices, because they supplemented the economic
+foundations that underlay American progress for a quarter century after
+the war.
+
+Since the Republican party was almost continuously in power during this
+period, its composition, spirit and ideals were fundamental in
+political history. Throughout the North, and especially in the
+Northeast, the intellectual and prosperous classes, the capitalists and
+manufacturers, were more likely to be found in the Republican party
+than among the Democrats. In fact such party leaders as Senator George
+F. Hoar went so far as to assert that the organization comprised the
+manufacturers and skilled laborers of the East, the soldiers, the
+church members, the clergymen, the school-teachers, the reformers and
+the men who were doing the great work of temperance, education and
+philanthropy. The history of the party, also, was no small factor in
+its successes. Many northerners had cast their first ballot in the
+fifties, with all the zeal of crusaders; they looked back upon the
+beginnings of Republicanism as they might have remembered the origin of
+a sacred faith; they thought of their party as the body which had
+abolished slavery and restored the Union; and they treasured the names
+of its Lincoln, its Seward, its Sumner and Grant and Sherman. The
+Republican party, wrote Edward MacPherson in 1888, in a history of the
+organization, is
+
+    both in the purity of its doctrines, the beneficent sweep of its
+    measures, in its courage, its steadfastness, its fidelity, in its
+    achievements and in its example, the most resplendent political
+    organization the world has ever seen.
+
+Senator Hoar declared that no party in history, not even that which
+inaugurated the Constitution, had ever accomplished so much in so short
+a time. It had been formed, he said, to prevent the extension of
+slavery into the territories, but the "providence of God imposed upon
+it far larger duties." The Republican party gave "honest, wise, safe,
+liberal, progressive American counsel" and the Democrats "unwise,
+unsafe, illiberal, obstructive, un-American counsel." He remembered the
+Republican nominating convention of 1880 as a scene of "indescribable
+sublimity," comparable in "grandeur and impressiveness to the mighty
+torrent of Niagara."
+
+During the generation after the war the recollection of the struggle
+was fresh in men's minds and its influence was a force in party
+councils. The Democrats were looked upon as having sympathized with the
+"rebellion" and having been the party of disunion. In campaign after
+campaign the people were warned not to admit to power the party which
+had been "traitor" to the Union. Roscoe Conkling, the most influential
+politician in New York, declared in 1877 that the Democrats wished to
+regain power in order to use the funds in the United States Treasury to
+repay Confederate war debts and to provide pensions for southern
+soldiers. As late even as 1888 the nation was urged to recollect that
+the Democratic party had been the "mainstay and support of the
+Rebellion," while the Republicans were the "party that served the
+Nation."
+
+At a later time it was pointed out that the party had not been founded
+solely on idealism; that the adherence of Pennsylvania to the party,
+for example, was due at least in a measure to Republican advocacy of a
+protective tariff; that Salmon P. Chase and Edwin M. Stanton, two of
+the leading members of Lincoln's cabinet had been Democrats; and that
+Lincoln's second election and the successful outcome of the war had
+been due partly to the support of his political opponents. As time went
+on, also, some of the leaders of the Republican party declared that its
+original ideals had become obscured in more practical considerations.
+They felt that abuses had grown up which had been little noticed
+because of the necessity of keeping in power that party which they
+regarded as the only patriotic one. They asserted that many of the
+managers had become arrogant and corrupt. All this helped to explain
+the strength of such revolts as that of the Liberal Republican movement
+of 1872. Nevertheless, during the greater part of the twenty-five years
+after the war, hosts of Republicans cherished such a picture as that
+drawn by Senator Hoar and Edward MacPherson, and it was that picture
+which held them within the party and made patriotism and Republicanism
+synonymous terms.
+
+These Republicans, however, who took the more critical attitude toward
+their party formed the core of the "Mugwump" or Independent movement.
+Their philosophy was simple. They believed that there ought to be a
+political element which was not rigidly controlled by the discipline of
+party organization, which would act upon its own judgment for the
+public interest, and which should be a reminder to both parties that
+neither could venture upon mischievous policies without endangering its
+control over the machinery of government. Theoretically, at least, the
+Independent believed that it was more important that government be well
+administered than that it be administered by one set of men or another.
+The weakness of this group, aside from its small size, was its
+impatience and impracticability. By nature the Independent was an
+individualist, forming his own opinion and holding it with tenacity. In
+such a body there could not be long-continued cooperation or singleness
+of purpose; each new problem caused new decisions resulting in the
+break-up of the group and the formation of new alignments. The
+Independent group, therefore, varied in strength from campaign to
+campaign. To the typical party worker, who looked upon politics as a
+warfare for the spoils of office, the Independent was variously
+denounced as a deserter, a traitor, an apostate and a guerilla
+deploying between the lines and foraging now on one side and now on the
+other. To the party wheel-horse, independent voting seemed
+impracticable, and the atmosphere of reform too "highly scented."
+
+The Democrats, laboring under the disadvantage of a reputation for
+disloyalty during the war, and kept out of power for most of the time
+during the period, were forced into a defensive position where they
+could complain or criticize, but not present a program of constructive
+achievement. They denounced the election of 1876 as a great "fraud";
+they looked upon the Republicans as the organ of those who demanded
+class advantages; they condemned the party as wasteful, corrupt and
+extravagant in administration, careless of the distress of the masses,
+and desirous of increasing the authority of the federal government at
+the expense of the powers of the states. Their own mission they felt to
+be the constant assertion of the opposite principles of government and
+administration. They felt that they in particular represented
+government by the people for the equal good of all classes. In
+conformity to what they believed to be the principles of Jefferson and
+Jackson they professed faith in the capacity of the plain people. They
+advocated frugality and economy in government expenditure and looked
+with alarm on any extension of federal power that invaded the
+traditional domain of local activity.
+
+The intensification of party spirit and party loyalty, which was so
+typical of the times, "delivered the citizen more effectually, bound
+hand and foot, into the power of the party embodied in its
+Organization." The organization, meanwhile, was being improved and
+strengthened. Its permanent National Committee which had existed from
+_ante-bellum_ days, was supplemented in both parties immediately after
+the war by the congressional committee, whose mission it was to carry
+the elections for the House of Representatives. Increased attention was
+paid to state and local organizations. Party conventions in states and
+counties chose delegates to national conventions and nominated
+candidates for office. State, county and town committees raised money,
+employed speakers, distributed literature, formed torch-light companies
+to march in party processions and, most important of all, got out the
+voters on election day. By such means the National Committee was
+enabled to keep in close touch with the rank and file of the party, and
+so complete did the organization become that it deserved and won the
+name, "the machine."
+
+The master-spirit of the machine was usually the "Boss," a professional
+politician who generally did not himself hold elective office or show
+concern in constructive programs of legislation or in the public
+welfare. Instead, his interests lay in winning elections; dividing the
+offices among the party workers; distributing profitable contracts for
+public work; procuring the passage of legislation desired by industrial
+or railroad companies, or blocking measures objected to by them. A
+vivid picture of the activities of the boss in New York, drawn by Elihu
+Root, will serve to portray conditions in many states and cities from
+1865 to 1890:
+
+    From the days of Fenton, and Conkling, and Arthur, and Cornell,
+    and Platt, from the days of David B. Hill, down to the present
+    time, the government of the state has presented two different lines
+    of activity, one of the constitutional and statutory officers of
+    the state, and the other of the party leaders,--they call them
+    party bosses. They call the system--I do not coin the phrase, I
+    adopt it because it carries its own meaning--the system they call
+    "invisible government." For I do not remember how many years, Mr.
+    Conkling was the supreme ruler in this state; the governor did not
+    count, the legislatures did not count; comptrollers and secretaries
+    of state and what not, did not count. It was what Mr. Conkling
+    said; and in a great outburst of public rage he was pulled down.
+
+    Then Mr. Platt ruled the state; for nigh upon twenty years he ruled
+    it. It was not the governor; it was not the legislature; it was not
+    any elected officers; it was Mr. Platt. And the capitol was not
+    here (in Albany); it was at 49 Broadway; with Mr. Platt and his
+    lieutenants. It makes no difference what name you give, whether you
+    call it Fenton or Conkling or Cornell or Arthur or Platt, or by the
+    names of men now living. The ruler of the state during the greater
+    part of the forty years of my acquaintance with the state
+    government has not been any man authorized by the constitution or
+    by the law.[1]
+
+Under such conditions, corruption was naturally a commonplace in
+politics. In the campaigns, the party managers were too often men to
+whom "nothing was dreadful but defeat." At every Presidential election,
+immense sums of money were poured into the most important doubtful
+states--Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Indiana. Twenty to
+seventy-five dollars was said to have been the price of a vote in
+Indiana in 1880; and ten to fifteen per cent. of the vote in
+Connecticut was thought to be purchasable. In New York ballot-box
+stuffing and repeating were the rule in sections of the city. Employers
+exerted a less crude but equally efficacious pressure upon their
+employees to vote "right." Municipal government also was often
+characterized by that extreme of corruption which called out the scorn
+of writers on public affairs. The New York _Times_ complained in 1877
+that the government of the city was no more a popular government than
+Turkish rule in Bulgaria, and that if the Tammany leaders did not
+collect revenue with the horse-whip and sabre, it was because the forms
+of law afforded a means that was pleasanter, easier and quite as
+effective.
+
+Federal officials, it must be admitted, did not set a high standard for
+local officers to follow. During Grant's administration five judges of
+a United States Court were driven from office by threats of
+impeachment; members of the Committee on Military Affairs in the House
+of Representatives sold their privilege of selecting young men to be
+educated at West Point; and candidates for even the highest offices in
+the gift of the nation were sometimes men whose political past would
+not bear the light of day. More difficult to overcome was the lack of a
+decent sense of propriety among many public officers. Members of the
+Senate practiced before the Supreme Court, the justices of which they
+had an important share in appointing; senators and representatives
+traded in the securities of railroads which were seeking favors at the
+hands of Congress; and even in the most critical circles, corrupt
+practices were condoned on the ground that all the most reputable
+people were more or less engaged in similar activities. Most difficult
+of all to understand was the unfaltering support accorded by men of the
+utmost integrity to party leaders whose evil character was known on all
+sides. Men who would not themselves be guilty of dishonest acts and who
+vehemently condemned such deeds among their political opponents, failed
+to make any energetic protest within their own ranks for fear that they
+might bring about a party split and thus give the "enemy" a victory.
+
+The political practices which prevailed after 1865 for at least a
+quarter of a century were notoriously bad. Yet the student of the
+period must be sensitive to higher aspirations and better practices
+among many of the politicians, and among the rank and file of the
+people. George F. Hoar, John Sherman, Rutherford B. Hayes, Grover
+Cleveland and many others were incorruptible. The exposure of
+scandalous actions on the part of certain high officials blasted their
+careers, indicating that the body of the people would not condone
+dishonesty, and the parties found it advisable to accept the
+resignations of some of their more notorious campaign managers.
+Moreover, the American people of all classes were a political people,
+with a capacity for political organization and activity, and with a
+passion for change. The cruder forms of corruption were successfully
+combated, and the popular, as well as the official sense of good taste
+and propriety gradually reached higher levels.
+
+Another fundamental political consideration after the Civil War was the
+gradual reduction of the power of the executive department. During the
+war the authority exercised by President Lincoln had risen to great
+heights, partly because of his personal characteristics and partly
+because the exigencies of the times demanded quick executive action.
+After the conflict was past, however, the legislative body naturally
+reasserted itself. Moreover, the quarrel between President Johnson and
+Congress, as has been shown, took the form of a contest for control
+over appointments to office and especially over appointments to the
+cabinet. The resulting impeachment, although it did not result in
+conviction, brought about a distinct shrinkage in executive prestige.
+Grant was so inexperienced in politics and so naive in his judgments of
+his associates that he fell completely into the power of the machine
+and failed to revive the former importance and independence of his
+office.
+
+The ascendancy which thus slipped out of the hands of the executive was
+seized by the Senate, where it remained for a long period, despite
+efforts on the part of the president and the House of Representatives
+to prevent it. So remarkable and continuous a domination is not to be
+explained by a single formula. The long term of the members of the
+Senate, the traditional high reputation of the body and the undoubted
+ability of many of its members assisted in upholding its prestige. Its
+small size as compared with the House of Representatives gave it
+greater flexibility. Furthermore, certain Senate practices were
+instrumental in giving that body its primacy. Under the provisions of
+the Constitution the Senate has power to ratify or reject the
+nominations of the executive to many important positions within his
+gift, and by the close of reconstruction it had acquired a firm control
+over such appointments. "Senatorial courtesy" bade every member,
+regardless of party, to concur with the decision of the senators from
+any state with regard to the appointments in which they were
+interested. When, therefore, the executive wished to change conditions
+in a given office he must have the acquiescence of the senators from
+the state in which the change was to occur. If he did not, the entire
+body would rally to the support of their colleagues and refuse to
+confirm the objectionable nominations. With such a weapon the Senate
+was usually able to force the executive into submission, or at least to
+make reforms extremely difficult. In Senator Hoar's suggestive words,
+senators went to the White House to give advice, not to receive it.
+
+In connection with revenue legislation the Senate seized the leadership
+by means of an evasion of the Constitution. According to the terms of
+that document, all bills for raising revenue must originate in the
+House of Representatives, but the Senate may propose amendments.
+Relying upon this power the Senate constantly revised measures to the
+extent of changing their character completely and even of grafting part
+or all of one proposal upon the title of another. In one case, early in
+the period, the Senate "amended" a House bill of four lines which
+repealed the tariff on tea and coffee; the "amendment" consisted of
+twenty pages, containing a general revision of customs duties and
+internal revenue taxes. At a later time the Senate Finance Committee
+drew up a tariff bill even before Congress had assembled.
+
+The primacy of the Senate quickly led to recognition of the value of
+seats in it. Influential state politicians sought election in order to
+control the patronage. Competent judges in the early nineties declared,
+for example, that the senators from New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland
+were all of this type. Another considerable fraction was composed of
+powerful business men, directors in large corporations, who found it to
+their advantage to be in this most influential law-making body and who
+were known as oil or silver or lumber senators. So was laid the
+foundation of the complaint that the Senate was a millionaires' club.
+And so, too, it came about that much of state politics revolved about
+the choice of members for the upper house, for senators were elected by
+the state legislatures until long after 1890. The power of the House of
+Representatives, in contrast with the Senate, was relatively small
+except during the single session 1889-1891, when Thomas B. Reed was in
+control, although individual members sometimes wielded considerable
+influence.
+
+Somewhat comparable to the shift in the center of power from one
+federal authority to another, was the change which took place in the
+relative strength of the state and national governments. This transfer
+was most clearly seen in the decisions of the Supreme Court in cases
+involving the Fourteenth Amendment.
+
+Previous to 1868, when the Amendment became part of the Constitution,
+comparatively little state legislation relating to private property had
+been reviewed by the Court. Ever since the establishment of the federal
+government, cases involving the constitutionality of state legislation
+had been appealed to United States Courts when they had been objected
+to as running counter to the clauses of the Constitution forbidding
+states to enact bills of attainder, _ex post facto_ laws, or laws
+impairing the obligation of contracts. Their number, however, had been
+relatively small, and normally the acts of state legislatures had not
+been reviewed by federal courts; or in other words the tendency had
+been to preserve the individuality and strength of the several states.
+After the war, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments placed
+additional prohibitions on the states, and the decisions of the Supreme
+Court determined the meaning and extent of the added provisions. The
+interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment was especially important.
+Most significant was the interpretation of Section 1, which reads as
+follows:
+
+    All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject
+    to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States
+    and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or
+    enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities
+    of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any
+    person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
+    nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection
+    of the laws.
+
+So vague and inclusive were these phrases that many important questions
+immediately sprang from them. What were the privileges and immunities
+of the citizen? Did those of the citizen of the United States differ
+from those of the citizen of a state? Was a corporation a person? What
+was liberty? What was due process of law? Hitherto the protection of
+life, liberty and property had rested, in the main, upon the individual
+states, and cases involving these subjects had been decided by state
+courts. Were the state courts to be superseded, in relation to these
+vital subjects, by the United States Supreme Court?
+
+It has already been shown that the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment
+was the protection of the recently freed negro. The Thirteenth
+Amendment had forbidden slavery, but the southern states had passed
+apprentice and vagrancy laws which reduced the negro to a condition
+closely resembling slavery in certain of its aspects. The Fourteenth
+Amendment was designed to remedy such a condition by forbidding the
+states to abridge the privileges of citizens, or to deprive persons of
+life, liberty or property. Were the very vague phrases of the Amendment
+merely in keeping with the vagueness of many of the other grants of
+power in the Constitution, or were they designedly expressed in such a
+way as to accomplish something more than the protection of the
+freedman?
+
+The first decision of the Supreme Court involving the Amendment was
+that given in the Slaughter House Cases in 1873, which did not concern
+the negro in any way. In 1869 the legislature of Louisiana had given a
+corporation in that state the exclusive right to slaughter cattle
+within a large area, and had forbidden other persons to construct
+slaughter-houses within the limits of this region, but the corporation
+was to allow any other persons to use its buildings and equipment,
+charging fixed fees for the privilege. Cases were brought before the
+courts to determine whether the law violated that part of the
+Fourteenth Amendment which forbids a state to pass laws abridging the
+privileges of citizens and taking away their property without due
+process of law. By a vote of five to four the Court upheld the
+constitutionality of the statute.
+
+The majority held that the purpose of the Amendment was primarily the
+protection of the negro. This purpose, the Court thought, lay at the
+foundation of all three of the war amendments and without it no one of
+them would ever have been suggested. The majority did not believe that
+the Congress which passed the amendments or the state legislatures
+which ratified them intended to transfer the protection of the great
+body of civil rights from the states to the federal government. Neither
+did they think that due process of law had been interfered with by the
+Louisiana legislation. In reply to the objection that the
+slaughter-house law violated the clause, "nor shall any State deny to
+any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,"
+the majority declared:
+
+    We doubt very much whether any action of a State not directed by
+    way of discrimination against the negroes as a class, or on account
+    of their race, will ever be held to come within the purview of this
+    provision.
+
+In brief, then, the majority was inclined to preserve the balance
+between the states and the national government very much as it had
+been. It believed that the amendments should be applied mainly if not
+wholly to the fortunes of the freedman and that judicial review of such
+legislation as that in Louisiana concerning the slaughter of cattle
+should end in the state courts.
+
+For a time the interpretation of the Court remained that given by the
+majority in this decision. When western state legislatures passed laws
+regulating the rates which railroads and certain other corporations
+might legally charge for their services, the Court at first showed an
+inclination to allow the states a free hand. Regulation of this sort,
+it was held, did not deprive the citizen or the corporation of property
+without due process of law.
+
+There were indications, nevertheless, that the opinion of the Court was
+undergoing a change as time elapsed. An interesting prelude to the
+change was an argument by Roscoe Conkling in San Mateo County _v._
+Southern Pacific Railroad Company in 1882. Conkling was acting as
+attorney for the railroad and was attempting to show that the roads
+were protected, by the Fourteenth Amendment, from state laws which
+taxed their property unduly. Conkling argued that the Amendment had not
+been designed merely for the protection of the freedman, and in order
+to substantiate his contention, he produced a manuscript copy of the
+journal of the Congressional committee that had drawn up the proposals
+which later became the Fourteenth Amendment. He had himself been a
+member of the committee. The journal, it should be noticed, had never
+hitherto been utilized in public.
+
+Conkling stated that at the time when the Amendment was being drafted,
+individuals and companies were appealing for congressional protection
+against state taxation laws, and that it had been the purpose of the
+committee to frame an amendment which should protect whites as well as
+blacks and operate in behalf of corporations as well as individuals. In
+other words, Conkling was making the interesting contention that his
+committee had had a far wider and deeper purpose in mind in phrasing
+the Amendment than had been commonly understood and that the demand for
+the protection of the negro from harsh southern legislation had been
+utilized to answer the request of business for federal assistance. The
+safety of the negro was put to the fore; the purpose of the committee
+to strengthen the legal position of the corporations was kept behind
+the doors of the committee-room; and the phrases of the Amendment had
+been designedly made general in order to accomplish both purposes. The
+sequel appeared four years later, in 1886, when the case Santa Clara
+County _v._ Southern Pacific Railroad brought the question before the
+Court. At this time Mr. Chief Justice Waite announced the opinion of
+himself and his colleagues that a corporation was a "person" within the
+meaning of the Amendment and thus entitled to its protection.
+
+Later decisions, such as that of 1889 in Chicago, Milwaukee and St.
+Paul Railway Company _v._ Minnesota, left no doubt of the fact that the
+Court had come to look upon the Fourteenth Amendment as much more than
+a protective device for the negro. The full meaning of the change,
+however, did not appear until after 1890, and is a matter for later
+consideration. In brief, then, before 1890, the Supreme Court was
+content in the main to avoid the review of state legislation concerning
+the ownership and control of private property, a practice which lodged
+great powers in the state courts and legislatures. By that year,
+however, it was manifest that the Court had undergone a complete change
+and that it had adopted a theory which would greatly enlarge the
+functions of the federal courts, at the expense of the states. The
+medium through which the change came was the Fourteenth Amendment.
+
+The demand on the part of business men for protection from state
+legislation, which Roscoe Conkling described in the San Mateo case,
+arose from their belief in the economic doctrine of _laissez faire_.
+Believers in this theory looked upon legislation which regulated
+business as a species of meddling or interference. The individual, they
+thought, should be allowed to do very much as he pleased, entering into
+whatever business he wished, and buying and selling where and how and
+at what prices suited his interests, stimulated and controlled by
+competition, but without direction or restriction by the government. It
+was believed that the amazing success of the American business pioneer
+was proof of the wisdom of the _laissez faire_ philosophy. The economic
+giant and hero was the self-made man.
+
+Economic abuses, according to the _laissez faire_ philosophy, would
+normally be corrected by economic law, chiefly through competition. If,
+for illustration, any industry demanded greater returns for its
+products than proved to be just in the long run, unattached capital
+would be attracted into that line of production, competition would
+ensue, prices would be again lowered and justice would result. Every
+business man would exert himself to discover that employment which
+would bring greatest return for the capital which he had at his
+command. He would therefore choose such an industry and so direct it as
+to make his product of the greatest value possible. Hence although he
+sought his own interests, he would in fact promote the interest of the
+public.
+
+Indeed the philosopher of _laissez faire_ was sincerely convinced that
+his system ultimately benefited society as a whole. Andrew Carnegie, an
+iron and steel manufacturer, presented this thesis in an article in the
+_North American Review_ in 1889. The reign of individualism, he held,
+was the order of the day, was inevitable and desirable. Under it the
+poorer classes were better off than they had ever been in the world's
+history. "We start then," he said, "with a condition of affairs under
+which the best interests of the race are promoted, but which inevitably
+gives wealth to the few. Thus far, accepting conditions as they exist,
+the situation can be surveyed and pronounced good." Let the man of
+ability, he advised, accumulate a large fortune and then discharge his
+duty to the public through philanthropic enterprises, such as the
+foundation of libraries. Society would be more highly benefited in this
+way than by allowing the millions to circulate in small sums through
+the hands of the masses. Statistical studies of the distribution of
+wealth seemed to justify Carnegie's judgment that the existing tendency
+was for wealth to settle into the hands of the few. In 1893 it was
+estimated that three one-hundredths of one per cent. of the people
+owned twenty per cent. of the nation's wealth.
+
+Although the _laissez faire_ theory was dominant later even than 1890,
+it was apparent before that time that its sway was being challenged.
+The adherents of _laissez faire_ themselves did not desire to have the
+doctrine applied fully and evenly. They demanded government protection
+for their enterprises through the medium of high protective import
+tariffs, and they sought subsidies and grants of public land for the
+railroads. Naturally it was not long before the classes whose desires
+conflicted with the manufacturing and railroad interests began in their
+turn to seek aid from the government. The people of the Middle West,
+for example, were not content to allow the railroad companies to
+control their affairs and establish their rates without let or
+hindrance from the state legislatures. The factory system in the
+Northeast, likewise, raised questions which were directed toward the
+foundations of _laissez faire_. Under the factory regime employers
+found it advantageous to open their doors to women and children and to
+keep them at machines for long, hard days which unfitted the women for
+domestic duties and for raising families, and which stunted the
+children in body and mind. Out of these circumstances arose a demand
+for restrictions on the freedom of employers to fix the conditions
+under which their employees worked.
+
+Opposition to an industrial system based upon _laissez faire_ would
+have been even greater during the seventies and eighties if it had not
+been for two sources of national wealth--the public lands and the
+supplies of lumber, ore, coal and similar gifts of nature. When the
+supply of land in the West was substantially unlimited, a sufficient
+part of the population could relieve its economic distresses by
+migrating, as multitudes did. Such huge stores of natural wealth were
+being discovered that there seemed to be no end to them. But in the
+late eighties when the best public lands were nearly exhausted and the
+need of more careful husbanding of the national resources became
+apparent to far-sighted men, advanced thinkers began to question the
+validity of an economic theory which allowed quite so much freedom to
+individuals. For the time, however, such questions did not arise in the
+minds of the masses.
+
+As the _laissez faire_ doctrine underlay the problem of the relation
+between government and industry, so the quantity theory of money was
+fundamental in the monetary question. According to the quantity theory,
+money is like any other commodity in that its value rises and falls
+with variations in the supply and demand for it. Suppose, for example,
+that a given community is entirely isolated from the rest of the world.
+It possesses precisely enough pieces of money to satisfy the needs of
+its people. Suddenly the number of pieces is doubled. The supply is
+twice as great as business requires. If no new elements enter into the
+situation, the value of each piece becomes half as great as before, its
+purchasing power is cut in two and prices double.[2]
+
+A bushel of potatoes that formerly sold for a dollar now sells at two
+dollars. A farmer who has mortgaged his farm for $1,000 and who relies
+upon his sales of potatoes to pay off his debt is highly benefited by
+the change, while the creditor is correspondingly harmed. The debtor is
+obliged to raise only half as many potatoes; the creditor receives
+money that buys half the commodities that could have been purchased
+with his money at the time of the loan.
+
+On the other hand, suppose the number of pieces of money is instantly
+halved and all other factors continue unchanged. There is now twice as
+great a demand for each piece, it becomes more desirable and will
+purchase more goods. Prices, that is to say, go down. Dollar potatoes
+now sell for fifty cents. The debtor farmer must grow twice as many
+potatoes as he had contemplated; the creditor finds that he receives
+money that has doubled in purchasing power.
+
+It has already been said that the quarter century after the war was, in
+the main, a period of falling prices. The farmer found the size of his
+mortgage, as measured in bushels of wheat and potatoes, growing
+steadily and relentlessly greater. The creditor received a return which
+purchased larger and larger quantities of commodities. The debtor class
+was mainly in the West; the creditors, mainly in the East. The
+westerners desired a larger quantity of money which would, as they
+believed, send prices upward; the East, depending upon similar
+reasoning, desired a contraction in supply. The former were called
+inflationists; the latter, contractionists. Much of the monetary
+history of the country after the Civil War was concerned with the
+attempt of the inflationists to expand the supply of currency, and the
+contractionists to prevent inflation.
+
+The intellectual background of the twenty-five years after the war, so
+far as it can be considered at this point, was to be found mainly in
+the development of education and the growth of the newspaper and
+periodical. Before the Civil War, except in the South, the old-time
+district school had given way, in most states, to graded elementary
+schools, supported by taxation. After the war the southern states made
+heroic efforts to revive education, in which they were aided by such
+northern benefactions as the Peabody Educational Fund of $2,000,000
+established in 1867. In the northern states the schools were greatly
+improved, free text-books became the rule, the free public high-schools
+replaced the former private academies, and normal schools for the
+training of teachers were established. The period was also marked by
+the foundation of scores of colleges and especially of the great state
+universities. The Morrill Act of July 2, 1862, had provided for a grant
+to each state of 30,000 acres of public land for every senator and
+representative in Congress to which the state was entitled. The land
+was to be used to promote education in the agricultural and mechanic
+arts, and in the natural sciences. The advantages of the law were
+quickly seen, and between 1865 and 1890 seventeen state universities
+were started, most of them in the Middle and Far West. Many of these
+underwent a phenomenal growth and had a great influence on the states
+in which they were established.
+
+The newspaper press was also undergoing a transformation in the quarter
+century after the war. The great expansion of the numbers and influence
+of American newspapers before and during that struggle had been due to
+the ability of individuals. James Gordon Bennett had founded the New
+York _Herald_, for example, in 1835, and from then on the _Herald_ had
+been "Bennett's paper." Similarly the _Tribune_ had represented Horace
+Greeley and the _Times_, Henry J. Raymond. The effect of the war was to
+develop technical resources in gathering news, to necessitate a larger
+scale of expenditure and a wider range of information, and to make a
+given issue the work of many men instead of one. Raymond died in 1869,
+Greeley and Bennett in 1872; and although the _Sun_ was the embodiment
+of Charles A. Dana until his death in 1897, the _Nation_ and the
+_Evening Post_ of Edwin L. Godkin until 1899, nevertheless the tendency
+was away from the newspaper which reflected an individual and toward
+that which represented a group; away from the editorial which expressed
+the views of a well-known writer, to the editorial page which combined
+the labors of many anonymous contributors. The financial basis of the
+newspaper also underwent a transition. As advertising became more and
+more general, the revenues of newspapers tended to depend more on the
+favor of the advertiser than upon the subscriber, giving the former a
+powerful although indirect influence on editorial policies.
+
+The influence of the press in politics was rapidly growing. A larger
+number of newspapers became sufficiently independent to attack abuses
+in both parties. The New York _Times_ and Thomas Nast's cartoons in
+_Harper's Weekly_ were most important factors in the overthrow of the
+Tweed Ring in New York City, and in the elections of 1884 and later,
+newspapers exerted an unusual power. Press associations in New York and
+the West led the way to the Associated Press, with its wide-spread
+cooperative resources for gathering news.
+
+As important as the character of the press, was the amount and
+distribution of its circulation. Between 1870 and 1890 the number of
+newspapers published and the aggregate circulation increased almost
+exactly threefold--about five times as fast as the population was
+growing. In the latter year the entire circulation for the country was
+over four and a half billion copies, of which about sixty per cent.
+were dailies. So great had been the growth of the press during the
+seventies that the census authorities in 1880 made a careful study of
+the statistical aspects of the subject. It appeared from this search
+that newspapers were published in 2,073 of the 2,605 counties in the
+Union. Without some such means of spreading information, it would have
+been impossible to conduct the great presidential campaigns, in which
+the entire country was educated in the tariff and other important
+issues.
+
+The expansion of the press is well exemplified by the use of the
+telegraph in the spread of information. When Lincoln was nominated for
+the presidency in 1860, a single telegraph operator was able to send
+out all the press matter supplied to him. In 1892 at the Democratic
+convention, the Western Union Telegraph Company had one hundred
+operators in the hall. Mechanical invention, meanwhile, was able to
+keep pace with the demand for news. The first Hoe press of 1847 had
+been so improved by 1871 that it printed ten to twelve thousand
+eight-page papers in an hour, and twenty-five years later the capacity
+had been increased between six and sevenfold.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+Nearly all material on party history is so partisan that it should be
+read with critical scepticism: Francis Curtis, _The Republican Party,
+1854-1904_ (2 vols., 1904); J.D. Long, _Republican Party_ (1888); for
+the Independent attitude, consult _Harper's Weekly_ during the campaign
+of 1884. As the Republicans were in power most of the time from
+1865-1913, there is more biographical and autobiographical material
+about Republicans than about Democratic leaders. Local studies of
+political conditions and the social structure of the parties are almost
+entirely lacking. On the personal side, the following are essential:
+G.F. Parker, _Writings and Speeches of Grover Cleveland_ (1892); T.E.
+Burton, _John Sherman_ (1906); J.B. Foraker, _Notes of a Busy Life_ (2
+vols., 1916), throws light on the ideals and practices of a politician;
+G.F. Hoar, _Autobiography of Seventy Years_ (2 vols., 1903), gives the
+New England Republican point of view; Rollo Ogden, _Life and Letters of
+E.L. Godkin_ (2 vols., 1907); G.F. Parker, _Recollections of Grover
+Cleveland_ (1909), is useful, but sketchy, there being as yet no
+thorough biography of Cleveland; T.C. Platt, _Autobiography_ (1910),
+interestingly portrays the philosophy of a machine politician, but
+should be read with care; John Sherman, _Recollections of Forty Years
+in House, Senate and Cabinet_ (2 vols., 1895); Edward Stanwood, _James
+G. Blaine_ (1905), is highly favorable to Blaine; W.M. Stewart,
+_Reminiscences_ (1908), is interesting, partisan and unreliable. For a
+general estimate of the autobiographical material of the period,
+consult _History Teachers' Magazine_ (later the _Historical Outlook_),
+"Recent American History Through the Actors' Eyes," March, 1916.
+
+Jesse Macy, _Party Organisation and Machinery_ (1904); M.G.
+Ostrogorski, _Democracy and Political Parties_ (2 vols., 1902), gives a
+keen and pessimistic account of American political practices in vol.
+II; J.A. Woodburn, _Political Parties and Party Problems in the United
+States_ (1903, and later editions) gives a succinct account in good
+temper.
+
+For the Fourteenth Amendment: C.G. Haines, _American Doctrine of
+Judicial Supremacy_ (1914); C.W. Collins, _The Fourteenth Amendment and
+the States_ (1912), is a careful study, which is critical of the
+prevailing later interpretation of the Amendment. The Slaughter House
+case, giving the earlier interpretation is in J.W. Wallace, _Cases
+argued and adjudged in the Supreme Court_ (Supreme Court Reports), XVI,
+36.
+
+L.H. Haney, _History of Economic Thought_ (1911), on _laissez faire_;
+J.L. Laughlin, _Principles of Money_ (1903); and Irving Fisher, _Why is
+the Dollar Shrinking_ (1914), present two sides of the quantity theory
+of money.
+
+Most useful on the development of education are F.P. Graves, _A History
+of Education in Modern Times_ (1913); and E.G. Dexter, _History of
+Education in the United States_ (1904).
+
+The growth of newspapers is described in _The Bookman_, XIV, 567-584,
+XV, 26-44; see also Rollo Ogden, _Life and Letters of Godkin_, already
+mentioned; G.H. Payne, _History of Journalism in the United States_
+(1920); J.M. Lee, _History of American Journalism_ (1917). The effects
+of education and the press on American social, economic and political
+life have not been subjected to thorough study.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] _Addresses on Government and Citizenship_, 202.
+
+[2] In practice, new elements do enter into the situation so that the
+theory requires much qualification. Cf. Taussig, _Principles of
+Economics_ (1915), I, ch. 18.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+THE NEW ISSUES
+
+Out of the economic and political circumstances which have just been
+described, there were emerging between 1865 and 1875 a wide variety of
+national problems. Such questions were those concerning the proper
+relation between the government and the railroads and industrial
+enterprises; the welfare of the agricultural and wage-earning classes;
+the assimilation of the hordes of immigrants; the conservation of the
+resources of the nation in lumber, minerals and oil; the tariff, the
+financial obligations of the government, the reform of the civil
+service, and a host of lesser matters. The animosities aroused by the
+war, however, and the insistent nature of the reconstruction question
+almost completely distracted attention from most of these problems.
+Only upon the tariff, finance and the civil service did the public
+interest focus long enough to effect results.
+
+The tariff problem has periodically been settled and unsettled since
+the establishment of the federal government. Just previous to the war
+a low protective tariff had been adopted, but the outbreak of the
+conflict had necessitated a larger income; and the passage of an
+internal revenue act, together with a higher protective tariff, had
+been the chief means adopted to meet the demand. By 1864 the country
+had found itself in need of still greater revenues, and again the
+internal and tariff taxes had been increased. These acts were in force
+at the close of the war. The internal revenue act levied taxes upon
+products, trades, and professions, upon liquors and tobacco, upon
+manufactures, auctions, slaughtered cattle, railroads, advertisements
+and a large number of smaller sources of income.
+
+The circumstances that had surrounded the framing and passage of the
+tariff act of 1864 had been somewhat peculiar. The need of the nation
+for revenue had been supreme and there had been no desire to stint
+the administration if funds could bring the struggle to a successful
+conclusion. Congress had been willing to levy almost any rates that
+anybody desired. The combination of a willingness among the legislators
+to raise rates to any height necessary for obtaining revenue, and a
+conviction on their part that high rates were for the good of the
+country brought about a situation eminently satisfactory to the
+protectionist element. There had been no time to spend in long
+discussions of the wisdom of the act and no desire to do so; and
+moreover the act had been looked upon as merely a temporary expedient.
+It is not possible to describe accurately the personal influences which
+surrounded the passage of the law. It is possible, however, to note
+that many industries had highly prospered under the war revenue
+legislation. Sugar refining had increased; whiskey distilling had fared
+well under the operation of the internal revenue laws; the demands of
+the army had given stimulus to the woolen mills, which had worked to
+capacity night and day; and the manufacture and use of sewing machines,
+agricultural implements and the like had been part of the industrial
+expansion of the times. Large fortunes had been made in the production
+of rifles, woolen clothing, cotton cloth and other commodities,
+especially when government contracts could be obtained. Naturally the
+tax-levying activities of Congress had tended to draw the business
+interests together to oppose or influence particular rates. The
+brewers, the cap and hat manufacturers, and others had objected to the
+taxes on their products; the National Association of Wool Manufacturers
+and the American Iron and Steel Association had been formed partly with
+the idea of influencing congressional tariff action.
+
+After the close of the war, the tariff, among other things, seemed to
+many to require an overhauling. Justin S. Morrill, a member of the
+House Committee on Ways and Means, and one of the framers of the act of
+1864, argued in favor of the protective system although he warned his
+colleagues:
+
+    At the same time it is a mistake of the friends of a sound tariff to
+    insist upon the extreme rates imposed during the war, if less will
+    raise the necessary revenue.... Whatever percentage of duties were
+    imposed upon foreign goods to cover internal taxes upon home
+    manufactures, should not now be claimed as the lawful prize of
+    protection where such taxes have been repealed.... The small
+    increase of the tariff for this reason on iron, salt, woolen, and
+    cottons can not be maintained except on the principle of obtaining a
+    proper amount of revenue.
+
+Sentiment was strong against the tariff in the agricultural parts of
+the West and especially in those sections not committed to
+wool-growing. Great personal influence was exerted on the side of
+"tariff-reform" by David A. Wells, a painstaking and able student of
+economic conditions who was appointed special commissioner of the
+revenue in 1866. As a result of his investigations he became converted
+from a believer in protection to the leader of the opposition, and his
+reports had a considerable influence in the formation of opinion in
+favor of revision. The American Free Trade League was formed and
+included such influential figures as Carl Schurz, Jacob D. Cox, Horace
+White, Edward Atkinson, E.L. Godkin, editor of _The Nation_, and many
+others. William B. Allison and James A. Garfield, both prominent
+Republican members of the House, were in favor of downward revision.
+
+In 1867 a bill providing for many reductions passed the Senate as an
+amendment to a House bill which proposed to raise rates. Far more than
+a majority in the House were ready to accept the Senate measure, but
+according to the rules it was necessary to obtain a two-thirds vote in
+order to get the amended bill before the House for action. This it was
+impossible to do. Nevertheless, the wool growers and manufacturers were
+able "through their large influence, persistent pressure and adroit
+management" to procure an act in the same session which increased the
+duties on wool and woolens far above the war rate. In 1869 the duties
+on copper were raised, as were those on steel rails, marble, flax and
+some other commodities in 1870.
+
+The growth of the Liberal Republican movement in 1872, with its
+advocacy of downward revision, frightened somewhat the protectionist
+leaders of the Republican organization. It was believed that a slight
+concession might prevent a more radical action, and just before the
+campaign a ten per cent reduction was brought about. In 1873 the
+industrial depression so lowered the revenues as to present a plausible
+opportunity for restoring duties to their former level in 1875, where
+they remained for nearly a decade.
+
+The lack of effective action on the part of the tariff reformers of
+both parties was due to a variety of causes. In the years immediately
+following the war, the Republicans in Congress were more interested in
+their quarrel with President Johnson than in tariff reform.
+Furthermore, the unpopular internal revenues were being quickly reduced
+between 1867 and 1872, and it was argued that a simultaneous reduction
+of import taxes would decrease the revenue too greatly. Moreover there
+was no solidarity among the Democrats, the South was discredited, and
+at first not fully represented. Wells was driven out of office in 1870,
+the Liberal Republican movement was a failure, the protected
+manufacturers knew precisely what they wanted, they knew how to achieve
+results and some of them were willing to employ methods that the
+reformers were above using. As time went on and the country was, in the
+main, rather prosperous, many people and especially the business men
+made up their minds that the war tariffs were a positive benefit to the
+country. For these reasons a war policy which had generally been
+considered a temporary expedient became a permanent political issue and
+a national problem.
+
+The positions of the two political parties on the tariff were not sharply
+defined during the ten years immediately following the war. The Democrats
+seemed naturally destined for the role of revisionists because of their
+party traditions, their support in the South--ordinarily a strong,
+low-tariff section--and because they were out of power when high tariffs
+were enacted. Yet the party was far from united on the subject. Some
+prominent leaders were frankly protectionists, such as Samuel J. Randall
+of Pennsylvania, who was Speaker of the House for two terms and part of
+another. The party platform ordinarily was silent or non-committal. In
+1868, for example, the Democratic tariff plank was wide and generous
+enough for a complete platform. The party stood for
+
+    a tariff for revenue upon foreign imports, and such equal taxation
+    under the internal revenue laws as will afford incidental
+    protection to domestic manufacturers, and as will, without
+    impairing the revenue, impose the least burden upon, and best
+    promote and encourage, the great industrial interests of the
+    country.
+
+In 1872 the "straight" Democrats, that is those who refused to support
+Greeley, were for a "judicious" revenue tariff; but in 1876 the party
+denounced the existing system as "a masterpiece of injustice, inequality
+and false pretence." Democratic state platforms were even less firm; in
+fact, the eastern states seemed committed to protection. In Congress,
+however, most of the opposition to the passage of tariff acts was
+supplied by the Democrats.
+
+The attitude of the Republicans was more important, because theirs was
+the party in power. There was, as has been shown, a strong tariff-reform
+element, and in some of the conventions care seems to have been taken
+to avoid any definite statement of principles--doubtless on account of
+the well-known differences in the party--and for many years there was
+no clearly defined statement of the attitude of the organization. Yet
+it must be emphasized that Republicans were usually protectionists in
+the practical business of voting in Congress. Skillful Republican leaders
+gave way a little in the face of opposition but regained the lost ground
+and a little more, after the opposition retreated. Since the war-tariffs
+had been passed under Republican rule, it was easy to clothe them with
+the sanctity of party accomplishments.
+
+Fully as technical as the tariff problem, and presenting a wider range
+for the legislative activities of Congress, was the financial situation
+in which the country found itself in 1865. The total expenditures from
+June 30, 1861 to June 30, 1865 had been somewhat more than three and
+one-third billions of dollars, an amount almost double the aggregate
+disbursements from 1789 to 1861. Officers accustomed to a modest budget
+and used to working with machinery and precedents which were adapted to
+the day of small things, had been suddenly called upon to work under
+revolutionized conditions. Prom the point of view of expense, merely,
+one year's operations during the war had been equivalent to thirty-six
+times the average outlay of the years hitherto. As has been shown, the
+major part of the income necessary for meeting the increased expenses
+had been obtained by means of the tariff and internal revenue taxes.
+
+The tariff worked to the advantage of many people, and its retention
+was insistently demanded by them; the internal revenue taxes were
+disliked, and few things were more popular after the war than their
+reduction. In 1866 an act was passed which lowered the internal revenue
+by an amount estimated at forty-five to sixty millions of dollars. In
+succeeding years further reductions were made, so that by 1870 the
+scale was low enough to withstand attacks until 1883.
+
+The national debt was the source of more complicated questions. It was
+composed, on June 30, 1866, of a variety of loans carrying five
+different rates of interest and maturing in nineteen different periods
+of time. Parts of it had been borrowed in times of distress at high
+rates; but after the struggle was successfully ended, the credit of the
+government was good, and enough money could be obtained at low interest
+charges to cancel the old debt and establish a new one with the interest
+account correspondingly reduced. Hugh McCulloch and John Sherman as
+secretaries of the treasury were most influential in accomplishing this
+transition, and by 1879 the process was completed and a yearly saving of
+fourteen million dollars effected.
+
+Differences of opinion concerning the kind of money with which the
+principal of the debt should be paid brought this matter into the
+field of politics. When the earliest loans had been contracted, no
+stipulation had been made in regard to the medium of payment. Later
+loans had been made redeemable in "coin," without specifying either
+gold or silver; while still later bonds had been sold under condition
+that the interest be paid in coin, although nothing had been said about
+the principal. There was considerable demand for redemption of the
+bonds in paper money, except where there was agreement to the contrary,
+although the previous custom of the government had been to pay in coin.
+The proposal to repay the debt in paper currency, the "Ohio idea,"
+gained considerable ground in the Middle West, as has already been
+explained. In the campaign of 1868 the Democratic platform advocated
+the Ohio plan. Some of the Republicans, like Thaddeus Stevens, agreed
+with this policy; some of the Democrats opposed it--Horatio Seymour,
+the presidential candidate, among them. Nevertheless the Democratic
+platform committed the party to payments in greenbacks unless express
+contract prevented, while the Republicans denounced this policy as
+"repudiation" and promised the payment of the debt in "good faith"
+according to the "spirit" and "letter" of the laws. The credit of the
+government was highly benefited by the payment of the debt in gold, yet
+the bonds had been purchased during the war with depreciated paper, and
+gold redemption greatly enriched the purchasers at the expense of the
+remainder of the population. It is hardly surprising that the debtor
+classes were not enthusiastic over this outcome. The Republicans on
+being successful in the election and coming into power, carried out
+their campaign promises and pledged the faith of the country to the
+payment of the debt in coin or its equivalent.
+
+The income tax was a method of raising revenue which did not produce
+any considerable returns until after the war was over. Acts passed
+during the war had levied a tax on all incomes over six hundred dollars
+and had introduced progressively increasing rates on higher amounts.
+Incomes above $5,000, for example, were taxed ten per cent. The
+greatest number of people were reached and the largest returns obtained
+in 1866 when nearly half a million persons paid an aggregate of about
+seventy-three million dollars. The entire system was abolished in 1872.
+
+Aside from the tariff, the "legal-tender" notes gave rise to the
+greatest number of political and constitutional tangles. By acts of
+February 25, 1862 and later, Congress had provided for the issue of four
+hundred and fifty million dollars of United States paper notes, which
+were commonly known as greenbacks or legal-tenders. The latter name
+came from the fact that, under the law, the United States notes were
+legal tender for all debts, public or private, except customs duties
+and interest on the public debt. In other words, the law compelled
+creditors to receive the greenbacks in payment of all debts, with the
+two exceptions mentioned. Three main questions arose in connection with
+these issues of paper: whether Congress had power under the
+Constitution to make them legal tender; whether their volume should be
+allowed to remain at war magnitude, be somewhat contracted or entirely
+done away with; and whether the government should resume specie
+payments--that is, exchange gold for paper on the demand of holders of
+the latter.
+
+The first of these questions was twice decided in the Supreme Court. In
+1870, in Hepburn _v._ Griswold, the point at issue was whether the
+greenbacks could lawfully be offered to satisfy a debt contracted
+before the legal-tender act had been passed. As it happened, Salmon P.
+Chase, who had been Secretary of the Treasury during the war, was now
+Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and delivered its opinion. By a vote
+of four to three it decided that the greenbacks were not legal tender
+for contracts made previous to the passage of the law. At the time when
+the case was decided, however, there were two vacancies on the bench
+which were immediately filled, and shortly thereafter two new cases
+involving the legal-tender act were brought before the Court (Knox _v._
+Lee, and Parker _v._ Davis). The decision, which was announced in 1871,
+over-ruled the judgment in Hepburn _v._ Griswold and held by a vote of
+five to four that the legal-tender act was constitutional as applied to
+contracts made either before or after its passage.
+
+The second question relating to the greenbacks was that in regard to
+their volume. At first Congress adopted the policy of contraction and
+when greenbacks came into the treasury they were destroyed. As continued
+contraction tended to make the volume of currency smaller and to make
+money harder to get, and therefore, to raise its value, the debtor
+classes began to object. As early as 1865 there was strong sentiment
+against contraction and in favor of paying the public debt in paper.
+Economic distress in the West furthered the movement and some of the
+Republican leaders were doubtful of the wisdom of reducing the outstanding
+stock of paper. Contraction was stopped, therefore, in 1868, and only
+President Grant's veto in 1874 prevented an increase in the amount.
+Eventually, in 1878, the amount then in circulation--$346,681,000--was
+fixed by a law forbidding further contraction.[1]
+
+The western farmers, meanwhile, were feeling the pinch of falling
+prices. Believing that their ills were due to the scarcity of money,
+they opposed the policy of contraction and even launched the Greenback
+party to carry out their principles. In 1876 it polled 80,000 votes,
+and in 1878 at the time of the congressional elections over 1,000,000,
+but thereafter its strength rapidly declined. Neither the East nor the
+West understood the motives of the other in this controversy. Eastern
+congressmen considered western insistence upon a large volume of
+currency as a dishonest movement to reduce bond values by legislation.
+Such an action, they asserted, would do away with the national
+integrity. The people of the West thought of the eastern bondholders as
+"fat bullionists" who dined at costly restaurants on terrapin and
+Burgundy and paid for their luxuries with bonds whose values were
+raised by a contracted currency.
+
+The third question relating to the greenbacks was that of the
+resumption of specie payments. At the close of the war practically all
+the money in circulation was paper, which passed at a depreciated value
+because it was not redeemable in coin. The obvious thing was to resume
+the exchange of specie for paper and thus restore the latter to par
+value, but serious obstacles stood in the way. A money crisis in 1873
+aroused a clamor for larger supplies of paper; gold was hard to
+procure, as France and Germany were both accumulating a redemption fund
+and specie was actually flowing out of the country. Outside of the
+treasury there was little gold in the United States, the amount being
+less than one hundred million dollars as late as 1877. The friends of
+resumption could not be sure of the feasibility of their project, and
+the opponents were aggressive and numerous.
+
+In the elections of 1874 the Republicans were severely defeated, and it
+was seen that the Democrats would have a clear majority in the next
+House of Representatives. Hence the Republicans hurried through a
+resumption bill on January 14, 1875--a sort of deathbed act. It
+authorized the secretary of the treasury to raise gold for redemption
+purposes, and set January 1, 1879, as the date when resumption should
+take place. As in the case of the tariff, the political parties found
+difficulty in determining which side of the resumption question they
+desired to take. Although the Democratic platform of 1868 contained a
+greenback plank, yet some of its leaders opposed, and the state
+platforms of 1875 and 1876 demanded resumption. The national platform
+of the latter year both denounced the Republicans for not making
+progress toward resumption and demanded the repeal of the act of 1875,
+without disclosing whether the party was prepared to offer any
+improvements. In November, 1877, a bill practically repealing the
+resumption act passed the House--the western and southern Democrats
+furnishing most of the affirmative votes, assisted by twenty-seven
+Republicans. A resolution declaring it to be the opinion of Congress
+that United States bonds were payable in silver was introduced and
+advocated by many Republicans. On the other hand, eastern state
+Democratic and Republican platforms were much alike. Apparently,
+therefore, differences of opinion in regard to the greenbacks and
+resumption were caused as much by sectional as by party considerations.
+
+More lasting than finance as a political issue but less enduring than
+the tariff, was the reform of the civil service. In its widest sense,
+the term civil service included all non-military government officers
+from cabinet officials and supreme court judges to the humblest
+employee in the postal or naval service. The reform, however, was
+directed mainly toward the appointment and tenure of the lower
+officers. Before the Civil War the "spoils system" had been in full
+swing; appointments to positions had been frankly used as rewards for
+party activity; office-holders had been openly assessed a fraction of
+their salaries in order to fill the treasure chest at campaign times;
+rotation in office had been the rule. During the war, President Lincoln
+had found his ante-room filled with wrangling, importunate office-seekers
+who consumed time which he needed for the problems of the conflict. As
+he himself had expressed the situation, he was like a man who was
+letting offices in one end of his house while the other end was burning
+down. During the war, also, the patronage at the disposal of the
+government had vastly increased. Not only had the number of laborers,
+clerks and officials become greater, but numerous contracts had been
+let for the production of war materials, and manufacturers and merchants
+intrigued for a share of federal business. "Influence" and position had
+been more powerful than merit in procuring the favor of government
+officers.
+
+After the war many abuses that had earlier been overlooked began to
+attract the attention of a few thoughtful men. It was estimated that
+not more than one-half to three-fourths of the legitimate internal
+revenue was collected during Johnson's presidency, so corrupt and
+inefficient were the revenue collectors. Endless Indian troubles and
+countless losses of money resulted from the corruption of the federal
+Indian agents. Conditions were even worse during the Grant regime. The
+President's appointments were wretched; he placed his relatives in
+official positions; revenue frauds amounting to $75,000,000 were
+discovered during his second administration. In certain departments, it
+was customary, when vacancies occurred, to allow the salaries to
+"lapse"--that is, accumulate--so as to provide a fund to satisfy
+patronage seekers. In one case, thirty-five persons were put on the
+"lapse fund" for eight days at the end of a fiscal year, in order to
+"sop up" a little surplus which was in danger of being saved and
+returned to the treasury. One customs collector at the port of New York
+removed employees at an average rate of one every three days; another,
+three every four days; and another, three every five days, in order to
+provide places for party workers. One secretary in an important
+department of the government had seventeen clerks for whom he had no
+employment. The party assessments on officeholders became little short
+of outrageous. Two or three per cent. of the salary of the lower
+officers was called for, while the more important officials were
+expected to contribute much larger sums. In New York--for the system
+held in the states and cities--candidates for the mayoralty were
+reputed to pay $25,000 to $30,000; judges, $10,000 to $15,000; and
+representatives in Congress, $10,000. While these conditions were by no
+means wholly due to the spoils system, the method of appointment in the
+civil service made a bad matter worse.
+
+Conditions such as these could hardly fail to produce a reform
+movement. In fact, as far back as 1853 some elementary and ineffective
+legislation had attempted a partial remedy. The war gave added impetus
+to the movement and attention turned to the reform systems of Great
+Britain and other countries, where problems similar to ours had already
+been met and solved. The first American who really grasped civil
+service reform was Thomas A. Jenckes, a member of Congress from Rhode
+Island. He introduced reform bills in 1865 and later, based on studies
+of English practice and on correspondence with the leaders of reform
+there; but no legislation resulted. In brief, his plan provided for the
+appointment of employees in the public service on the basis of ability,
+determined by competitive examinations. After a time Jenckes and his
+associates achieved considerable success and finally interested
+President Grant in their project. In 1871 they got a rider attached to
+an appropriation bill which authorized the chief executive to prescribe
+rules for the admission of persons into the civil service and allowed
+him to appoint a commission to put the act into effect. George William
+Curtis, a well-known reformer, was made chairman, and rules were
+formulated which were applied to the departments at Washington and to
+federal offices in New York. Grant, although favorable to the reform,
+was not enthusiastic about it, and soon made an appointment which was
+so offensive that Curtis resigned. Congress, nothing loath, refused to
+continue the necessary appropriations and the reform project continued
+in a state of suspended animation until the inauguration of President
+Hayes.
+
+The human elements in the struggle for civil service reform, both
+during the decade after the war and for many years later, are necessary
+for an understanding of the course of the controversy and its outcome.
+These elements included the advocates of the patronage system, the
+reformers and the president.
+
+Sometimes the advocates of the patronage system viewed the reform with
+contempt. Roscoe Conkling, for example, expressed his sentiments in the
+remark, "When Dr. Johnson said that patriotism was the last refuge of
+the scoundrel he ignored the enormous possibilities of the word
+reform!" Sometimes they attempted to discredit the project by an
+exaggeration of its effects, as when John A. Logan declared that he saw
+in it a life-tenure and an aristocratic caste. "It will not be apparent
+how great is its enormity," he declared in Congress, "how vicious are
+its practices and how poisonous are its influences until we are too far
+encircled by its coils to shake them off." The strength of the
+exponents of the patronage system, however, lay not in their capacity
+for contempt and ridicule, but in a theory of government that was
+founded upon certain very definite human characteristics. The theory
+may be clearly seen in the _Autobiography_ of Thomas C. Platt, a
+colleague of Conkling in the Senate and for many years the boss of New
+York state. It may be expressed somewhat as follows.
+
+In the field of actual politics, parties are a necessity and
+organization is essential. It is the duty of the citizen, therefore, to
+support the party that stands for right policies and to adhere closely
+to its official organization. Loyalty should be rewarded by appointment
+to positions within the gift of the party; and disloyalty should be
+looked upon as political treason. One who votes for anybody except the
+organization candidate feels himself superior to his party, is
+faithless to the great ideal and is only a little less despicable than
+he who, having been elected to an office through the energy and
+devotion of the party workers, is then so ungrateful as to refuse to
+appoint the workers to positions within his gift. Positions constitute
+the cohesive force that holds the organization intact.
+
+The second of the human elements, the reform group, was led by such men
+as George William Curtis, Dorman B. Eaton and Carl Schurz, with the
+support of periodicals like _Harper's Weekly_ and _The Nation_. The
+career and character of Curtis is typical at once of the strength and
+the weakness of the group. As a young man Curtis had intended to enter
+a business career, but finding it unsuited to his tastes he had
+abandoned his ambition, spent some years in European travel and then
+devoted himself to literary work, first on _Harper's Magazine_ and
+afterwards, for many years, as editor of _Harper's Weekly_. He had
+early interested himself in politics, had been in the convention which
+nominated Lincoln, had taken part in numerous state and national
+political conferences and conventions, was president of the
+Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and chancellor of the University
+of the State of New York. For many years, during the period when civil
+service reform was making its fight for recognition, Curtis was the
+president and one of the moving spirits of the National Civil Service
+Reform League. In politics he was an independent Republican. Although
+of the intellectual class, like the other prominent leaders of the
+reform movement, he was a man of practical political ability, not a
+mere observer of politics, so that he and his associates made up in
+capacity and influence what they lacked in breadth of appeal. Some of
+the leaders were patient men who expected that results would come
+slowly and who were ready to accept half a loaf of reform rather than
+no loaf at all, but there were also such impatient critics as E.L.
+Godkin who put so much emphasis on the failures of the reformers as to
+overshadow their positive achievements. Moreover, there were the
+well-meaning but impracticable people who constituted what Theodore
+Roosevelt once called the "lunatic fringe" of reform movements.
+
+The attitude of the exponents of the patronage system toward the
+reformers was one of undisguised contempt. In a famous speech delivered
+at a New York state convention in Rochester in September, 1877,
+Conkling poured his scorn on the reform element in general and on
+Curtis in particular, as "man-milliners," "carpet-knights of politics,"
+"grasshoppers in the corner of a fence," and disciples of ladies'
+magazines with their "rancid, canting self-righteousness."
+
+The third personal element in the reform controversy was the chief
+executive. Beginning with Grant, if not with Lincoln, the presidents
+were favorable to the progress of reform, but they were surrounded by
+circumstances that made vigorous action a difficult matter. The task of
+distributing the patronage was a burden from which they would have been
+glad to be relieved, yet the demands of the party organization were
+insistent,--and to turn a constantly deaf ear to them would have been
+to court political disaster. The executive was always in the position
+of desiring to further an ideal and being obliged to face the hard
+facts of politics. The progress which he made, therefore, depended on
+how resolutely he could press forward his ideal in the face of
+continued opposition. A great difficulty lay in getting subordinates-in
+the cabinet, for example-who were in sympathy with progress, and
+sometimes even the vice-presidential nomination was given to the
+patronage element in the party in order to placate that faction, while
+the presidential nominee was disposed to reform.
+
+Public opinion was slow in forming and was lacking in the means of
+definite expression. For many years after the war there was widespread
+fear that the installation of a Democratic president would result in
+the wholesale debauch of the offices, and sober northerners believed,
+or thought they believed, that "rebels" would again be in power if a
+Democrat were elected. Under such conditions and because the offices
+were already filled with Republicans, the Republican North was willing
+to leave things as they were.
+
+The party pronouncements on civil service reform were as evasive as
+they were on finance and the tariff. To be surer the Liberal
+Republicans in 1872 sincerely desired reform and made it the subject of
+a definite plank in their platform, but the wing of the Democratic
+party that refused to ally with them was silent on the civil service,
+and the "straight" Republicans advocated reform in doubtful and
+unconvincing terms. In 1876 both party platforms were even more vague,
+although Hayes himself was openly committed to the improvement of the
+service.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The best work on the tariff is F.W. Taussig, _Tariff History of the
+United States_ (6th ed., 1914), a scholarly and non-partisan account,
+although giving slight attention to legislative history; Ida M.
+Tarbell, _Tariff in Our Times_ (1911), emphasizes the personal and
+social sides of tariff history and is hostile to protection; Edward
+Stanwood, _American Tariff Controversies_ (2 vols., 1903), devotes
+considerable attention to the historical setting and legislative
+history of tariff acts, and is distinctly friendly to protection.
+
+The most useful single volume on financial history is D.R. Dewey,
+_Financial History of the United States_ (5th ed., 1915), which is
+concise, accurate and equipped with full bibliographies; A.B. Hepburn,
+_History of Currency in the United States_ (1915), is by an expert;
+A.D. Noyes, _Forty Years of American Finance_ (1909), continues the
+same author's _Thirty Years_ and is reliable; T.B. Burton, _John
+Sherman_ (1906), is useful here. The legal-tender decisions are in J.W.
+Wallace, _Cases argued and adjudged in the Supreme Court_, VIII, 603,
+and XII, 457.
+
+The standard work on the civil service is C.R. Fish, _The Civil Service
+and the Patronage_ (1905); the reports of the Civil Service Commission,
+especially the Fourth Report, are essential; the articles by D.B. Eaton
+in J.J. Lalor, _Cyclopaedia of Political Science_ (3 vols., 1893), are
+justly well-known; G.W. Curtis, _Orations and Addresses_ (2 vols.,
+1894), and Edward Cary, _George William Curtis_ (1894), are excellent.
+The politician's side may be found in A.R. Conkling, _Life and Letters
+of Roscoe Conkling_ (1889), and T.C. Platt, _Autobiography_ (1910).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] This is the amount still outstanding.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+THE ADMINISTRATION OF RUTHERFORD B. HAYES
+
+The conditions which confronted President Hayes when the final decision
+of the Electoral Commission placed him in the executive chair did not
+make it probable that he could carry out a program of positive
+achievement. The withdrawal of troops from the South had been almost
+completed, but the process of reconstruction had been so dominated by
+suspicion, ignorance and vindictiveness that sectional hostility was
+still acute. As has been seen, the economic problems which faced the
+country were for the most part unsolved; on the subjects of tariff,
+finance and the civil service, neither party was prepared to present a
+united front; and the lack of foresight and statesmanlike leadership in
+the parties had given selfish interests an opportunity to seize control.
+Nor did the circumstances surrounding the election of Hayes tend to
+simplify his task, for the disappointment of the Democrats was extreme,
+and they found a natural difficulty in adjusting themselves to the
+decision against Tilden. Democratic newspapers dubbed Hayes "His
+Fraudulency" and "The Boss Thief," printed his picture with "Fraud"
+printed across his brow and referred to his election as the "steal" and
+a "political crime."
+
+The man who was to essay leadership under such conditions had back of
+him a useful even if not brilliant career. He had been born in Ohio in
+1822, had graduated from Kenyon College as valedictorian of his class,
+attended Harvard Law School and served on the Union side during the war,
+retiring with the rank of a brevet Major General. He had been twice
+elected to Congress, but had resigned after his second election to
+become governor of his native state, a position which he had filled for
+three terms.
+
+Hayes was a man of the substantial, conscientious and hard-working type.
+He was not brilliant or magnetic, he originated no innovations, burst
+into no flights of imaginative oratory. His state papers were planned
+with painstaking care--first, frequently, jotted down in his diary and
+then elaborated, revised, recopied and revised again. The vivid
+imagination and high-strung emotions that made Clay and Blaine great
+campaigners were lacking in Hayes. He was gentle, dignified, simple,
+systematic, thoughtful, serene, correct. In making his judgments on
+public questions he was sensitive to moral forces. The emancipation of
+the slaves was not merely wise and just to him--it was "Providential."
+He favored a single six-year term for the President because it would
+safeguard him from selfish scheming for another period of power. Partly
+because of the lack of dash and compelling force in Hayes, but more
+because of the low standards of political action which were common at
+the time, his scruples seemed puritanical and were held up to ridicule
+as the milk-and-water and "old-Woman" policies of "Granny Hayes." His
+public, as well as-his private life, was unimpeached in a time when
+lofty principles were not common and when scandal attached itself to
+public officers of every grade. To his probity and the "safe" character
+of his views, as well as to his record as governor of an important
+state, was due his elevation to the presidency.[1] In his habit of
+self-analysis, Hayes was reminiscent of John Quincy Adams. Like Adams he
+kept a diary from his early youth, the serious and mature entries in
+which cause the reader to wonder whether Hayes ever had a childhood.
+When he had just passed his twentieth birthday he confided to his diary
+that he found himself unsatisfied with his progress in Blackstone, that
+he must curb his "propensity" to read newspapers to the exclusion of
+more substantial matter, and in general that he was "greatly deficient
+in many particulars." Then and in later years he noted hostile
+criticisms of himself and combated them, recorded remarks that he had
+heard, propounded questions for future thought, expressed a modest
+ambition or admitted a curbed elation over success.
+
+In the field of politics Hayes was looked upon as a reliable party man,
+a reputation which was justified by his rigid adherence to his party and
+by his attitude toward the opposition. In both these respects he was the
+ordinary partisan. Nevertheless he thought out his views with unusual
+care, made them a matter of conscience and measured policies by ethical
+standards that were more exacting than the usual politician of the time
+was accustomed to exercise. The only remark of his that gained wide
+circulation reflects his type of partisanship: "he serves his party best
+who serves his country best." In these latter respects--his
+thoughtfulness, conscientiousness, exacting standards of conduct and
+less narrowly partisan spirit--he formed a contrast to the most
+influential leaders of his party organization. Altogether it seemed
+likely at the start that Hayes might have friction with the Republican
+chiefs.
+
+The opening of the administration found public interest centered on the
+inaugural address and the Cabinet.[2] The inaugural set forth with
+clearness and dignity the problems which the administration desired to
+solve: the removal of the barriers between the sections on the basis of
+the acceptance of the war amendments, southern self-government and the
+material development of the South; reform in the civil service,
+thorough, radical and complete; and the resumption of specie payments.
+To the choice of a cabinet, Hayes devoted much painstaking care. For
+Secretary of State, he nominated William M. Evarts of New York, an
+eminent lawyer who had aided Charles Francis Adams in his diplomatic
+battle with England during the Civil War and later in the Geneva
+Arbitration, had shown wit and finesse in the defence of Andrew Johnson
+in the impeachment trial, and had valiantly assisted the Republican
+cause before the Electoral Commission. In addition, Evarts was a man of
+the world who knew how to make the most of social occasions and was an
+orator of reputation. The Secretary of the Treasury was John Sherman of
+Ohio, who had been for years chairman of the finance committee of the
+Senate, and was an example of the more statesmanlike type of senator of
+war and reconstruction times.
+
+The nomination of Carl Schurz, as Secretary of the Interior, and David
+M. Key, as Postmaster-General, caused an uproar among the party leaders.
+Schurz was a cosmopolitan, a German-American, a scholar, orator, veteran
+of the Civil War, friend of Lincoln, and independent thinker. His
+devotion to the cause of civil service reform recommended him to the
+friendship of the President and to the enmity of the political leaders.
+The politicians scored Schurz as not a trustworthy Republican--he was
+independent by nature and had been a leader in the Liberal Republican
+movement; and they denounced him as an impractical man, whose head was
+full of transcendental theories--which was a method of saying that he
+was a civil service reformer. No little excitement was occasioned by the
+appointment of Key. The President had desired to appoint to the cabinet
+a southerner of influence, and had thought of Joseph E. Johnston as
+Secretary of War. The choice of General Johnston would have been an act
+of great magnanimity, but since General Sherman, to whom Johnston had
+surrendered only twelve years before, was commander of the army, it
+would have placed Sherman in the singular position of taking military
+orders from a former leading "rebel." When Hayes consulted his party
+associates, however, he found their feelings expressed in the
+exclamation of one of them: "Great God! Governor, I hope you are not
+thinking of doing anything of that kind!" He thereupon reluctantly gave
+way and turned to Key. The latter was less prominent than Johnston, but
+had been a Confederate leader, was a Democrat and a man of moderate
+counsels. The remaining members of the cabinet were men of much less
+moment, but altogether it is clear that few presidents have been
+surrounded by so able a group of advisers.[3]
+
+Seldom, also, has a president's announcement of his cabinet caused so
+much dissent among his own supporters. Senator Cameron, of Pennsylvania,
+had urged a cabinet appointment for his son, and on being refused became
+hostile to Hayes. Senator Blaine, of Maine, was piqued because Hayes
+refused to offer a place to a Maine man; the friends of General John A.
+Logan, of Illinois, were dissatisfied at the failure of Hayes to
+understand the qualifications of their favorite; Conkling disliked
+Evarts and besides desired a place for his associate Thomas C. Platt;
+and the latter considered the nomination of Evarts a "straight-arm" blow
+at the Republican organization. Departing, therefore, from the custom in
+such cases, the Senate withheld confirmation of the nominations for
+several days, during which it became apparent that the rest of the
+country had received the announcement of the cabinet with favor, and
+then the opposition disappeared. During the remainder of his presidency,
+however, Hayes fared badly in making his nominations to office, for
+fifty-one of them were rejected outright, a larger number than had ever
+before been disagreed to when the President and the Senate were of the
+same party. The frequency with which the nominations were rejected and
+the combative manner in which the contests were carried on by the Senate
+indicated that it was determined to regain and hold fast the influence
+in federal counsels that it had relinquished to the executive during the
+war.
+
+Aside from the nomination of members of the cabinet, the first important
+executive action that tested the attitude of the Senate toward the
+President was in relation to the southern problem. By March, 1877, all
+the former Confederate states except Louisiana and South Carolina had
+freed themselves from Republican rule by the methods already mentioned,
+and in these states the Republicans were kept in power only by the
+presence of troops. In Louisiana, both Packard, a Republican
+carpet-bagger, and Nicholls, a Louisiana Democrat, claimed to be the
+rightful governor. In South Carolina, the Republican contestant was
+Chamberlain, a native of Massachusetts; the Democrat was Wade Hampton, a
+typical old-time southerner. Hayes could withdraw the troops, in
+pursuance of his conciliatory policy, but if he did the Republican
+governments would certainly collapse because they were unsupported by
+public opinion. Furthermore, the returning board which had declared
+Hayes the choice of Louisiana in the presidential election had asserted
+that the Republican Packard was elected. Blaine, in the Senate,
+championed the doctrine that Hayes could not forsake the southern
+Republicans without invalidating his own title. Speaking in a confident
+and aggressive manner, he held that the honor, faith and credit of the
+party bound it to uphold the Republican claimants. Nevertheless, the
+President investigated conditions in both states, satisfied himself that
+public opinion was back of the Democratic governments and then recalled
+the troops, hardly more than a month after his inauguration. The
+Republican governments in the two states promptly gave way to the
+Democrats, and the storm was on in the Senate.[4]
+
+The Republican politicians believed that no good thing could come from
+the "rebels," that the President was abandoning the negro, and that he
+was surrendering the principles for which the party had contended.
+"Stalwarts," was the name applied by Blaine to these uncompromising
+party men who would not relinquish the grip of the organization on the
+southern states. Hayes was freely charged with having promised the
+removal of the military forces in return for the electoral votes of the
+two states concerned, and some color seemed to be lent to this
+accusation when he proceeded to reward the Louisiana and Florida
+returning boards with appointments to office. Even the New York _Times_,
+which usually supported Hayes with vigor, characterized the Louisiana
+settlement as "a surrender." William E. Chandler who had assisted Hayes
+as counsel in the disputed election attacked him in a pamphlet, "Can
+such Things be and overcome us like a Summer Cloud without our Special
+Wonder?" Most of the influential leaders in both houses of Congress
+scarcely disguised their hostility. Indeed the discontent went back into
+the states where, as in New Hampshire, a contest over the endorsement of
+Hayes was so bitter that the newspaper reporters had to be excluded from
+the state convention to prevent public reports of schism in the party.
+The Democrats could not come to his support since they were unable to
+forget the election of 1876 even in their satisfaction over the
+treatment accorded the South. In six weeks the President was without the
+backing of most of his party leaders. On the other hand, a few men of
+the type represented by Hoar and Sherman commended the President's
+policy. Independent publications such as _Harper's Weekly_ did likewise,
+and when the Republican convention of 1880 drew up the party platform
+the leaders made a virtue of necessity and adopted a plank
+enthusiastically supporting the Hayes administration.
+
+After he had finished with the southern problem, Hayes confided to his
+diary, "Now for civil service reform!" And for appointments in general
+he recorded several principles: no sweeping changes; recommendations by
+congressmen to be investigated--not merely accepted; and no relatives of
+himself or his wife to be appointed, however good their qualifications
+might be. In the meanwhile Secretary Schurz set to work to put the
+Department of the Interior on a merit basis. The principles that Hayes
+set up for himself and the steps that Schurz took were in conformity
+with the party platform of 1876 and with the President's inaugural
+address; nevertheless the party leaders were displeased, if not
+surprised, for platform promises were lightly regarded and inaugural
+addresses were sometimes not to be taken very seriously.
+
+The earliest acts of Hayes were not such as to facilitate the further
+progress of reform. The appointment of the members of the Louisiana
+Returning Board to federal offices gave color to charges that they were
+receiving their reward for assisting the President into his position.
+Furthermore, on June 22, 1877, he issued an executive order forbidding
+any United States officials to take part in the management of political
+organizations and declaring that political assessments on federal
+officers would not be allowed. So drastic an order brought amazement to
+the party leaders, who had not dreamed of anything so radical. Perhaps
+the order was too sudden and sweeping, considering the practices of the
+time. At any rate it was not enforced and the President seemed to have
+set a standard to which he had not the courage to adhere. Nevertheless,
+reform principles were successfully tested in the New York Post Office
+by Thomas L. James, a vigorous exponent of the merit system who had been
+appointed by President Grant and was now re-appointed and upheld by
+President Hayes.
+
+But the great battle for the new idea came in connection with the New
+York Custom House. Through the port of New York came two-thirds to
+three-fourths of the goods which were imported into this country, and
+the necessity for a businesslike conduct of the custom house seemed
+obvious. Yet there had for some time been complaints concerning the
+service, and Sherman appointed commissions, with the approval of the
+President, to investigate conditions in New York and elsewhere. The
+commission which studied the situation in New York reported that
+one-fifth of the persons employed there were superfluous, that
+inefficiency and neglect of duty were common, and that the positions at
+the disposal of the collector had for years been used for the reward of
+party activity. The commission recommended sweeping changes which
+Secretary Sherman and President Hayes approved. It then appeared that
+the New York officials were not favorable to the President's reform
+plans. Furthermore, Chester A. Arthur, the collector of the port, was a
+close friend of Roscoe Conkling, the head of the state machine; and A.B.
+Cornell, the naval officer, was chairman of the state and national
+Republican committees; It was evident that an attempt to change
+conditions in New York would precipitate a test of strength between the
+administration and the New York organization.
+
+As Arthur and Cornell would not further the desired reforms and would
+not resign, the President removed them. When he nominated their
+successors, however, the Senate, led by Conkling, refused to add its
+confirmation and there the matter rested for some months. Eventually the
+President's nominations were confirmed, an outcome which seems to have
+been brought about in part at least by letters from. Secretary Sherman
+to personal friends in the Senate in which he urgently pressed the case
+of the administration. The President's victory emphasized the
+disagreement of the powerful state organization with the reform idea,
+and while the reformers rejoiced that the warfare had been carried into
+the enemy's country, newspaper opinion varied between the view that the
+President was playing politics and that he was actuated by the highest
+motives only. Agitation for reform, meanwhile, continued to increase.
+The literary men among the reformers, aided by scores of lesser lights,
+conducted a campaign of education; the New York Civil Service Reform
+Association, founded in 1877, and the National Civil Service Reform
+League, in 1881, gave evidence of an effort towards the organization of
+reform sentiment.
+
+While the attention of the President and the politicians was directed
+toward the reform of the civil service, there occurred an event for
+which none of them was prepared. Early in the summer of 1877 train hands
+on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad struck because of a reduction in
+wages, the fourth cut that they had suffered in seven years. The strike
+spread with the speed of a prairie fire over most of the northern roads
+between New England and the Mississippi. At the height of the
+controversy at least 100,000 strikers and six or seven thousand miles of
+railway were involved, while at several points especially Martinsburg,
+West Virginia, and Pittsburg, rioting and destruction took place. A
+considerable number of people were killed or wounded, and the loss of
+property in Pittsburg alone was estimated at five to ten millions of
+dollars. Eventually, when the state militia failed to check the
+disorder, the President was called upon for federal troops and these
+proved effectual. That even so thoughtful and conscientious a man as
+Hayes was far from understanding the meaning of the strike was indicated
+in his message to Congress in which he merely expressed his
+gratification that the troops had been able to repress the disorder.
+Repression, that is to say, was the one resource that occurred to the
+mind of the chief executive and to the majority of the men of his day.
+That repression alone could not remedy evils permanently, that salutary
+force ought to be immediately supplemented by a study of the rights and
+wrongs of the two sides and by a dispassionate correction of
+abuses,--all this did not even remotely occur to the thoughts of the
+political leaders of the time.
+
+The breach in the ranks of the Republicans which was made by the events
+of the early days of the Hayes administration was closed in the face of
+an attack by the common enemy--the Democrats. The latter, being in
+control of the House, appointed the "Potter Committee" to investigate
+the title of Hayes to the Presidency, hoping to discredit him and
+thereby turn the tables in the election of 1880. The committee examined
+witnesses and reported, the Democrats asserting that Tilden had been
+elected and the Republicans that Hayes had been. The Republican Senate,
+meanwhile, had prepared a counterblast. By legal proceedings a committee
+had obtained from the Western Union Telegraph Company over thirty
+thousand of the telegrams sent by both parties during the campaign. The
+Republicans declared that the "cipher despatches" among these messages
+showed that the Democrats had offered a substantial bribe for the vote
+of an Oregon Republican elector. Before the dispatches were returned to
+the telegraph company, somebody took the precaution to destroy those
+that concerned Republican campaign methods and to retain those relating
+to the Democrats. The latter were published by the New York _Tribune_
+and revealed attempts to bribe the Florida and South Carolina Returning
+Boards. Most of them had been sent by Tilden's nephew or received by
+him, so that the corrupt trail seemed to lead straight to the candidate
+himself, but the evidence was inconclusive. The Potter Committee then
+investigated the telegrams, together with a great number of witnesses,
+and another partisan report resulted. It thus appeared that both pot and
+kettle were black and there the matter rested. The Democrats had done
+themselves no good and had done the Republicans no harm.[5]
+
+The Democrats also attacked the election laws, under which federal
+officials supervised elections, and federal judges and marshals had
+jurisdiction over cases concerning the suffrage. Under these laws, also,
+troops could be used to enforce the judgments of the Courts. There is no
+doubt that intimidation, unfair practices and bribery were all too
+common in the North as well as in the South. The lack of official
+ballots and secret voting made abuses inevitable. In New York,
+Cincinnati and other northern cities, and on a smaller scale in the
+rural districts, abuses of one sort or another were normal
+accompaniments of elections. Intimidation in the South was notorious and
+not denied. The existing election laws gave the dominant party an
+opportunity to appoint large numbers of deputy-marshals--largely party
+workers, of course-paying them from the national treasury and so
+solidifying the party organization. In the election of 1876 about
+$275,000 had been spent in this way. Some of the federal supervisors had
+been extremely energetic--so much so that in one case in Louisiana their
+registration lists showed 8,000 more colored voters in 1876 than were
+discovered by the census enumerators four years later.
+
+If the Republicans saw involved in the laws both a principle and a party
+weapon, the Democrats saw both a principle and an opportunity. They
+attached a "rider" to an army appropriation bill, which made it unlawful
+to use any part of the army for any other than the purposes expressly
+authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress. Since the
+Constitution allowed the use of troops only to "execute the laws of the
+Union, to suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions," the new law would
+prevent the employment of armed forces for civil purposes at the polling
+places. The President was compelled to yield to save the appropriation
+bill.
+
+In the next Congress the Democrats controlled both House and Senate and
+they advanced to the attack on the remainder of the election laws.
+Attempts were made to prevent the appointment of special deputy-marshals
+by forbidding the payment of any compensation to them or to the regular
+marshals when used in elections. Each time that Congress passed such a
+law the President vetoed it, even though special sessions had to be
+called to make up for lost time. He saw in the use of the rider a
+dangerous assertion of coercive power on the part of Congress. By means
+of it, Congress was withholding funds essential for military and civil
+purposes until the President should assent to legislation totally
+unconnected with the appropriations. He felt himself being threatened
+and driven by a hostile legislature. For the President to give way
+before such constraint would be to lose the veto power and to destroy
+the independence of the executive as a branch of the government. The
+Democrats were unable to muster force enough to overrule the veto, and
+here the matter rested while other forces, which have already been
+described, were sapping the strength of the election laws. On the whole,
+the result was probably to bring the Republican factions together and so
+to strengthen the party for the election of 1880. The Democrats, on the
+other hand, probably lost ground.
+
+In the meanwhile a difficult and technical problem--the monetary
+question--was forcing itself upon the attention of Congress and of the
+country. The rapid development of the economic life of the United States
+was demanding an increased volume of currency with which to perform the
+multitude of exchanges which constantly take place in the life of an
+industrial people. Unless the volume of the currency expanded
+proportionately with the increase of business, or there was a
+corresponding increase in the use of bank checks, the demand for money
+would cause its value to go up--that is, prices to go down. If the
+volume expanded more rapidly than was necessitated by business, the
+value of money would fall and prices would go up. A change in the price
+level in either direction, as has been seen, would harm important groups
+of people. The exact amount, however, by which the volume should be
+increased was not easy to determine. Furthermore, assuming that both
+gold and silver should be coined, what amount of each would constitute
+the most desirable combination? What ought to be the weight of the
+coins? If paper currency was to supplement the precious metals, what
+amount of it should be in circulation? These are difficult questions
+under any circumstances. They did not become less so when answered by a
+bulky and uninformed Congress acting under the influence of definite
+personal, sectional and property interests.
+
+Several facts tended to restrict the kind of money whose volume could be
+greatly increased. It was not advisable to expand the greenbacks because
+legislation had already limited their amount and because such action
+would unfavorably affect the approaching resumption of specie payments.
+The quantity of national bank notes, another common form of paper money,
+was somewhat rigidly determined by the amount of federal bonds
+outstanding, for the national bank notes were issued upon the federal
+bonds as security. Moreover, the bonds were being rapidly paid off
+during the seventies and it was, therefore, impossible to expect any
+increase of the currency from this source. Normally the supply of gold
+available for coinage did not vary greatly from year to year and
+certainly did not respond with exactness to the demand of industry for a
+greater or smaller volume of circulating medium. It seemed to remain for
+silver to supply any needed increase.
+
+But silver was not in common use except as a subsidiary coin. For many
+years the value of the bullion necessary for coining a silver dollar had
+been greater than the value of the coin. Nobody therefore brought his
+silver to the mint but sold it instead in the commercial markets. Indeed
+so insignificant was the amount of silver usually coined into dollars
+that an act of 1873 systematizing the coinage laws had omitted the
+silver dollar completely from the list of coins. The omission was later
+referred to by the friends of silver currency as the "Crime of 1873." At
+the same time a remarkable coincidence was providing the motive power
+for the demand that silver be more largely used as currency. Early in
+the seventies Germany and the Latin Monetary Union, (France,
+Switzerland, Belgium, Italy and Greece), had reduced the amount of their
+silver coinage, thus throwing a large supply of bullion on the market.
+Simultaneously, enlarged supplies of silver were being found in western
+United States. A Nevada mine, for example, which had produced six
+hundred and forty-five thousand dollars' worth of ore in 1873 had turned
+out nearly twenty-five times that amount two years later. Naturally the
+market price of silver fell and the mine owners began to seek an outlet
+for their product. Thus the people who were convinced that the volume of
+the currency was insufficient for the industrial demands of the nation
+received a new and powerful reenforcement from the producers of silver
+ore. There arose what the New York _Tribune_ referred to as "The Cloud
+in the West."
+
+Inevitably the cloud in the West threw its shadow into Congress where
+the demand was insistent that the government "do something for silver."
+A commission had been appointed in 1876 to study the currency problem
+and make recommendations. When the report was made it appeared that the
+opinions of the members were so divergent that little was gained from
+the investigation. While the commission was deliberating, Richard P.
+Bland of Missouri introduced a bill providing for the free and unlimited
+coinage of silver. Under its provisions the owner of silver bullion
+could present any quantity of his commodity to the government to be
+coined under the conditions which controlled the coinage of gold. The
+House responded readily to Bland's proposal. In the Senate, under the
+leadership of William B. Allison, the free and unlimited feature of the
+bill was dropped and a provision adopted limiting the purchase of
+bullion to an amount not greater than four million dollars' worth per
+month and not less than two million dollars' worth. The bullion so
+obtained was to be coined into silver dollars, which were to be legal
+tender for all debts public and private. Bland was ready to accept the
+compromise because he hoped to be able to increase the use of silver by
+subsequent legislation. "If we cannot do that," he said, "I am in favor
+of issuing paper money enough to stuff down the bond-holders until they
+are sick." The remark was typical of the sectional and class hatreds and
+misunderstandings which this debate aroused, and of the maze of
+ignorance in which both sides were groping. To the silver faction, their
+opponents were "mendacious hirelings" and "Gilded Shylocks." God, in His
+infinite wisdom had imbedded silver in the western mountains for a
+beneficent purpose. "The country," said one speaker, "is in an agony of
+business distress and looks for some relief by a gradual increase of the
+currency." On the other hand, the opponents of silver scorned the
+"delusion" of a "clipped" coin and the dishonest proposition to make
+ninety cents' worth of silver pass as a dollar. The "storm-driven,
+buffeted, and scarred" ship of industrial peace, an easterner declared,
+"deeply laden with all precious and golden treasure is sighted in the
+offing!... shall we put out the lights?... Dare we remove the ship's
+helm, leaving her crippled and helpless!"
+
+Sherman believed that this limited amount of silver could be taken into
+the currency system without difficulty, but President Hayes thought that
+harm would result from making the silver dollar a legal tender when the
+market value of the bullion in the coin was not equal in value to that
+of the gold dollar. He therefore vetoed the bill on February 28, 1878.
+He could not carry Congress with him, however, and the measure was
+passed over the veto on the same day.
+
+Party lines had disappeared during the debates over the passage of the
+act. Eastern members of both houses and of both parties had been
+opposed, with few exceptions, to the increased use of silver; the
+westerners had been equally united in its favor. The East, the creditor
+section and the holder of most of the Civil War bonds, had no desire to
+try an experiment with the currency which would, in their opinion,
+reduce the purchasing power of their income. The debtor West looked with
+disfavor upon an increase in the real amount of their debts which was
+brought about by an inadequate supply of currency. Since prices
+continued to decline they believed that the remedy was a greater
+quantity of money. Evidently the greenback controversy was reviving in a
+new garb.
+
+The approach of the resumption of specie payments which had been set, it
+will be remembered, for January 1, 1879, increased the burden under
+which the westerners and the debtor classes in general were working.
+Favorable commercial conditions and Sherman's foresight, tact and
+intelligence made it possible to overcome the various difficulties in
+the way of accumulating a sufficient reserve of gold, and on December
+31, 1878, the Treasury had on hand about $140,000,000 of the precious
+metal, an amount nearly equal to forty per cent. of the paper in
+circulation. Despite the desirability of resumption, the first effects
+of preparations for it were harmful to considerable bodies of people. As
+January 1 approached, the greenbacks, which had been circulating at a
+depreciated value, rose nearer and nearer to par. Debts which had been
+incurred when paper dollars were worth sixty cents in gold, had to be
+paid in dollars worth eighty, ninety or a hundred cents, according to
+the date when the debt fell due. Business men who were heavily in debt
+and farmers whose property was mortgaged found their burden daily
+growing in size.
+
+Notwithstanding the steady advance of paper toward par value, Sherman
+nervously awaited business hours on January 2, 1879, (since the first
+fell on Sunday) to see whether there would be such a rush of holders of
+paper who would wish gold that his slender stock would be wiped out. New
+York, the financial center, was watched with especial anxiety. To
+Sherman's surprise, only $135,000 of paper was presented for redemption
+in gold; to his amazement and relief, $400,000 in gold was presented in
+exchange for paper. Evidently, now that paper and metal were
+interchangeable, people preferred the lighter and more convenient
+medium. Favorable business conditions enabled the government to continue
+specie payments; a huge grain crop in 1879, coupled with crop failures
+in England, caused unprecedented exports of wheat, corn and other
+products, and a corresponding importation of gold. The damage resulting
+from the appreciation of paper was temporary in character; the public
+credit was vastly benefited; and the greater amount of stability in the
+value of paper proved invaluable to industry.
+
+Happily Hayes's stormy political relations were balanced by comparative
+quiet in foreign affairs. Only Mexico caused trouble, and that was of
+negligible importance. A few raiders made sporadic excursions into
+Texas, which necessitated an expedition for the punishment of the
+marauders. General Ord was directed to cross the border if necessary,
+but General Diaz, at the head of the Mexican government, concluded an
+agreement for cooperation with the United States in the protection of
+the boundary. The agreement was only partly successful, however, and on
+several occasions troops crossed the Rio Grande and fought with bandits.
+
+On the Pacific Coast, meanwhile, the Chinese question was becoming a
+political issue. In earlier times the immigration of the Chinese had
+been encouraged because of the need of a cheap labor supply when the
+transcontinental railroads were being built. As the coast filled up,
+however, with native population, and the demand for laborers fell off,
+there arose numerous objections to the oriental. It was seen that since
+he was willing to work for extremely low wages he could drive American
+laborers out of their places. Labor leaders such as Dennis Kearney held
+meetings on the "sand lots" in San Francisco and aroused anti-Chinese
+feeling. Riots and violence, even, were not unknown.
+
+Just before the inauguration of President Hayes a commission of inquiry
+had visited the coast and examined many witnesses. The commission
+reported that the resources of the Pacific states had been more rapidly
+developed with coolie labor than they would otherwise have been, but
+that the Chinese lived under filthy conditions, formed an inferior
+foreign element and were, on the whole, undesirable. It recommended that
+the executive take steps in the direction of a modification of the
+existing treaty with China, for fear that the problem might spread
+eastward with increasing immigration. The electioneering possibilities
+of the subject had appealed to both parties and they had earnestly
+demanded action in their platforms of 1876. Opinion was forming
+throughout the country, aided by Bret Harte's famous lines:
+
+    Which I wish to remark
+    And my language is plain,
+    That for ways that are dark
+    And tricks that are vain,
+    The heathen Chinee is peculiar
+    Which the same I would rise to explain.
+
+Action by Congress was hindered by the Burlingame treaty of 1868 with
+China, which covered the subject of immigration in unmistakable
+language. By its provisions citizens of China were to have the same
+rights of travel and residence in America as the subjects of the most
+favored nation. Reciprocally, China was to grant equal privileges to
+citizens of the United States. The process of modifying a treaty through
+the ordinary diplomatic channels was so slow that Congress sought to
+avoid delay by passing a law forbidding shipmasters to bring in more
+than fifteen Chinese at one time, and calling upon the President to
+notify China that the terms of the Burlingame treaty, in so far as they
+related to immigration, would not hold after July 1, 1879, when the
+proposed legislation would take effect. President Hayes sympathized with
+the purpose of the bill but felt obliged to veto it because of the
+Burlingame treaty. The veto message recalled that the treaty had been of
+American seeking and that its ratification had been applauded all over
+the country. The abrogation of part of the agreement would be equivalent
+to abrogation of the whole, leaving American citizens in China without
+adequate treaty protection. Furthermore Hayes felt that treaties could
+not rightfully be violated by legislation, but advocated other measures
+for the relief of the people of the Pacific Coast. He thereupon sent to
+China a commission, headed by James B. Angell of Michigan, which
+succeeded in liberally modifying the existing treaty. Under the new
+arrangement the United States might "regulate, limit, or suspend" the
+immigration of Chinese laborers; and as the treaty was promptly
+ratified, it redounded somewhat to the credit of the Republicans in the
+election of 1880.
+
+The administration of Hayes was, on the whole, an admirable one. The
+problems which he faced were varied and difficult, but most of them were
+met sensibly and with success. To be sure, he did not grasp the social
+and economic forces behind the monetary agitation; nor did he have the
+insight and originality necessary for attacking the problem of industrial
+unrest as it appeared in the strike of 1877. But neither did his
+associates, nor his successors in the presidency for many years to
+come. On the other hand, the ethical standards of the administration
+were high and the atmosphere of the White House sane and wholesome. The
+home life of the President was exceptionally attractive, for Mrs. Hayes
+was a woman of unusual charm and social capacity. The attitude of Hayes
+on the southern question and on civil service reform was courageous and
+progressive. And most of all, his ideas on public questions were stated
+with unmistakable clearness in a day when old issues were sinking into
+the background and both parties were reluctant to define their position
+on the new ones.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+A great contribution to the understanding of Hayes's administration was
+made by the publication of C.R. Williams, _Life of Rutherford B. Hayes_
+(2 vols., 1914). It is complete and contains copious extracts from
+Hayes's diary, but is written with less of the critical spirit than is
+desirable; J.F. Rhodes has a valuable chapter in his _Historical Essays_
+(1909); J.W. Burgess, _Administration of R.B. Hayes_ (1916), is a
+eulogy; V.L. Shores, _Hayes-Conkling Controversy_ (1919), describes the
+civil service quarrel; J.R. Commons and others, _History of Labor in the
+United States_ (2 vols., 1918), describes the strike of 1877; so also
+does J.F. Rhodes, _History of the United States from Hayes to McKinley_
+(1919), with full references. On the Chinese affair, consult Mrs. M.E.
+B.S. Coolidge, _Chinese Immigration_ (1909). Most of the general
+histories already mentioned dwell at length on the Hayes administration.
+
+For the official messages of this and succeeding administrations, the
+most convenient source is J.D. Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the
+Presidents_ (10 vols., 1903).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] For a time public interest was absorbed by the determination of
+President and Mrs. Hayes to serve no wines of any kind in the White
+House. Finally a delicious frozen punch was served at about the middle
+of the state dinners, known to the thirsty as "the Life-saving Station."
+It was popularly understood to be liberally strengthened with old Santa
+Croix rum, but the President later asserted that he had caused the punch
+to be sharpened with the flavor of Jamaica rum and that no drop of
+spirits was inserted. What the _chef_ really did, perhaps nobody knows.
+At any rate, both sides were satisfied. Williams, _R.B. Hayes_, II; 312
+note.
+
+[2] Because March 4 fell on Sunday, the oath of office was privately
+administered to Hayes on Saturday evening, March 3. Williams, _Hayes_,
+II, 5.
+
+[3] George W. McCrary was Secretary of War; Richard W. Thompson,
+Secretary of the Navy; Charles Devens, Attorney-General.
+
+[4] Chamberlain, the Republican claimant in South Carolina, wrote in
+1901 that he was "quite ready now to say that he feels sure that there
+was no possibility of securing permanent good government in South
+Carolina through Republican influences." _Atlantic Monthly_, LXXXVII,
+482.
+
+[5] Many of the dispatches were in a complicated cipher which resisted
+all attempts at solution. The _Tribune_ published samples from time
+to time, keeping interest alive in the hope that somebody might solve
+the riddle. Finally two members of the _Tribune_ staff were successful
+in discovering the key to the cipher in a way that recalls the
+paper-covered detective story. The newspaper aroused and excited public
+interest by publishing specimens and eventually achieved a sensation by
+putting the most damaging material into print on October 16, 1878. One
+of the telegrams, with its translation, ran as follows:
+
+    "Absolutely Petersburg can procured by Copenhagen may Thomas
+    prompt Edinburgh must if river take be you less London Thames
+    will."
+
+    Translation: If Returning Board can be procured absolutely, will
+    you deposit 30,000 dollars? May take less. Must be prompt. Thomas.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+THE POLITICS OF THE EARLY EIGHTIES
+
+The Hayes administration was scarcely half over when the politicians
+began to look forward to the election of 1880. At the outset of his
+term, Hayes had advocated a single term for the executive and there was
+no widespread movement among the politicians to influence him to change
+his attitude. His enemies, indeed, had already turned to General Grant.
+There had been a third-term boom for the General during his second
+administration and he had indicated that he was not formidably opposed
+to further continuance in office. Suddenly, however, the anti-third-term
+feeling had risen to impressive proportions, whereupon the House of
+Representatives had adopted a resolution which characterized any
+departure from the two-term precedent as "unwise, unpatriotic, and
+fraught with peril to our free institutions." As the resolution passed
+by an overwhelming vote--233-18--nothing further was heard of a
+third-term boom.
+
+The Hayes administration put a different complexion on the matter. The
+wheel-horses of the party were not enthusiastic over the President or
+his policies, and in their extremity they looked to Grant. The New York
+State Republican Convention, under control of Roscoe Conkling and his
+forces, instructed delegates to support the General as a candidate for
+the nomination and endeavored to forestall opposition to a third term.
+It declared that the objection to a third presidential term applied only
+to a third consecutive term and hence was inapplicable to the
+re-election of Grant. Grant, meanwhile, presented a spectacle that was
+at once humorous and pathetic. He had not expected, on leaving the
+presidency, to return to power again, had dropped consideration of the
+political future and had given himself up to the enjoyment of foreign
+travel. The royal reception accorded him wherever he went suggested to
+his political supporters that they utilize his popularity. It was
+foreseen that when he returned to America he would receive a tremendous
+ovation, on the wave of which he might be carried into office. He was
+flooded with advice and entreaties that he act in accordance with this
+plan. His family was eager to return to the position of social eminence
+which they had occupied, and pressure from them was incessant. At first
+he did nothing either to aid or to hinder the boom, then gave way to the
+pressure and at last became extremely anxious to obtain the coveted
+prize.
+
+If the politicians did, in truth, desire a relaxation from the patronage
+standards of the Hayes regime, they did not make that the ostensible
+purpose of their campaign. They argued that the times demanded a strong
+man; that foreign travel had greatly broadened the General and given him
+a knowledge of other forms of government; that he had been great as a
+commander of armies, greater as a President, and that as a citizen of
+the Republic he "shone with a luster that challenged the admiration of
+the world." Behind him were Conkling and Platt, with the New York state
+organization under their control, Don Cameron who held Pennsylvania in
+his hand, General Logan, strong in Illinois, and lesser leaders who
+wielded much power in smaller states. Many business men were ready to
+lend their aid; the powerful Methodist Church, to which he belonged, was
+favorable to him; and, of course, his popularity as a military leader
+was unbounded. His return to the United States while the enthusiasm was
+at its height was the signal for an unprecedented ovation. The opponents
+of a third term painted in high colors the danger of a revival of the
+scandals of Grant's days in the presidential chair, formed "No Third
+Term" leagues, called an "Anti-Third-Term" convention and decried the
+danger of continuing a military man in civil office. _The Nation_
+scoffed at the educational effect of foreign travel on a man who was
+fifty-seven years of age and could understand the language in only one
+of the countries in which he travelled. A large fraction of the
+Republican press, in fact, was in opposition. "Anything to beat Grant"
+and "No third term" were their war-cries. Nor was there any lack of
+Republican candidates to oppose the Grant movement and to give promise
+of a lively nominating convention. Blaine's popularity was as widespread
+as ever. Those who feared the nomination of either Grant or Blaine
+favored Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont or Secretary Sherman. Both
+of these men were of statesmanlike proportions, but Edmunds was never
+widely popular and Sherman was lacking in the arts of the
+politician--"the human icicle," T.C. Platt called him.
+
+The Republican nominating convention of 1880 met in Chicago in a
+building described as "one of the most splendid barns" ever built. This
+convention is unusually worthy of study because it involved most of the
+elements which entered into American politics in the early eighties. It
+was long memorable as making a record for that form of enthusiasm which
+bursts into demonstrations. "Great applause," "loud laughter," "cheers"
+and "hisses long and furious" dot the newspaper accounts of its
+deliberations. The members "acted like so many Bedlamites," one of the
+delegates said. On one day the opening prayer was so unexpectedly short
+that there was applause and laughter. The keen contest for the
+nomination resulted in galleries packed with supporters of the several
+candidates, who cheered furiously as their favorite delegates appeared.
+As the galleries came down nearly to the level of the floor, the
+spectators were almost as much members of the convention as the
+delegates themselves. It was under such conditions, then, that the
+convention proceeded to the serious business of adopting principles and
+choosing a leader.
+
+Three hundred and six of the 757 delegates were sworn supporters of
+Grant--pledged to die, if they died at all, "with their boots on," one
+of their leaders said. In each of the big delegations--those from New
+York, Pennsylvania and Illinois--a minority was unfavorable to Grant.
+This minority could be counted in the General's column if the convention
+could be forced to adopt the so-called "unit-rule," under which the
+delegation from a state casts all its votes for the candidate favored by
+the majority. In this particular case, the minorities in New York,
+Pennsylvania and Illinois numbered more than sixty delegates, so that
+the adoption of the rule was a stake worth playing for. The plan
+formulated by the Grant leaders was worthy of the time.
+
+Donald Cameron of Pennsylvania was chairman of the National Republican
+Committee. Following the usual custom, Cameron was to call the
+convention to order and present the temporary chairman who had been
+chosen by the Committee. As the Grant supporters were in a minority even
+on the Committee, provision was made to meet the emergency in case the
+majority insisted on the appointment of an anti-Grant chairman. Cameron
+was to announce the name, a Grant delegate was to move to substitute a
+Grant man instead, and Cameron would enforce the unit-rule in the
+resulting ballot. This would ensure control of the organization of the
+convention and, doubtless, of the nomination of the candidate.
+
+Unhappily for this well-laid plan, rumor of it leaked out, and the
+majority of the National Committee--opposed to Grant--conveyed
+information to Cameron that he must agree to give up such a scheme or be
+ousted from his position. Cameron, convinced that his enemies were
+determined, gave up his project, and Senator George F. Hoar, who favored
+neither Grant nor Blaine, was made temporary and later permanent
+chairman.
+
+Although defeated in the first skirmish, the Grant forces pressed
+forward for renewed conflict. Conkling presented a resolution that every
+member of the convention be bound in honor to support the eventual
+candidate, whoever he might be. The resolution passed 716 to three; and
+he then moved that the three who had voted in the negative had thereby
+forfeited their votes in the convention. James A. Garfield of Ohio led
+the opposition to such rough-shod action and Conkling angrily withdrew
+his resolution amid hisses. When Garfield reported from the Committee on
+Rules in regard to the regulations under which the convention should
+deliberate, he moved that the unit rule be not adopted and the
+convention upheld him. It was manifest that the delegates were not in a
+mood to surrender to a junto of powerful machine politicians.
+
+The way having been now cleared for action, the convention adopted a
+platform. This was composed largely of a summary of the achievements of
+the party and denunciation of the opposition. Most of the planks were
+abstract or perfunctory, or expressed in such a way as not to commit the
+party seriously. _Harper's Weekly_, a Republican periodical, regretted
+the character of the platform and remarked that such documents are
+expected to say
+
+    An undisputed thing
+    In such a solemn way.
+
+Judged by this criterion, the platform was ideal. The obligations of the
+country to the veterans were emphasized and the restriction of Chinese
+immigration called for. On the tariff, the only utterance was an avowal
+that duties levied for the purposes of revenue should discriminate in
+favor of labor. After this declaration of faith had been unanimously
+adopted, a Massachusetts delegate presented an additional plank
+advocating civil service reform.
+
+The convention was now badly put to it. To reject a plank which had been
+accepted both in 1872 and in 1876 would discredit the party,
+particularly as the platform just adopted had accused the opposition of
+sacrificing patriotism "to a supreme and insatiable lust for office."
+Nevertheless the opposition to its adoption was formidable, and it had
+already been twice rejected in the Committee on Resolutions, which drew
+up the platform. There seemed no way of avoiding the issue, however, and
+the plank was thereupon adopted, though not before Webster Flanagan of
+Texas had blurted out, "After we have won the race ... we will give
+those who are entitled to positions office. What are we up here for?"
+
+With the speeches presenting candidates to the convention, the real
+business of the week began. Senator Conkling aroused a tempest of
+enthusiasm for General Grant in a famous speech which began with the
+lines,
+
+    When asked what state he hails from,
+      Our sole reply shall be,
+    He comes from Appomattox
+      And its famous apple tree.
+
+Garfield presented Sherman's name. At the outset General Grant led,
+Blame was a close second and Sherman third. This order continued for
+thirty-five ballots. By that time Blaine and Grant had fought each other
+to a standstill. The General's three hundred and six held together
+without a break, and Blaine's forces were equally determined.[1]
+
+There was little chance of compromise, as Grant and Blaine were not on
+speaking terms, and Conkling and Blaine looked upon each other with
+unconcealed hatred. Since Sherman was handicapped by lack of united
+support in his own state, the natural solution of the problem seemed to
+be the choice of some other leader who might harmonize the contending
+factions. On the thirty-fourth ballot, seventeen votes were given to
+Garfield; on the next, fifty; then a stampede began, in spite of a
+protest by Garfield, and on the thirty-sixth ballot a union of the
+Blaine and Sherman forces made him the choice of the convention. The
+nominee for the vice-presidency was Chester A. Arthur, who was one of
+the leading supporters of Grant and a member of the Conkling group.
+
+The choice of Garfield was well received by the country, perhaps the
+more so as a relief from the danger of a third term. The nominee was a
+man of great industry, possessed of a store of information, tactful,
+modest, popular, an effective orator, and a veteran of the war. His
+rise from canal boy to candidate for the presidency exemplified the
+possibilities before industrious youth and gave rise to many a homily
+on democratic America. Yet his friends had to defend his relation to a
+paving scandal in the District of Columbia and an unwise connection with
+the Credit Mobilier of 1873. In neither of these cases does Garfield
+seem to have been corrupt, but in neither does he appear in a highly
+favorable light.[2]
+
+As the Republicans were dispersing, the Greenback convention was
+assembling. Their strength in the campaign was almost negligible but
+their platform presaged the future. Money to be issued only by the
+government, the volume of money increased, ameliorative labor
+legislation, restriction of Chinese immigration, regulation of
+interstate commerce, an income tax, government for the people rather
+than for classes, wider suffrage,--all these were advocated in concise
+and unmistakable terms. James B. Weaver was the presidential candidate.
+
+Among the Democrats, the all important question was whether Tilden would
+be a candidate again. He naturally wished for a renomination and an
+opportunity to prove by an election that he had been "fraudulently"
+deprived of the presidency in 1876. The party, likewise, seemed to need
+his services, as no other leader of equal prominence had appeared. On
+the other hand, his health had rapidly failed since 1876 and it was
+apparent that he was unequal to the exacting labors of the presidency.
+Not until just before the meeting of the convention, however, did he
+make known his wishes and then he declared that he desired nothing so
+much as an honorable discharge from public service and that he
+"renounced" the renomination. The party took him at his word and turned
+to the adoption of a platform and the choice of another leader.
+
+The platform reflected the bitterness of the party over the "great
+fraud" of 1876-1877 and advocated tariff for revenue only, civil service
+reform and the restriction of Chinese immigration. In other words,
+except for the usual self-congratulation and the denunciation of the
+opposition, the Democratic platform closely resembled that of the
+Republicans. The convention then nominated for the presidency General
+Winfield S. Hancock, a modest, brave Union soldier, of whom Grant once
+said, "his name was never mentioned as having committed in battle a
+blunder for which he was responsible." He was not an experienced
+politician, but was popular even in the South.
+
+On the whole the Democratic convention was much less interesting than
+its Republican predecessor. There were no fierce factional quarrels to
+arouse the emotions to concert pitch. The applause spurted out here and
+there like the "jets from a splitting hose" in the "Ki yi yi yi" which
+characterized the cheers of the lower wards of New York, in contrast to
+the rolling billows of applause which formed so memorable an element in
+the opposition gathering. The New York Tribune, although hostile to
+everything Democratic, perhaps stated the fact when it commented on the
+lack of enthusiasm. The convention, the Tribune noted, was well-behaved,
+but a mob without leaders; there were no Conklings or Garfields or
+Logans, only John Kelleys and Wade Hamptons.
+
+The campaign of 1880 reflected the lack of definite utterances in the
+party platforms. Since each side was loath to press forward to the
+solution of any real problem facing the nation, the campaign was
+confined, for the most part, to petty or even corrupt partisanship. The
+career of General Garfield was carefully overhauled for evidences of
+scandal. Arthur's failings as a public officer were duly paraded.
+General Hancock was ridiculed as "a good man weighing two hundred and
+forty pounds." Some attempt was made by the Republicans to make an issue
+of the tariff, and a remark of Hancock to the effect that the tariff was
+a "local issue" was jeered at as proving an ignorance of public
+questions. There was little response to the "bloody shirt" and little
+interest in "the great fraud." A modicum of enthusiasm was injected into
+the canvass by the participation of Conkling and General Grant. The
+former was not happily disposed toward the Republican candidate and
+Grant had always refused to make campaign speeches, but as the autumn
+came on and defeat seemed imminent, these two leaders were prevailed
+upon to lend their assistance. Near the end of the campaign a letter was
+circulated in the Pacific states, purporting to have been written by
+Garfield to a Mr. Morey, and expressing opposition to the restriction of
+Chinese immigration. The signature was a forgery, but complete exposure
+in the short time before election day was impossible and the letter
+perhaps injured Garfield on the coast. Nevertheless Garfield and Arthur
+won, although their popular plurality was only 9,500 in a total of about
+nine millions. The electoral vote was 214 to 155 and showed that the
+division among the states was sectional, for in the North Hancock
+carried only New Jersey, together with Nevada and five electoral votes
+in California, the result probably of the Morey letter.
+
+Two aspects of the campaign had especial significance. The attempt by
+Conkling and his associates to choose the Republican nominee through the
+shrewd manipulation of political machinery, and against the wishes of
+the rank and file of the party, was a move on the part of the greater
+state bosses to get control of the national organization, so that they
+might manage it as they managed their local committees and conventions.
+The second notable circumstance concerned the collection and expenditure
+of the campaign funds.
+
+Even before the convention met, the Republican Congressional Committee,
+pursuing the common practice of the time, addressed a letter to all
+federal employees, except heads of departments, in which the suggestion
+was made that the office holders would doubtless consider it a
+"privilege and a pleasure" to contribute to the campaign funds an amount
+equal to two per cent. of their salaries. The Republican National
+Committee also made its demands on office holders--usually five per
+cent. of a year's salary. The Democrats, having no hold on the federal
+offices, had to content themselves with the cultivation of the
+possibilities in states which they controlled. In New York, Senator
+Platt was chairman of the executive committee and he sent a similar
+communication to federal employees in the state. Even the office boy in
+a rural post office was not overlooked, and when contributions were not
+forthcoming, the names of delinquents were sent to their superiors.
+Other developments appeared after the election was over. In February,
+1881, a dinner was given in honor of Senator S.W. Dorsey, secretary of
+the Republican National Committee, to whom credit was given for carrying
+the state of Indiana. General Grant presided and grace was asked by
+Reverend Henry Ward Beecher. Dorsey was an Arkansas carpet-bagger, who
+had been connected with a railroad swindle and was soon, as it turned
+out, to be indicted for complication in other frauds. The substance of
+the speeches was that the prospect of success in the campaign seemed
+waning, that Indiana was essential to success and that Dorsey was the
+agent who accomplished the task. Arthur, who was one of the speakers,
+explained the _modus operandi_: "Indiana was really, I suppose, a
+Democratic State. It had been put down on the books always as a State
+that might be carried by close and perfect organization and a great deal
+of--(laughter). I see the reporters are present, therefore I will simply
+say that everybody showed a great deal of interest in the occasion and
+distributed tracts and political documents all through the State."
+
+With the victory accomplished, the politicians turned from the contest
+with the common enemy to the question of the division of the spoils;
+from the ostensible issue of platforms, to the real issue that Flanagan
+had personified. Although the Republicans had presented a united front
+to their opponents, there were factional troubles within the party that
+all but dwarfed the larger contest. The "Stalwarts" were composed of the
+thorough "organization men" like Conkling, Platt and Arthur; the
+"Half-breeds" were anti-organization men and more sympathetic with the
+administration. The commander of the Stalwarts and one of the most
+influential leaders in the country was Roscoe Conkling, Senator from New
+York. In person Conkling was a tall, handsome, imperious man, with
+something of the theatrical in his appearance and manner. As a
+politician he was aggressive, fearless, scornful, shrewd and adroit when
+he chose to be, and masterful, always. As an orator he knew how to play
+on the feelings of the crowd; his vocabulary, when he turned upon one
+whom he disliked, was memorable for its wealth of invective and
+ridicule, and especially he uncorked the vials of his wrath on any who
+were not strictly organization men. Although an able man and a
+successful lawyer, Conkling seems to have had less interest in the
+public welfare than in conventions, elections and patronage.
+
+The announcement of Garfield's choice of a Cabinet was the signal for a
+fierce patronage fight. James G. Blaine, the choice for Secretary of
+State, was distasteful in the extreme to Conkling. Many years before,
+during a debate in the House, Blaine had compared Conkling to Henry
+Winter Davis as
+
+    Hyperion to a satyr, Thersites to Hercules, mud to marble,
+    dunghill to diamond, a singed cat to a Bengal tiger, a whining
+    puppy to a roaring lion.
+
+He had contemptuously referred to Conkling's "haughty disdain, his
+grandiloquent swell, his majestic, supereminent, overpowering,
+turkey-gobbler strut." Accordingly when Garfield disregarded Conkling's
+wishes in regard to the representation which New York should have in the
+cabinet, Conkling laid the blame upon his old enemy.[3]
+
+As soon as the administration was in office, the Senate met in executive
+session to act on appointments, and it appeared that the parties were
+evenly divided, the balance of power lying in the hands of two
+Independents. President Garfield sent in his list of nominees for office
+without consulting Conkling in regard to New York appointments. Among
+them was William H. Robertson for the coveted position of collector for
+the port of New York. As Robertson had been opposed to Grant and to the
+unit rule in the Republican convention, Conkling's rage reached a fever
+pitch. In an attempt to discredit the President before the country, he
+made public a letter from Garfield giving countenance to the practice of
+levying campaign assessments on federal employees. Conkling's point of
+view is not difficult to understand. Consultation with the senators from
+a state with regard to nominations to offices within its boundaries was
+the common custom; Conkling had sunk his dislike of Garfield during the
+campaign in order to assist in a party victory; moreover, he and Platt,
+the other New York senator, understood that Garfield had agreed to
+dispense New York patronage in conformity to the wishes of the
+Stalwarts, in case Conkling took the stump. He had carried out his part
+of the bargain and now desired his _quid pro quo_.
+
+Meanwhile the Senate was trying to organize and having failed because of
+the even division of the parties, stopped the attempt long enough to act
+on the nominations. The President then withdrew all except that of
+Robertson, thus indicating that offices in which other senators were
+concerned would not be filled until the New York case was settled.
+Foreseeing that the members would wish to clear the way for their own
+interests and that Robertson's nomination was likely to be agreed to,
+Conkling and Platt resigned their posts and appealed to the New York
+legislature for a re-election as a vindication of the stand they had
+taken. As the legislature was Republican and as Vice-President Arthur
+went to Albany to urge their case, they seemed likely to succeed; but to
+their mortification they were both defeated after an extended contest,
+and Conkling retired permanently to private life. Platt, who was
+promptly dubbed "Me Too," also relinquished public office, but only for
+a time. In the meanwhile, as soon as Conkling and Platt had left the
+Senate, the nomination of Robertson had been approved, and Garfield was
+triumphant.
+
+Further light was thrown upon political conditions by the investigations
+of the "star routes." These were routes in the South and West where
+mails had to be carried by stage lines, and were under the control of
+the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, Thomas J. Brady. Rumors had
+been common for some years that they were a source of corruption.
+Garfield's Postmaster-General, Thomas L. James, had already made a
+reputation as the reform postmaster of New York, and he set himself
+to investigate the reports. Among other things it was discovered that a
+combination of public men and contractors had succeeded in raising the
+compensation on 134 star routes from $143,169 to $622,808, dividing the
+extra profits among themselves. Brady and Senator Dorsey, the active
+agent in the campaign in Indiana, were accused of being in the "ring"
+and were indicted on the ground of conspiracy to defraud the government.
+Brady attempted to block the investigation by threatening Garfield with
+an exposure of the campaign methods, and when the threat failed he made
+public a letter from the President to "My dear Hubbell," chairman of the
+Congressional Committee, similar to that which Conkling had earlier
+published. The trials of the conspirators dragged on until 1883 and
+resulted in the acquittal of all the accused except one of the least
+important. Yet some good was accomplished, for the ring was broken up.
+Dorsey retired from public life, and renewed attention was drawn to the
+need of better federal officials.
+
+During the course of the trials, the country was shocked by the
+assassination of the President on July 2, 1881, at the hands of a
+disappointed office seeker named Guiteau. Despite a strong constitution
+Garfield grew slowly weaker and died on September 19. The catastrophe
+affected the country the more profoundly because of its connection with
+the factional quarrel in the Republican party and because, following the
+recent murder of the Russian Czar, it seemed to show that democratic
+government was no guarantee against violence.[4]
+
+The consternation with which the elevation of Chester A. Arthur to the
+presidency was received was not confined to the Democrats. An
+oft-repeated remark made at the time was expressive of the opinion of
+those best acquainted with the new executive: "'Chet' Arthur President
+of the United States! Good God!" In truth Arthur's previous career
+hardly justified anything except consternation. He had been identified
+always with machine politics and particularly with the Conkling group;
+he had been a prominent figure in the opposition to Hayes when the
+latter attempted to improve conditions in the New York Customs House;
+and had taken an active and undignified share in the quarrel between
+Garfield and Conkling. Chester A. Arthur, however, was a combination of
+characteristics such as enlist the interest of the student of human
+nature. Of Vermont birth, educated at Union College where he had taken
+high rank, he had taught school for a time, had entered the practice of
+law in New York, had made a good war record, and had been a member of
+the Republican party from its beginning. In many ways Arthur was made
+for politics. He was the "man of the world" in appearance, polished,
+refined, well-groomed, scrupulously careful about his attire, a
+_bon-vivant_. Yet he was equally at home in the atmosphere of politics
+in the early eighties; a leader of the "Johnnies" and "Jakes," the
+"Barneys" and "Mikes" of New York City. Dignity characterized him,
+whether in the "knock-down" and "drag-out" caucus or at an exclusive
+White House reception. He possessed a refinement, especially in his home
+life, that is not usually associated with ward politics but which forms
+an element of the "gentleman" in the best sense of that abused word.
+
+Yet they who feared that President Arthur would be like Chester A.
+Arthur, the collector of the port, were treated to a revelation. The
+suddenness with which the elevation to the responsibility of the
+executive's position broadened the view of the President proved that he
+possessed qualities which had been merely hidden in the pursuit of
+ordinary partisan politics. Platt, expectant of the dismissal of
+Robertson, now that a Stalwart was in power, fell back in disgust and
+disowned his former associate, for it appeared that Arthur intended to
+further the principles of reform. His first annual message to Congress
+contained a sane discussion of the civil service and the needed
+remedies, which committed him whole-heartedly to the competitive system.
+Although he did not go as far as some reformers would have had him, he
+went so much farther than was expected that commendation was
+enthusiastic, even on the part of the most prominent leaders in the
+reform element. In the same message he urged the repeal of the
+Bland-Allison silver-coinage act, the reduction of the internal revenue,
+revision of the tariff, a better navy, post-office savings banks, and
+enlightened Indian legislation. Altogether it was clear that he had laid
+aside much of the partisan in succeeding to his high office.[5]
+
+The Chinese problem soon provided him with an opportunity to show an
+independence of judgment, together with an indifference to mere
+popularity, which were in keeping with the new Arthur, but which were a
+surprise to his former associates. As a result of the changes in the
+Burlingame treaty, which gave the United States authority to suspend the
+immigration of Chinese laborers, Congress passed a bill in 1882 to
+prohibit the incoming of laborers for twenty years, western Republicans
+joining with the Democrats in its passage.[6] Arthur vetoed the measure
+on the ground that a stoppage for so great a period as twenty years
+violated those provisions of the treaty which allowed us merely to
+suspend immigration, not to prohibit it. An attempt to overcome the veto
+failed for lack of the necessary two-thirds majority. Congress did,
+however, pass legislation suspending the immigration of laborers for ten
+years, and this bill the President signed. Later acts have merely
+extended this law or made it more effective.
+
+Arthur also exercised the veto upon a rivers and harbors bill. It had,
+of course, long been the custom for the federal government to aid in the
+improvement of the harbors and internal water-ways of the country. But
+the modest sums of _ante-bellum_ days grew rapidly after the war,
+stimulated by immense federal revenues, until the suggested legislation
+of 1882 appropriated nearly nineteen million dollars. It provided not
+merely for the dredging of great rivers like the Mississippi and Ohio,
+but also for the Lamprey River in New Hampshire, the Waccemaw in North
+Carolina, together with Goose Rapids and Cheesequake Creek. Some of
+these, the opposition declared, might better be paved than dredged.[7]
+It might seem that a bill against which such obvious objections could be
+raised would be doomed to failure. But the argument of Ransom of North
+Carolina, who had charge of the bill in its later stages in the Senate,
+seems to have been a decisive one. Somebody had objected that the
+members of the committee had cared for the interests of their own
+states, merely. Ransom repelled the charge. He showed that the New
+England states had been looked out for; "Look next to New York, that
+great, grand, magnificent State ... that empire in itself ... Go to
+Delaware, little, glorious Delaware." The committee had retained $20,000
+for Delaware. "Go next ... to great, grand old Virginia." Virginia had
+received something. "Go to Missouri, the young, beautiful, growing,
+powerful State of my friend over the way." And so on--all had been
+treated with thoughtful care. Ransom was wise in his day and generation.
+Although Arthur objected to the bill on the grounds of extravagance and
+of the official demoralization which accompanied it, nevertheless
+Republicans and Democrats alike joined in passing over the veto an act
+which would get money into their home states.
+
+The congressional elections in the fall of 1882 indicated that the
+factional disputes among the Republicans, and their failure to reform
+conditions in the civil service had presented the opposition with an
+opportunity. In the House of Representatives, Republican control was
+replaced by a Democratic majority of sixty-nine; the state legislatures
+chosen were Democratic in such numbers as to make sure the even division
+of the Senate when new members were elected; in Pennsylvania, a
+Democratic reformer, Robert E. Pattison, was elected governor, and in
+New York another, Grover Cleveland, was successful by the unprecedented
+majority of 190,000.
+
+The results of the campaign added interest to a civil service reform
+bill which had been drafted by some reformers led by Dorman B. Eaton,
+and which had been presented to the Senate by George F. Pendleton, of
+Ohio. The debate elicited several points of view. Pendleton set forth
+the evils of the existing system of appointments, and emphasized the
+superior advantages of appointment after competitive examination. The
+Democrats were in distress. Although Pendleton was himself a Democrat
+and the party platforms had been advocating reform, nevertheless the
+election of 1884 was not far ahead, Democratic success seemed likely,
+and the party leaders desired an unrestrained opportunity to fill the
+offices with their followers. Senator Williams expressed a conviction
+that the Republican party was a party of corruption and continued:
+
+    The only way to reform is to put a good honest Democratic
+    president in in 1884; then turn on the hose and give him a
+    good hickory broom and tell him to sweep the dirt away.
+
+The Republicans, on their side, were fearful of the same clean sweep
+that Williams hoped for, and they therefore looked with greater
+equanimity upon a bill which might retain in office the existing
+office-holders, most of whom belonged to their party. This aspect of the
+situation was not lost upon such Democrats as Senator Brown who moved
+that the measure be entitled "a bill to perpetuate in office the
+Republicans who now hold the patronage of the government." In the Senate
+only five members voted against its passage, but thirty-three absented
+themselves; and in the House forty-seven opposed, while eighty-seven
+were absent. A little study of the debate makes it clear that the
+passage of the act was due to conviction in favor of reform on the part
+of a few and to fear of public opinion on the part of many others.
+Undoubtedly many of the absentees were members who would not vote for
+the measure and were fearful of the results of voting against it. The
+President signed the bill January 16, 1883.
+
+The Pendleton act left large discretion in the hands of the President.
+It authorized the appointment of a commission of three who should
+prepare and put into effect suitable rules for carrying out the law. The
+act also provided that government offices should be arranged in classes
+and that entrance to any class should be obtained by competitive
+examination; that no person should be removed from the service for
+refusing to contribute to political funds; and that examinations should
+be held in one or more places in each state and territory where
+candidates appeared. The system was to be inaugurated in customs
+districts and post offices where the number of employees was as many as
+fifty, but could be extended later under direction of the President. The
+soliciting or receiving of contributions by federal officials of all
+grades, for political purposes, was forbidden. With the exceptions just
+mentioned, officers could be removed from office as before, but the
+purpose of removal was now gone. Since the appointee to the vacancy must
+be the successful competitor in an examination, the chief who removed an
+officer could not replace him with a personal friend or party worker.
+
+The first commission was headed by Dorman B. Eaton. The work of grading
+officials and placing them within the protection of the law began at
+once, and by the close of President Arthur's term nearly 16,000 were
+classified. Fortunately, the work of the commission was carried on
+sensibly and slowly, and no backward steps had to be taken.
+
+The attitude of Congress toward tariff revision illustrates many of the
+characteristics of congressional action during the early eighties. In
+his first message to Congress, Arthur said that the surplus for the year
+was $100,000,000, and therefore urged the reduction of the internal
+revenue taxes and the revision of the tariff. In May, 1882, Congress
+authorized a tariff commission to investigate and report, and in
+conformity with the law Arthur appointed its nine members. All of them
+were protectionists and the chairman, John L. Hayes, was secretary of
+the Wool Manufacturers' Association. After holding hearings in more than
+a score of cities and examining some hundreds of witnesses, the
+commission recommended reductions varying from nothing in some cases to
+forty or fifty per cent. in others. The average reduction was twenty to
+twenty-five per cent.
+
+Using the report as a foundation, the Senate drew up a tariff measure,
+added it to a House bill which provided for a reduction of the internal
+revenues, and passed the combination. Meanwhile, lobbyists poured into
+Washington to guard the interests of the producers of lumber, pig-iron,
+sugar and other materials upon which the tariff might be reduced. When
+the Senate bill reached the House it contained lower duties than the
+protectionist members desired. The latter, although in possession of the
+organization of the House, were not strong enough to restore higher
+rates, but under the shrewd management of Thomas B. Reed, one of their
+number, they were able to refer the bill to a conference committee of
+the two houses which contained seven strong protectionists out of ten
+members. Reed admitted that the proceedings were "unusual in their
+nature and very forcible in their character" but he felt that a change
+in the tariff had been promised and that the only way to bring it about
+in the face of Democratic opposition was to settle the details "in the
+quiet of a conference committee." A "great emergency" having arisen, he
+would take extraordinary measures. The bill produced under these
+circumstances reduced the internal revenue taxes, lowered some of the
+tariff duties and raised others, but left the general level at the point
+where it had been at the close of the war. _The Nation_, favorable to
+reform, scornfully characterized the act as "taking a shaving off the
+duty on iron wire, and adding it to the duty on glue!" Senator Sherman,
+a protectionist member of the conference committee, wrote an account of
+the whole procedure many years afterward. After commending the spirit
+and proposals of the tariff commission and mentioning the successful
+efforts of many persons to have their individual interests looked out
+for, he expressed a regret that he did not defeat the bill, as he could
+have done in view of the evenly balanced party situation in the Senate
+at that time.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The election of 1880 is well treated by Sparks, Stanwood, Andrews, and
+Rhodes. Senator G.F. Hoar, the chairman of the Republican nominating
+convention, has a valuable chapter in his _Autobiography of Seventy
+Years_. Such newspapers as the New York _Times_ and _Tribune_ are
+invaluable for a discussion of the conventions.
+
+The events of the administration, such as the tariff debates, the
+passage of the civil service law and others are discussed in the special
+works mentioned in Chapter V. Consult also: Edward Stanwood, _J.G.
+Blaine_; T.C. Platt, _Autobiography_; and A.R. Conkling, _Life and
+Letters of Roscoe Conkling_. The _Annual Cyclopaedia _contains several
+excellent articles on the tariff (1882, 1883), civil service reform
+(1883), star route trials (1882, 1883). H.C. Thomas, _The Return of the
+Democratic Party to Power in 1884_ (1919), contains useful chapters on
+Garfield and Arthur.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] For Platt's account of the annual reunion and banquet of the three
+hundred and six--"The Old Guard"--see _Autobiography_, 115.
+
+[2] Garfield's early career as a canal boy led to such campaign songs
+as the following:
+
+    He early learned to paddle well his own forlorn canoe,
+    Upon Ohio's grand canal he held the hellum true.
+    And now the people shout to him: "Lo! 't is for you we wait.
+    We want to see Jim Garfield guide our glorious ship of state."
+
+[3] William Windom, of Minn., was Secretary of the Treasury; E.T.
+Lincoln, of Ill., Secretary of War; Wayne MacVeagh, of Pa.,
+Attorney-General; T.L. James, of N.Y., Postmaster-General; W.H. Hunt,
+of La., Secretary of the Navy; S.J. Kirkwood, of Ia., Secretary of
+the Interior.
+
+[4] The death of the President emphasized the need of a presidential
+succession law. Under an act of 1792, the president and vice-president
+were succeeded by the president of the Senate and the speaker of the
+House. When Garfield died, the Senate had not yet elected a presiding
+officer and the House had not met. The death of Arthur would have left
+the country without a legal head. The Presidential Succession Act of
+1886 remedied the fault by providing for the succession of the cabinet
+in order, beginning with the Secretary of State. The presiding officers
+of the Senate and House were omitted, because they might not be of the
+dominant party.
+
+[5] The cabinet was composed of F.T. Frelinghuysen, N.J., Secretary of
+State; C.J. Folger, N.Y., Secretary of the Treasury; R.T. Lincoln, Ill.,
+Secretary of War; B.H. Brewster, Pa., Attorney-General; T.O. Howe, Wis.,
+Postmaster-General; W.E. Chandler, N.H., Secretary of the Navy; H.M.
+Teller, Colo., Secretary of the Interior.
+
+[6] Above, p. 145.
+
+[7] Some thoroughly unselfish members of Congress like Senator Hoar,
+however, believed the bill a justifiable one and voted for it. See Hoar,
+_Autobiography_, II, chapter VIII.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+THE OVERTURN OF 1884
+
+The election of 1880 was memorable only for the type of politics with
+which that contest was so inextricably involved. The party leaders were
+second-rate men; the platforms, except for that of the Greenback party,
+were as lacking in definiteness as the most timid office-seeker could
+desire; in brief, it was a cross-section of American professional
+politics at its worst. The election of 1884 was a distinct, although not
+a complete contrast. It was not a campaign of platforms, but like the
+election of 1824 it was a battle of men. Two genuine leaders, each
+representing a distinct type of politics, contended for an opportunity
+to try out a philosophy of government in the executive chair. In 1880
+the conventions were the chief interest--the campaign was dull. The
+campaign of 1884, on the other hand, was one of the most remarkable in
+our history.
+
+It will be remembered that the year 1882 had been characterized by
+political upheavals. In Pennsylvania the Greenbackers had demanded that
+currency be issued only by the central government--not by the national
+banks--and that measures be taken to curb monopolies; the independent
+Republicans had revolted against Cameron, and demanded civil service
+reform and the overthrow of bossism; and the Democrats had elected a
+governor of the reformer type, Robert E. Pattison. Massachusetts
+Republicans had gasped the day after the election to find that "Ben"
+Butler, who bore a questionable reputation as a politician, as a soldier
+and as a man, had been elected by a combination of Greenbackers and
+Democrats on a reform program. In New York the Democrats had taken
+advantage of a factional quarrel among their opponents to elect as
+governor a man who had achieved a reputation as a reformer--Grover
+Cleveland. That some of the states which had been Democratic in 1882,
+had become Republican again in 1883 illustrates the unstable character
+of the politics of the time.
+
+The beginning of the convention season of 1884 gave hint of the vigorous
+campaign ahead. An Anti-Monopoly party nominated Benjamin F. Butler, who
+was also supported by the Greenbackers. The Prohibitionists presented a
+ticket headed by John P. St. John. The action of the Republican
+convention, which met at Chicago on June 3, proved to be the turning
+point in the campaign. President Arthur was frankly a candidate for
+another term, but he did not have the united support of the professional
+politicians and was distrusted by most of the reform element. Nor had
+his veto of the Chinese immigration bill and the rivers and harbors act
+tended to increase his popularity. Most enthusiastic, confident and
+vociferous were the supporters of James G. Blaine, of Maine. The
+independent element hoped to nominate Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, and
+was particularly disturbed at the character of the workers for the "Man
+from Maine." His campaign manager, Stephen B. Elkins, had been charged
+with a discreditable connection with the star-route scandals; men of the
+Platt type were urging that it was now Blaine's "turn"; and Powell
+Clayton, an Arkansas carpet-bagger of ill-repute, was the Blaine
+candidate for the position of temporary chairman of the convention.
+
+Before a candidate was chosen the delegates turned to the adoption of
+the platform. This was of the usual type but was an advance over that of
+1880 in several respects. It committed the party to a protective tariff
+and advocated an interstate commerce law and the extension of civil
+service reform.
+
+The balloting for candidates proved that Blaine was clearly the choice
+of the convention. The mere mention of his name threw the delegates
+into storms of applause and even on the first ballot he received votes
+from every state in the union save five. On the fourth ballot he
+received an overwhelming majority and became the nominee. John A.
+Logan of Illinois, a prominent politician and soldier, was nominated
+for the Vice-Presidency--a tail to the ticket, in the opinion of the
+Democrats, which was designed to "Wag Invitation to the Soldier Vote."
+The choice of Blaine was variously received by the different factions
+in the convention. The Pacific coast delegates, in a special train,
+went from Chicago to Augusta, Maine, before starting for home, in
+order personally to pledge their support to the candidate. On the
+other hand, Theodore Roosevelt disgustedly remarked that he was going
+to a cattle-ranch in the West to stay he knew not how long. George
+William Curtis sadly declared that he had been present at the birth of
+the Republican party and feared that he was to be a witness of its
+death. Other reformers were no less disaffected.
+
+The outspoken Republican opposition to Blaine gave infinite aid and
+comfort to the Democrats whose convention, coming a month later, could
+take advantage of the growing schism in the opposition. During the
+interval between the two conventions the growing sentiment in favor of
+the nomination of Grover Cleveland received the additional impetus of
+independent Republican support. The Democratic party was still an object
+of suspicion to them, but they were ready to run the risks of even a
+Democratic administration, if a leader of proved integrity should be
+nominated, and Cleveland seemed to them to meet the demands of the
+times. The first work of the convention, which met in Chicago on July 8,
+was the adoption of a reform platform. Characterizing the opposition
+party as a "reminiscence," it condemned Republican misrule, and promised
+reform; it proposed a revision of the tariff that would be fair to all
+interests, and reductions which would promote industry, do no harm to
+labor and raise sufficient revenue; and it briefly advocated "honest"
+civil service reform.
+
+The enthusiasm which the independent Republicans were manifesting for
+Cleveland was balanced by the hostility of elements within his party.
+As Governor he had exercised his veto power with complete disregard
+for the effect on his own political future. He had, for example,
+vetoed a popular measure reducing fares on the New York City elevated
+railroad, basing his objections on the ground that the bill violated
+the provisions of the fundamental railroad law of the state. He was
+opposed by Tammany Hall, led by John Kelley, who declared that the
+labor element disliked him. Kelley's reputation, however, was such
+that his hostility seemed like a compliment and gave force to General
+Bragg's assertion, in seconding the nomination of Cleveland, that his
+friends "love him most for the enemies he has made." The first ballot
+proved that the Governor was stronger than his competitors, Senator
+Bayard, Allen G. Thurman, Samuel J. Randall and several men of lesser
+importance, and on the second ballot he received the nomination.
+
+The choice of Cleveland gave the independent movement more than the
+expected impetus. The New York _Times_ at once crossed the line into
+the Cleveland camp and _Harpers Weekly_, long a supporter of the
+Republicans, the Boston _Herald_, Springfield _Republican_, New York
+_Evening Post_, _The Nation_, the Chicago _Times_ and a host of less
+important ones followed. A conference of Independents in New York
+City, which was composed of five hundred delegates and which enlisted
+the support of such men as Carl Schurz, George William Curtis, Henry
+C. Lea, Charles J. Bonaparte, Moorfield Storey and President Seelye of
+Amherst College, gave striking evidence of the revolt which Blaine's
+nomination had aroused. Curtis said in the conference, that the chief
+issue of the campaign was moral rather than political. The New York
+_Times_ declared that the issue was a personal one. Some of the better
+element, however, like Senator Hoar, earnestly urged the election of
+Blaine, while Senator Edmunds refused either to aid or oppose his
+party. Others, like Roosevelt, were unable to give ungrudging support,
+but felt that reform would be better promoted by working within the
+party than by withdrawing. It is obvious that Blaine and Cleveland,
+not the platforms of the parties, had become the issue of the
+campaign.
+
+James G. Blaine was born in Pennsylvania in 1830, was educated at
+Washington College in his native state, later moved to Augusta, Maine,
+and purchased an interest in the Kennebec _Journal_. On assuming his
+journalistic duties he familiarized himself with the politics of the
+state and became powerful in local, and later in federal affairs. He was
+a member of the first Republican convention and was chairman of the
+state Republican committee for more than twenty years, from which point
+of vantage he had a prevailing influence in Maine politics. He served in
+the state and federal legislatures as well as in Garfield's cabinet and
+was a prominent candidate for the presidential nomination in 1876 and in
+1880.
+
+Grover Cleveland, although only seven years younger than Blaine, was
+relatively inexperienced on the stage of national affairs. He was born
+in New Jersey, the son of a Presbyterian minister, grew up with little
+education, was salesman in a village store and later clerk in a law
+office, at the age of eighteen. Although he had been sheriff of Erie
+County, it was not until 1881, when he became mayor of Buffalo, that
+he took an important part in politics, and here his record as the
+business-like "veto mayor" was such as to carry him into the governor's
+chair a year later. The huge majority which he received in the
+gubernatorial contest was not wholly due to his own strength--doubtless
+factional quarrels among the Republicans assisted him--but the
+prominence which this election gave him and his conduct as Governor
+made inevitable his candidacy for higher office.
+
+Few men could have been nominated who would have presented a more
+complete contrast than Blaine and Cleveland. In personality Blaine was
+magnetic, approachable, high-strung, possessed of a vivid imagination
+and of a marvellous memory for facts, names and faces. Over him men
+went "insane in pairs," either devotedly admiring or completely
+distrusting him. Cleveland was almost devoid of personal charm except
+to his most intimate associates. He was brusque and tactless,
+unimaginative, plodding, commonplace in his tastes and in the elements
+of his character. Men threw their hats in the air and cheered
+themselves hoarse at the name of Blaine; to Cleveland's courage,
+earnestness and honesty, they gave a tribute of admiration. When the
+campaign was at fever heat, Blaine was lifting crowds of eager
+listeners to the mountain peaks of enthusiasm; Cleveland was in the
+governor's room in Albany, phlegmatically plodding away at the
+business of his office. He was too heavy, unimaginative, direct, to
+indulge in flights of oratory. Yet scarcely anything that Blaine said
+still lives, while some of Cleveland's phrases have passed into the
+language of every-day.
+
+No less a contrast existed between Blaine and Cleveland as political
+characters. The former's experience in the machinery of politics, in the
+disposal of its loaves and fishes, has already been mentioned. Of that
+part of politics, Cleveland had had no experience. It is said that he
+never was in Washington, except for a single day, until he went there to
+become President. Both were bold and active fighters, but Blaine was a
+strategist, a manager and a diplomat, while Cleveland could merely state
+the policy which he desired to see put into effect, and then crash
+ahead. Blaine had the instinct for the popular thing, was never ahead of
+his party, was surrounded by his followers; Cleveland saw the thing
+which he felt a moral imperative to accomplish and was far in advance of
+his fellows. The Republican was popular among the professional political
+element in his party and was supported by it; the Democrat never was.
+Cleveland openly declared his attitude on controverted issues, in words
+that admitted of no ambiguity and at times when only silence or soft
+words would save him from defeat. Blaine lacked the moral courage and
+the indifference to immediate results which were necessary for so
+exalted an action. Cleveland had more of the reformer in his nature, and
+had so keen a sense of responsibility and duty that his political career
+was a succession of battles against things that seemed wrong to him.
+Blaine accepted the party standards as they were; he belonged to the
+past, to the policies and political morality of war and reconstruction;
+Cleveland belonged to the transition from reconstruction to the
+twentieth century.
+
+The particular thing, however, that came out of Blaine's past to dog his
+foot-steps, give him the enmity of the Independents--better known as the
+"Mugwumps"--and, doubtless, to defeat him, was a series of transactions
+exposed in the Mulligan letters. In order to understand these, it is
+necessary to inquire into events that occurred fifteen years before the
+overturn of 1884. In April, 1869, a bill favorable to the Little Rock
+and Fort Smith Railroad--an Arkansas land-grant enterprise--was before
+the House of Representatives. Blaine was Speaker. As the session was
+near its close and the bill seemed likely to be lost, its friends
+bespoke Blaine's assistance. He suggested that a certain point of order
+be raised, which would facilitate the passage of the measure, and also
+asked General John A. Logan to raise the point. Logan did so, Blaine
+sustained him and the act was passed. Nearly three months later, Warren
+Fisher, Jr., a Boston business man, asked Blaine to participate in the
+affairs of the Little Rock Railroad. Blaine signified his readiness,
+closing his letter with the words, "I do not feel that I shall prove a
+dead-head in the enterprise if I once embark in it. I see various
+channels in which I know I can be useful." When Blaine's enemies got
+hold of this, they declared that he intended to use his position as
+Speaker to further the interests of the road, as he had done at the time
+of the famous point of order; his friends asserted that he intended
+merely to sell the securities of the road to investors. Whether one of
+these contentions is true, or both, he did sell considerable amounts of
+the securities of the road to Maine friends, getting a "handsome
+commission." Considerable correspondence passed between Blaine and
+Fisher from 1869 to 1872 when their relations ended. Blaine understood
+that all their correspondence was mutually surrendered.
+
+In the spring of 1876, the presidential campaign was on the horizon and
+Blaine was a prominent candidate for the Republican nomination.
+Meanwhile ugly rumors were flying about concerning the connection of
+certain members of Congress, Blaine among them, with questionable
+railroad transactions, and he arose in the House to deny the charges. He
+did not discuss the matter fully, as he did not wish his Maine
+constituents to know that he had received a large commission for selling
+Little Rock securities. Gossip grew, however, and a congressional
+investigation resulted in May, 1876. Blaine was one of the witnesses,
+but was doubtless anxious to bring the investigation to an end, since it
+clearly reduced his chances of receiving the nomination. Presently
+gossip said that Warren Fisher and James Mulligan were going to testify.
+Mulligan had been confidential clerk to one of Mrs. Blaine's brothers
+and later to Fisher. When Mulligan began his testimony it appeared that
+he intended to lay before the committee a package of letters that had
+passed between Blaine and Fisher, and thereupon, at Blaine's whispered
+request, one of the members of the committee procured an adjournment for
+the day. That evening Blaine found Mulligan at the latter's hotel and
+prevailed on him to surrender the letters temporarily, in order that
+Blaine might read and then return them. Blaine thereupon consulted two
+lawyers and on their advice he refused to restore the package to
+Mulligan. Merely to keep silence, however, was to admit guilt. Blaine,
+therefore, arose one day in the House of Representatives and holding the
+letters in his hand read selections and defended himself in a remarkable
+burst of emotional oratory. At the climax of this defence he elicited
+from the chairman of the committee of investigation an unwilling
+admission that the committee had suppressed a dispatch which Blaine
+declared would exonerate him. Blaine was triumphant, his friends sure
+that he had cleared himself and the matter dropped for the time. Further
+investigation was prevented by Blaine's refusal to produce the letters
+even before the committee and by his sudden illness shortly afterward.
+His election to the Senate soon took him out of the jurisdiction of the
+House committee and no action resulted.
+
+The nomination of Blaine in 1884 was a fresh breeze on the half-dead
+embers of the Mulligan letters. _Harper's Weekly_ and other periodicals
+published them with damaging explanatory remarks. Campaign committees
+spread them abroad in pamphlet form. Attention was directed to such
+phrases as "I do not feel that I shall prove a dead-head" and "I see
+various channels in which I know I can be useful." Hostile cartoonists
+used the phrases with an infinite variety of innuendo. But the most
+powerful evidence was still to come. On September 15, 1884, Fisher and
+Mulligan made public additional letters which Blaine had not possessed
+at the time of his defence in 1876. The most damaging of these was one
+in which Blaine had drawn up a letter completely exonerating himself,
+which he asked Fisher to sign and make public as his own. Blaine had
+marked his request "confidential" and had written at the bottom "Burn
+this letter." Fisher had neither written the letter which was requested
+nor burned Blaine's. Meanwhile it was recalled that Blaine had earlier
+characterized the reformers as "upstarts, conceited, foolish, vain" and
+as "noisy but not numerous, pharisaical but not practical, ambitious but
+not wise," and the already intemperate campaign became more personal
+than ever.
+
+Thomas Nast's able pencil caricatured Blaine in _Harper's Weekly_ as a
+magnetic candidate too heavy for the party elephant to carry; _Puck_
+portrayed him as the "tattooed man" covered all over with "Little Rock,"
+"Mulligan Letters" and the like. _Life_ described him as a
+
+    Take all I can gettery,
+    Mulligan lettery,
+    Solid for Blaine old man.
+
+Nor was the contest of scurrility entirely one-sided. _Judge_
+caricatured Cleveland in hideous cartoons. The New York _Tribune_
+described him as a small man "everywhere except on the hay-scales."
+Beginning in Buffalo rumors spread all over the country that Cleveland
+was an habitual drunkard and libertine. As is the way of such gossip,
+its magnitude grew until the Governor appeared in the guise of a monster
+of immorality. The editor of the _Independent_ went himself to Buffalo
+and ran the rumors to their sources. He came to the conclusion that
+Cleveland as a young man had been guilty of an illicit connection, that
+he had made amends for the wrong which he had done and had since lived a
+blameless life. Such religious periodicals as the _Unitarian Review_,
+however, continued to describe him as a "_debauchee_" and "_roué_."
+Nearly a thousand clergymen gathered in New York declared him a synonym
+of "incapacity and incontinency." Much was made, also, of the fact that
+Cleveland had not served in the war, and John Sherman denounced him as
+having no sympathy for the Union cause. It did little good in the heated
+condition of partisan discussion to point out that young Cleveland had
+two brothers in the service, that he was urgently needed to support his
+widowed mother and her six other children, and that he borrowed money to
+obtain a substitute to take the field. On the other side, _Harper's
+Weekly_ dwelt upon the Mulligan scandal; _The Nation_, while deploring
+the incident in Cleveland's past, considered even so grave a mistake as
+less important than Blaine's, since the latter's vices were those by
+which "governments are overthrown, states brought to naught, and the
+haunts of commerce turned into dens of thieves."
+
+As the campaign neared an end it appeared that the result would turn
+upon New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Indiana, and especially upon
+the first of these. In New York several elements combined to make the
+situation doubtful and interesting. Tammany's dislike of Cleveland was
+well-known, but open opposition, at least, was quelled before election
+day. Roscoe Conkling, still influential despite his retirement, refused
+to take the stump in behalf of Blaine, declaring that he did not engage
+in "criminal practice." The Republicans also feared the competition of
+the Prohibitionists, because they attracted some Republicans who refused
+to vote for Blaine and could not bring themselves to support a Democrat.
+On the eve of the election an incident occurred which would have been of
+no importance if it had not been for the closeness of the contest. As
+Blaine was returning from a speaking tour in the West, he was given a
+reception in New York by a delegation of clergymen. The spokesman of the
+group, the Reverend Dr. Burchard, referred to the Democrats as the party
+of "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion." Blaine, weary from his tour, failed to
+notice the indiscreet remark, but the opposition seized upon it and used
+it to discredit him in the eyes of the Irish. On the same evening a
+dinner at Delmonico's at which many wealthy men were present, provided
+material for the charge that the Republican candidate was the choice of
+the rich classes.
+
+Early returns on election night indicated that the Democrats had carried
+the South and all the doubtful states, with the possible exception of
+New York. There the result was so close that some days elapsed before a
+final decision could be made. Excitement was intense; and business
+almost stopped, so absorbed were people in the returns. At length it was
+officially decided that Cleveland had received 1,149 more votes than
+Blaine and by this narrow margin the Democrats carried New York, and
+with it the election.
+
+Contemporary explanations of Blaine's defeat were indicated by a
+transparency carried in a Democratic procession which celebrated the
+victory:
+
+    The _World_ Says the Independents Did It
+    The _Tribune_ Says the Stalwarts Did It
+    The _Sun_ Says Burchard Did It
+    Blaine Says St. John Did It
+    Theodore Roosevelt Says It Was the Soft Soap Dinner[1]
+    We Say Blaine's Character Did It
+    But We Don't Care What Did It
+             It's Done.
+
+None of these explanations took into account the strength of Cleveland,
+but the closeness of the result made all of them important. From the
+vantage ground of later times, however, it could be seen that greater
+forces were at work. By 1884 the day had passed when political contests
+could be won on Civil War issues. The younger voters had no recollections
+of Gettysburg and felt no animosity toward the Democratic South. Moreover,
+Cleveland's success was the culmination of a long-continued demand for
+reform, which he satisfied better than Blaine.
+
+The opening of the first Democratic administration since Buchanan's time
+excited great interest in every detail of Cleveland's activities and
+characteristics.[2] Moreover, many who had voted for him distrusted his
+party and were apprehensive lest it turn out that a mistake had been
+made in placing such great confidence in one man. The more stiffly
+partisan Republicans firmly believed that Democratic success meant a
+triumphant South, with the "rebels" again in the saddle. Sherman
+declared that Cleveland's choice of southern advisors was a "reproach to
+the civilization of the age," and Joseph B. Foraker, speaking in an Ohio
+campaign, found that the people wished to hear Cleveland "flayed" and
+wanted plenty of "hot stuff."
+
+The President's early acts indicated that the partisans were unduly
+disturbed. His inaugural address was characterized by straightforward
+earnestness. The exploitation of western lands by fraudulent claimants
+was sharply halted. The cabinet, while inexperienced, contained several
+able men, of whom Thomas F. Bayard, Secretary of State, William C.
+Whitney, Secretary of the Navy, and L.Q.C. Lamar, the Secretary of the
+Interior, were best known.[3]
+
+The first great obstacle that Cleveland faced was well portrayed by one
+of Nast's cartoons, in which the President, with an "Independent" club
+in his hand, was approaching a snarling, open-jawed tiger, which
+represented the office-seeking classes. The drawing was entitled
+"Beware! For He is Very Hungry and Very Thirsty." It was not difficult
+to foresee grave trouble ahead in connection with the civil service. The
+Democrats had been out of power for twenty-four years, the offices were
+full of Republicans, about 100,000 positions were at the disposal of the
+administration, and current political practice looked with indifference
+upon the use of these places as rewards for party work. Hordes of
+office-seekers descended upon congressmen, in order to get introductions
+to department chiefs; they filled the waiting rooms of cabinet officers;
+they besieged Cleveland. Disappointed applicants and displaced officers
+added to the clamor and confusion.
+
+The President's policy, as it worked out in practice, was a compromise
+between his ideals and the wishes of the party leaders. He earnestly
+approved the Pendleton act and desired to carry out both its letter and
+its spirit. He removed office holders who were offensively partisan and
+who used their positions for political purposes. He gave the South a
+larger share in the activities of the government, both in the cabinet
+and in the diplomatic and other branches of the service. When the term
+of a Republican office holder expired he filled the place with a fit
+Democrat, if one could be found, in order to equalize the share of the
+two parties in the patronage. Nearly half of the diplomatic and consular
+appointments went to southerners, and eventually most of the Republicans
+were supplanted.
+
+The displacement of so many officials gave the Republicans an
+opportunity to attempt to discredit the President in the eyes of his
+mugwump supporters. An amended law of 1869 gave the Senate a certain
+control over removals, although the constant practice of early times had
+been to give the executive a free hand. Moreover the law had fallen into
+disuse--or, as the President put it--into "innocuous desuetude." The
+case on which the Senate chose to force the issue was the removal of
+George M. Duskin, United States District Attorney in Alabama, and the
+nomination of John D. Burnett in his place. The Senate called upon the
+Attorney-General to transmit all papers relating to the removal; the
+President directed him to refuse, on the ground that papers of such a
+sort were not official papers, to which the Senate had a right, and also
+on the ground that the power of removal was vested, by the Constitution,
+in the president alone. In the meantime it had been hinted to Cleveland
+that his nominations would be confirmed without difficulty if it were
+acknowledged that the suspensions were the usual partisan removals. To
+do this would, of course, make his reform utterances look hypocritical
+and he refused to comply:
+
+    I ... dispute the right of the Senate ... in any way save
+    through the judicial process of trial on impeachment, to review
+    or reverse the acts of the Executive in the suspension, during
+    the recess of the Senate, of Federal officials.
+
+As he was immovable and was taking precisely the position that such
+Republican leaders as President Grant had previously taken, the Senate
+was obliged to give way. Although it relieved its feelings by censuring
+the Attorney-General, it later repealed the remains of the Tenure of
+Office act of 1869, leaving victory with the President.
+
+In connection with the less important offices Cleveland was forced to
+compromise between the desirable and the practicable. Most of the
+postmasters were changed, although in New York City an efficient officer
+was retained who had originally been appointed by Garfield. All the
+internal revenue collectors and nearly all the collectors of customs
+were replaced. On the other hand, the classified service was somewhat
+extended by the inclusion of the railway mail service, a change which,
+with other increases, enlarged the classified lists by 12,000 offices.
+
+It seems evident that Cleveland pressed reform far enough to alienate
+the politicians but not so far as to satisfy the reformers. When he
+withstood Democratic clamor for office, the Independents applauded, and
+the spoilsmen in his own party accused him of treason. When he listened
+to the demands of the partisans, the reformers became disgusted and many
+of them returned to their former party allegiance. Eugene Field
+expressed Republican exultation at the dissension in the enemy's ranks:
+
+    ... the Mugwump scorned the Democrat's wail,
+    And flirting its false fantastic tail,
+    It spread its wings and it soared away,
+    And left the Democrat in dismay,
+            Too hoo!
+
+Aside from the President, official Washington seems to have had but
+little real interest in reform. The Vice-President, Hendricks, was a
+partisan of the old school, and so many members of Congress were out of
+sympathy with the system that they attempted to annul the law by
+refusing appropriations for its continuance. On the whole a fair
+judgment was that of Charles Francis Adams, a Republican, who thought
+that Cleveland showed himself as much in advance of both parties as it
+was wise for a leader of one of them to be.
+
+In addition to further improvements in the civil service laws, Cleveland
+was interested in a long list of reforms which he placed before Congress
+in his first message: the improvement of the diplomatic and consular
+service; the reduction of the tariff; the repeal of the Bland-Allison
+silver-coinage act; the development of the navy, which he characterized
+as a "shabby ornament" and a naval reminder "of the days that are past";
+better care of the Indians; and a means of preventing individuals from
+acquiring large areas of the public lands. The fact that Hayes and
+Arthur had urged similar reforms showed how little Cleveland differed
+from his Republican predecessors. It was not likely, however, that the
+program would be carried out, for Congress was not in a reforming mood
+and the Republicans controlled the upper house so that they could block
+any attempt at constructive policies.
+
+The latent hostility which many of the Civil War veterans felt toward
+the Democratic party was fanned into flame by Cleveland's attitude
+toward pension legislation. The sympathy of the country for its disabled
+soldiers had early resulted in a system of pensions for disability if
+due either to wounds or to disease contracted in the service. Early in
+the seventies the number of pensioners had seemed to have reached a
+maximum. Two new centers of agitation, however, had appeared, the Grand
+Army of the Republic and the pension agent. The former was originally a
+social organization but later it took a hand in the campaign for new
+pension legislation. The agents were persons familiar with the laws, who
+busied themselves in finding possible pensioners and getting their
+claims established. The agitation of the subject had resulted in the
+arrears act of 1879, which gave the claimant back-pensions from the day
+of his discharge from the army to the date of filing his claim,
+regardless of the time when his disability began. As the average first
+payment to the pensioner under this act was about $1,000, the number of
+claims filed had grown enormously and the pension agents had enjoyed a
+rich harvest. The next step was the dependent pensions bill, which
+granted a pension to all who had served three months, were dependent on
+their daily toil, and were incapable of earning their livelihood,
+whether the incapacity was due to wounds and disease or not. President
+Cleveland's veto of the measure aroused a hostility which was deepened
+by his attitude toward private pension acts.
+
+For some time it had been customary to pass special acts providing
+pensions for persons whose claims had already been rejected by the
+pension bureau as defective or fraudulent. So little attention was paid
+to private bills in Congress that 1454 of them passed between 1885 and
+1889, generally without debate and often even without the presence of a
+quorum of members. Two hours on a day in April, 1886, sufficed for the
+passage of five hundred such bills. Nobody would now deny that many were
+frauds, pure and simple. Cleveland was too frugal and conscientious to
+pass such bills without examination and he began to veto some of the
+worst of them. Each veto message explained the grounds for his dissent,
+sometimes patiently, sometimes with a sharp sarcasm that must have made
+the victim writhe. In one case where a widow sought a pension because of
+the death of her soldier husband it was discovered that he had been
+accidentally shot by a neighbor while hunting. Another claimant was one
+who had enlisted at the close of the war, served nine days, had been
+admitted to the hospital with measles and then mustered out. Fifteen
+years later he claimed a pension. The President vetoed the bill,
+scoffing at the applicant's "valiant service" and "terrific encounter
+with the measles." Altogether he vetoed about two hundred and thirty
+private bills. Time after time he expressed his sympathy with the
+deserving pensioner and his desire to purge the list of dishonorable
+names, and many applauded his courageous efforts. Nevertheless, his
+pension policy presented an opportunity for hostile criticism which his
+Republican opponents were not slow to embrace. His efforts in behalf of
+pension reform were said to originate in hostility to the old soldiers
+and in lack of sympathy with the northern cause. In 1887 it even became
+necessary for him to withdraw his acceptance of an invitation to attend
+a meeting of the Grand Army in St. Louis, because of danger that he
+might be subjected to downright insult.[4]
+
+Before the hostility due to the pension vetoes had subsided,
+Adjutant-General Drum called the attention of the President to the fact
+that flags taken from Confederate regiments by Union soldiers during the
+war and also certain flags formerly belonging to northern troops had for
+many years lain packed in boxes in the attic and cellar of the War
+Department. At his suggestion Cleveland ordered the return of these
+trophies to the states which the regiments had represented. Although
+recommended by Drum as a "graceful act," it was looked upon by the old
+soldiers with the utmost wrath. The commander of the Grand Army called
+upon Heaven to avenge so wicked an order and such politicians as
+Governor Foraker of Ohio gained temporary prominence by their bitter
+condemnation of it. Eventually the clamor was so great that the
+President rescinded the order on the ground that the final disposition
+of the flags was within the sphere of action of Congress only. In
+February, 1905, however, Congress passed a resolution providing for the
+return of the flags and the exchange was effected without excitement.
+
+For the reasons already mentioned, little legislation was passed during
+President Cleveland's administration that was of permanent importance.
+An exception was the Interstate Commerce Act, which is a subject for
+later discussion. A Presidential Succession Act, which has earlier been
+described, provided for the succession of the members of the cabinet in
+case of the removal or death of the president and vice-president. The
+Electoral Count Act placed on the states the burden of deciding contests
+arising from the choice of presidential electors. When more than one set
+of electoral returns come from a state, each purporting to be legal,
+Congress must decide which shall be counted. Of some importance, too,
+was the establishment of the Department of Agriculture in 1889 and the
+inclusion of its secretary in the cabinet. The admission of the Dakotas,
+Montana and Washington as states took place in the same year. The
+improvement of the navy, begun so auspiciously by Secretary Chandler
+under President Arthur, was continued with enthusiasm and vigor, and the
+vessels constructed formed an important part of our navy.
+
+Of less popular interest than many of the political questions, but of
+more lasting importance, was the rapid reduction of the public land
+supply. The purpose of the Homestead law of 1862 had been to supply land
+at low rates and in small amounts to _bona fide_ settlers, but the
+beneficent design of the nation had been somewhat nullified by the
+constant evasion of the spirit of the laws. Squatters had occupied land
+without reference to legal forms; cattlemen had fenced in large tracts
+for their own use and forcibly resisted attempts to oust them; by hook
+and by crook individuals and companies had got large areas into their
+possession and held them for speculative returns. Western public opinion
+looked upon many such violations with equanimity until the supply of
+land began to grow small. Then came the demand for the opening of the
+Indian reservations, which comprised 250,000 square miles in 1885. The
+Dawes act of 1887 provided for individual ownership of small amounts of
+land by the Indians instead of tribal ownership in large reservations.
+By this means a considerable amount of good land was made available for
+settlement by whites. The dwindling supply of western land also called
+attention to certain delinquencies on the part of the railway companies.
+Many of them had been granted enormous amounts of land on certain
+conditions, such as that specified parts of the roads be constructed
+within a given time. This agreement, with others, was frequently broken,
+and question arose as to whether the companies should be forced to
+forfeit their claims. Cleveland turned to the problem with energy and
+forced the return of some millions of acres. Nevertheless, the fact that
+it was becoming necessary to be less prodigal with the public land
+indicated that the supply was no longer inexhaustible, and led the
+President in his last annual message to urge that the remaining supply
+be husbanded with great care. Congress was not alert to the demands of
+the time, however, and no effective steps were taken for many years.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+H.C. Thomas, _The Return of the Democratic Party to Power in 1884_
+(1919), is most complete and scholarly on the subject; Sparks, Curtis,
+Dewey, and Stanwood continue useful; H.T. Peck, _Twenty Years of the
+Republic, 1885-1905_ (1907), is illuminating and interesting; H.J. Ford,
+_Cleveland Era_ (1919), is brief; the files of _The Nation_ and
+_Harper's Weekly_ are essential, while those of the New York _Sun,
+Evening Post_ and _Tribune_ add a few points. The Mulligan letters are
+reprinted in _Harper's Weekly_ (1884, 643-646).
+
+On the administration, consult the general texts and the special volumes
+mentioned in chapter V; G.F. Parker, _Recollections of Grover Cleveland_
+(1909); and _Political Science Quarterly_ (June, 1918), "Official
+Characteristics of President Cleveland," give something on the personal
+side; J.L. Whittle, _Grover Cleveland_ (1896), is by an English admirer;
+Cleveland's own side of one of his controversies is in Grover Cleveland,
+_Presidential Problems_ (1904); on Blaine, Edward Stanwood, _James G.
+Blaine_ (1905). The _Annual Cyclopaedia_ has useful biographical
+articles.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] A reference to the Dorsey dinner at which Arthur told how Indiana
+was carried.
+
+[2] His marriage to Miss Frances Folsom, which occurred in 1886,
+occasioned lively interest.
+
+[3] Other members were: Daniel Manning, N.Y., Secretary of the
+Treasury; William C. Endicott, Mass., Secretary of War; A.H. Garland,
+Ark., Attorney-General; William F. Vilas, Wis., Postmaster-General.
+
+[4] President Cleveland also frequently used his veto power to prevent
+the passage of appropriations for federal buildings which he deemed
+unnecessary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+TRANSPORTATION AND ITS CONTROL
+
+The most significant legislative act of President Cleveland's
+administration was due primarily neither to him nor to the great
+political parties. It concerned the relation between the government
+and the railroads, and the force which led to its passage originated
+outside of Congress. The growth of the transportation system,
+therefore, the economic benefits which resulted, the complaints which
+arose and the means through which the complaints found voice were
+subjects of primary importance.
+
+Beginning with the construction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
+about 1830, the extension of the railways went forward with increasing
+rapidity so that they soon formed a veritable network: between 1830
+and 1850 over 7,000 miles were laid; by 1860 the total was 30,000
+miles; the Civil War and the financial depression of 1873 retarded
+progress somewhat, but such delays were temporary, and by 1890 the
+total exceeded 160,000 miles. In the earlier decades most construction
+took place in the Northeast, where capital was most plentiful and
+population most dense. Later activity in the Northeast was devoted to
+building "feeders" or branch lines. In the South, the relatively
+smaller progress which had been made before the war had been undone
+for the most part by the wear and tear of the conflict, but the
+twenty-five years afterward saw greatly renewed construction. The most
+surprising expansion took place in Texas where the 711 miles of 1870
+were increased to 8,754 by 1890. In the Middle West, roads were
+rapidly built just before the war and immediately after it, and the
+first connection with the Pacific Coast, as has been shown, was made
+in 1869.
+
+[Illustration:
+Railroad Mileage, 1860-1910, in thousands of miles]
+
+Many of the circumstances accompanying this rapid expansion were novel
+and important. Beginning with a federal grant to the Illinois Central,
+for example, in the middle of the century, both the nation and the
+states assisted the roads by gifts of millions of acres of land. It
+was to the advantage of the companies to procure the grants on the
+best possible terms, and they exerted constant pressure upon
+congressmen whose votes and influence they desired. Frequently the
+agents of the roads were thoroughly unscrupulous, and such scandals as
+that connected with the Credit Mobilier were the result. More
+important still, the fact that the federal and state governments had
+aided the railroads so greatly gave them a strong justification for
+investigating and regulating the activities of the companies.
+
+Mechanical inventions and improvements had no small part in the
+development of the transportation system. The early tracks,
+constructed of wood beams on which were fastened iron strips, and
+sometimes described as barrel-hoops tacked to laths, were replaced by
+iron, and still later by heavy steel rails. By 1890 about eighty per
+cent. of the mileage was composed of steel. Heavy rails were
+accompanied by improved roadbeds, heavier equipment and greater speed.
+A simple improvement was the gradual adoption of a standard
+gauge--four feet eight and a half inches--which replaced the earlier
+lack of uniformity. The process was substantially completed by the
+middle eighties, when many thousands of miles in the South were
+standardized. On the Louisville and Nashville, for example, a force of
+8,763 men made the change on 1,806 miles of track in a single day. The
+inauguration of "standard" time also took place during the eighties.
+Hitherto there had been a wide variety of time standards and different
+roads even in the same city despatched their trains on different
+systems. In 1883 the country was divided into five vertical zones each
+approximately fifteen degrees or, in sun-time, an hour wide. Both the
+roads and the public then conformed to the standard time of the zone
+in which they were.
+
+[Illustration:
+Map of the United States showing railroads in 1870]
+
+Of greater importance was the consolidation of large numbers of small
+lines into the extensive systems which are now familiar. The first
+roads covered such short distances that numerous bothersome transfers
+of passengers, freight and baggage from the end of one line to the
+beginning of the next were necessary on every considerable journey. No
+fewer than five companies, for example, divided the three hundred
+miles between Albany and Buffalo, no one of them operating more than
+seventy-six miles. In 1853, these five with five others were
+consolidated into the New York Central Railroad. Sixteen years later,
+in 1869, the Central combined with the Hudson River, and soon
+afterwards procured substantial control of the Lake Shore and Michigan
+Southern, the Rock Island, and the Chicago and Northwestern. As the
+result of this process a single group of men directed the interests of
+a system of railroads from New York through Chicago to Omaha. The
+Pennsylvania Railroad began with a short line from Philadelphia to the
+Susquehanna River, picked up smaller roads here and there--eventually
+one hundred and thirty-eight of them, representing two hundred and
+fifty-six separate corporations--reached out through the Middle West
+to Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis, and in 1871 controlled over
+three thousand miles of track, with an annual income of over forty
+million dollars. In the eighties a railroad war in northern New
+England started the consolidation of the Boston and Maine system.
+
+The beneficial results of the growth of the transportation facilities
+of the nation were immediate and revolutionary. The fact that average
+freight rates were cut in halves between 1867 and 1890 helped make
+possible the economic readjustments after the Civil War to a degree
+that is not likely to be overestimated. Not only did railway
+construction supply work for large numbers of laborers and help bring
+about an ever greater westward migration, but it opened a market for
+the huge agricultural surplus of the Middle West. Without the market
+in the cities of the populous Atlantic Coast and Europe, the expansion
+of the West would have been impossible. Moreover, the railways brought
+coal, ore, cotton, wool and other raw materials to the Northeast, and
+thus enabled that section to develop its manufacturing interests.
+
+[Illustration:
+Map of the United States showing railroads in 1890]
+
+Despite the admittedly great benefits resulting from the railroad
+system, there was a rising tide of complaint on the part of the public
+in regard to some aspects of its construction and management. It was
+objected, for example, that many of the western roads especially were
+purely speculative undertakings. Lines were sometimes built into new
+territory where competition did not exist and where, consequently, the
+rates could be kept at a high point. The Chicago, Burlington and
+Quincy presented such a case in 1856. Profits were so great as to
+embarrass the company, since the payment of large dividends was sure
+to arouse the hostility of the farmers who paid the freight rates.
+"This, indeed," declared the biographer of one of the presidents of
+the road, "was the time of glad, confident morning, never again to
+occur in the history of railroad-building in the United States."
+Sometimes lines were driven into territory which was already
+sufficiently supplied with transportation facilities, in order to
+compel the company already on the ground to buy out the new road. If,
+as time went on, traffic enough for both roads did not appear, they
+had to be kept alive through the imposition of high rates; otherwise,
+one of them failed and the investors suffered a loss. The
+opportunities for profit, however, were so numerous that the amount of
+capital reported invested in railways increased by $3,200,000,000
+during the five years preceding 1885.
+
+A practice which was productive of much wrong-doing and which was
+suggestive of more dishonesty than could be proved, related to the
+letting of contracts for the construction of new lines. The directors
+of a road frequently formed part or all of the board of directors of a
+construction company. In their capacity as railroad directors they
+voted advantageous contracts to themselves in their other capacity,
+giving no opportunity to independent construction companies who might
+agree to build at a lower cost. As the cost of construction was part
+of the debt of the road, the directors were adding generously to their
+own wealth, while the company was being saddled with an increased
+burden. It cost only $58,000,000, for example, to build the Central
+Pacific, but a construction company was paid $120,000,000 for its
+services. When John Murray Forbes was investigating the Chicago,
+Burlington and Quincy he found that the president of the road was
+paying himself a salary as president of a construction company, out of
+the railroad's funds, without the supervision of the treasurer or any
+one else, and without any auditing of his accounts. Moreover, six of
+the twelve members of the board of directors were also members of the
+construction company. Such an attempt to "run with the hare and hunt
+with the hounds" was suggestive, to say the least, of great
+possibilities of profit to the directors and a constant invitation to
+unnecessary construction.
+
+Another grievance against the railways was the reckless, irresponsible
+and arrogant management under which some of them operated. An eminent
+expert testified before an investigating commission in 1885 that Jay
+Gould once sold $40,000,000 of Erie Railway stock and pocketed the
+proceeds himself. Most of the energy of the officers of some roads was
+expended in deceiving and cheating competitors. "Railroad
+financiering" became a "by-word for whatever is financially loose,
+corrupt and dishonest." If certain roads demonstrated by successful
+operation that honest methods were better in the long run, their
+probity received scant advertisement in comparison with the
+unscrupulous practices of their less respectable neighbors. It is to
+be remembered, also, that the growth of the railway system had been so
+rapid and so huge that it was impossible to meet the demand for
+trained administrators. Naturally, men possessed of little or no
+technical understanding of transportation problems could not provide
+highly responsible management.
+
+The dishonest manipulation of the issues and sales of railroad stocks
+is a practice that was not confined solely to the twenty-five years
+after the Civil War, but the numerous examples of it which occurred
+during that period aggravated the exasperation which has already been
+mentioned. Daniel Drew, the treasurer of the Erie Railway in 1866,
+furnished an excellent illustration of this type of activity. Drew had
+in his possession a large amount of Erie stock which had been secretly
+issued to him in return for a loan to the company. The stock in the
+market was selling near par and still rising. Drew instructed his
+agents to make contracts for the future delivery of stock at prices
+current at the time when the contracts were made. When the time came
+for fulfilling his contracts, Drew suddenly threw the secret stock on
+the market, drove general market prices on Erie stock down from
+ninety-five to fifty, bought at the low figure, and sold at the high
+price which was called for in the contracts made by his agents. The
+effect of such sharp dealing on investors, the railroad or the public
+seems not to have entered into the calculation. Indeed, the Erie and
+many another road was looked upon by its owners merely as a convenient
+piece of machinery for producing fortunes.
+
+Gould, Drew and other railroad men of their time were also expert in
+the practice of "stock-watering." This consists in expanding the
+nominal capitalization of an enterprise without an equivalent addition
+to the actual capital. The rates which the railway has to charge the
+public tend to increase by approximately whatever dividends are paid
+on the water.[1] Then, as later, when a road was prospering greatly
+it would sometimes declare a "stock dividend," that is, give its
+stockholders additional stock in proportion to what they already
+owned. The addition would frequently be water. Its purpose might be to
+cover up the great profits made by the company. If, on a million
+dollars' worth of stock, it was paying ten per cent. dividends, the
+public might demand lower freight and passenger rates; but if the
+stock were doubled and earnings remained stationary, then the
+dividends would appear as five per cent.--an amount to which there
+could be no objection. H.V. Poor, the railroad expert, declared before
+a commission of investigation in 1885 that the New York Central
+Railroad was carrying $48,000,000 of water, on which it had paid eight
+per cent. dividends for fifteen years. He also estimated that of the
+seven and a half billions of indebtedness which the roads of the
+country were carrying in 1883, two billions represented water. Others
+thought that the proportion of water was greater. In any case the
+unnecessary burden upon business to provide dividends for the watered
+stock was an item of some magnitude. The investor, however, looked
+upon stock-watering with other eyes. The building of a new road was a
+speculation; the profits might be large, to be sure, but there might
+in many cases be a loss. In order to tempt money into railroad
+enterprises, therefore, inducements in the form of generous stock
+bonuses were necessary.
+
+The rate wars of the seventies gave wide advertisement to another
+aspect of railroad history. The most famous of these contests had
+their origin in the grain-carrying trade from the Lakes to the
+sea-board. The entry of the Baltimore and Ohio and the Grand Trunk
+into Chicago in 1874, stimulated a four-cornered competition among
+these roads and the Pennsylvania and New York Central for the traffic
+between the upper Mississippi Valley and the coast. Rates on grain and
+other products were cut, and cut again; freight charges dropped to a
+figure which wiped out profits; yet it was impossible for any line to
+drop out of the competition until exhaustion forced all to do so. A
+railroad can not suspend business when profits disappear, for fixed
+expenses continue and the depreciation of the value of the property,
+especially of the stations, tracks and rolling stock, is extreme.
+Since the rate wars were clearly bringing ruin in their train, rate
+agreements and pooling arrangements were devised. The latter took
+several forms. Sometimes a group of competing roads agreed to divide
+the business among the competitors on the basis of an agreed-upon
+percentage. Another plan was to pool earnings at the close of a period
+and divide according to a prearranged ratio. Sometimes destructive
+competition was prevented by a division of the territory, each company
+being allowed a free hand in its own field. In general, pooling
+agreements were likely to break down, although a southern pool
+organized by Albert Fink on a very extensive scale lasted for many
+years and was thought to have had a vital influence in eliminating
+rate-wars. Their efficacy depended mainly on good faith, and good
+faith was a rarity among railroad officials in the seventies and
+eighties. In the eyes of the public, rate agreements and pools were
+vicious conspiracies which left the rights and well-being of the
+private shipper completely out of the calculation.
+
+Still another indictment of the railways resulted from their
+participation in politics. It was inevitable, of course, that the
+roads should be drawn into the field of legislation--the grants of
+public land, for example, helped bring about the result. It early
+seemed advantageous to attempt to influence state legislatures to pass
+favorable laws, and it seemed a necessity to bring pressure to bear in
+order to protect the roads from hostile acts. The methods used by the
+railway agents in their political activity naturally varied all the
+way from legitimate agitation to crude and subtle forms of bribery. An
+insidious method of influencing both law-making and litigation was the
+pass system. Under it the roads were accustomed to give free
+transportation to a long list of federal and state judges, legislators
+and politicians. For a judge to accept such favors from a corporation
+which might at any time be haled before his court, and for a
+legislator to receive a gift from a body that was constantly in need
+of legislative attention is now held to be improper in the extreme.
+But in those days a less sensitive public opinion felt hardly a qualm.
+That the practice was likely to arouse an unconscious bias in the
+minds of public officials is hardly debatable. The more crude forms of
+bribery, too, were not uncommon. It was testified before a committee
+of investigation that the Erie Railway Company in one year expended
+$700,000 as a corruption fund and for legal expenses, carrying the
+amount on the books in the "India-rubber account." The manipulation of
+the courts of New York by the Erie and the New York Central during the
+late sixties was nothing short of a scandal. Alliances between
+political rings and railroad officials for the purpose of caring for
+their mutual interests were so common that reformers questioned
+whether the American people could be said to possess self-government
+in actuality. Immediately after the Civil War, Charles Francis Adams,
+an acute student of transportation, declared that it was scarcely an
+exaggeration to say that the state legislatures were becoming a
+species of irregular boards of railroad direction. The evils of the
+alliance between the roads and politics were not, of course, due
+entirely to the former. The receiver of a pass shared with the giver
+the evil of the system. Many a legislator was corrupt; more shared in
+practices which were little removed from dishonorable. Adams, for
+example, gives an account of his experiences, as a director of the
+Union Pacific, in dealing with a United States senator in 1884. The
+congressman was ready to take excellent care of railroad corporations
+which retained him as counsel, but was a corrupt and ill-mannered
+bully toward the Union Pacific, which had not employed him.[2]
+
+The most constant grievance was discrimination--that the roads varied
+their rates for the benefit or detriment of especial types of freight,
+of individuals and of entire localities. Through business between
+competing points was carried at a low figure, while the roads recouped
+themselves by charging heavily in towns where competition was absent.
+Shippers complained that rates between St. Paul and Chicago, for
+example, where competition existed were hardly more than half the
+charges to places at a similar distance where a single road was in a
+position to demand what it pleased. Manufacturers in Rochester could
+send goods to New York City and reship them to Cincinnati, back
+through Rochester, for less than the rate direct to their destination.
+Yet the direct haul was seven hundred miles shorter than the indirect.
+Secret arrangements were commonly made with favored shippers by which
+they secured lower rates than their competitors. When it became
+evident that transportation cost entered into the price of
+substantially everything which the ordinary citizen consumed, and when
+it was considered that a slight rise in railroad rates might easily
+amount to a heavy tax on a shipper or an entire region, it was seen
+that uniformity of rates was a matter of the utmost concern.
+
+In brief, then, it was complained that the growth of the
+transportation system had placed enormous power in the hands of a
+small group of men, many of whom had indicated by their selfishness,
+arrogance and questionable practices that they ought not to be
+entrusted with so great a measure of authority.
+
+The best example of the American railroad president after the war was
+Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt began his career by
+ferrying passengers and freight between Staten Island and New York
+City. Later he turned his attention to shipping, in which he made a
+fortune, and planned the operation of steamships on a large scale.
+Becoming interested in railroading, he clearly perceived the
+importance of the western trade and the necessity of consolidation.
+Vanderbilt was a man of vision, a man who combined magnitude of plan
+with the vigorous grasp of the practical details necessary for the
+realization of his ambitions. He was buoyant, energetic, confident,
+ambitious, determined, despotic. Unhampered by modern conceptions of
+public duty, undeterred by the hostility of powerful opponents, with
+eyes fixed upon the combination and control of a great transportation
+system, Vanderbilt entered courageously upon bitter struggles for
+supremacy which involved the misuse of the courts, the control of the
+New York state legislature and a thousand charges of corrupt influence
+and bribery, but he welded railroads together, replaced wood and iron
+with steel, and constructed tracks and terminals. At his death in 1877
+he left a huge fortune and bequeathed to his successors a great,
+consolidated railroad enterprise, skillfully and successfully
+administered. The great weakness of Commodore Vanderbilt and his
+associates, and of those who later imitated his work was their
+fundamental conception of the railroad as a private venture. Success
+consisted in bigness, great profits, crushing or buying out
+competitors, and administering the business for the best good of the
+few owners, regardless of the interests of the region through which
+the railway passed. Vanderbilt and many of his contemporaries were men
+of business sagacity and foresight, but their ethical outlook was
+restricted and their sense of public responsibility not well
+developed.
+
+So considerable a list of grievances naturally bestirred the people to
+seek relief at the hands of their legislators. Two lines of action
+were followed. In Massachusetts, as early as 1869, a state commission
+was formed with purely advisory powers. Under the able leadership of
+Charles Francis Adams it attained great influence and worked
+effectively for the elimination of railroad abuses through conference
+and the weight of public opinion. In Illinois, on the other hand,
+reliance was placed upon compulsory action. The state constitution of
+1870 declared the railroads to be public highways and required the
+legislature to fix rates for the carriage of freight and passengers,
+and to pass laws to correct abuses connected with the railways and
+grain warehouses. In compliance with the constitution the state passed
+the necessary legislation and placed their execution in the hands of a
+commission with considerable power. Other western states followed the
+Illinois model.
+
+On the national scale the agitation for government action began with
+the minor parties. In 1872 the Labor Reformers demanded fair rates and
+no discrimination; in 1876 the Prohibitionists called for lower rates;
+in 1880 the Greenbackers stood for fair and uniform rates; four years
+later they urged laws which would put an end to pooling,
+stock-watering and discrimination, and in the same year the
+Republicans promised an act to regulate commerce if they were elected.
+The most effective force behind the demand for railroad regulation was
+the Patrons of Husbandry, better known as the "Grange." This society
+was founded by O.H. Kelley, a government clerk in Washington, in 1867.
+Its initial purpose was the organization of the agricultural classes
+for social and intellectual improvement, but later it engaged in the
+effort to correct transportation abuses and to arouse cooperation
+among the farmers in other ways. The movement grew astonishingly,
+especially in the Middle West, where its membership reached nearly
+759,000 in 1875.
+
+Transportation conditions in the West had not reached the relatively
+stable situation which characterized those of the East. In the West
+much new work was being done, with the attendant evils of construction
+companies and unnecessary and speculative undertakings. Much of the
+railroad stock was in the hands of eastern investors whom the western
+farmers pictured as living in idle ease on swollen incomes, careless
+of the high rates and unfair discriminations under which the farmer
+groaned. The constantly falling prices, which influenced the West in
+so many other ways, served to heighten the discontent with any abuse
+which increased the farmer's burden. Moreover, the western states had
+contributed huge amounts of land to help build the railways and they
+were not minded to give up the hold which their generosity had
+justified.
+
+Impelled, then, by such force as the Grange and similar organizations
+supplied, the western states proceeded to the adoption of laws whose
+purposes ordinarily included railroad rate-making by the legislature
+or by a commission, the doing away with such abuses as discrimination,
+and the prohibition of free passes. The railroads promptly opposed the
+laws and carried the battle to the courts. The so-called "Granger
+Cases" resulted. Three of these were representative of the general
+trend of the decisions.
+
+The famous case Munn _v._ Illinois, which was decided by the Supreme
+Court in 1876 was possibly the most vital case in the history of the
+regulation of public service corporations after the Civil War. The
+legislature of Illinois, in conformity with the state constitution of
+1870, had passed a law fixing maximum charges for the storage of grain
+in warehouses. The owners of a certain warehouse refused compliance
+with the law on the ground that it was contrary to the Constitution
+and hence null and void. They argued that when the state fixed rates
+it deprived the owners of the right to set higher charges and so, in
+effect, deprived them of their property, in defiance of that portion
+of the Fourteenth Amendment forbidding a state to "deprive any person
+of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."
+
+On examination of the history of the control of such enterprises, the
+Court found that it had been customary in England for many centuries
+and in this country from the beginning, to regulate rates on ferries,
+charges at inns, and similar public enterprises, and that it had never
+been thought that such action deprived persons of property without due
+process of law. In other words, the established common law, at the
+time of the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, did not look upon
+rate regulation as a deprivation of property. The Court, therefore,
+declared the Illinois warehouse law constitutional, and in doing so
+made the following statement:
+
+    Property does become clothed with a public interest when
+    used in a manner to make it of public consequence, and affect
+    the community at large. When, therefore, one devotes his
+    property to a use in which the public has an interest, he, in
+    effect, grants to the public an interest in that use, and must
+    submit to be controlled by the public for the common good,
+    to the extent of the interest he has thus created.
+
+While the Munn case was before the Court, the case Peik _v._ the
+Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company was raising a question which
+struck at the heart of the chief practical impediment in the way of
+state control of transportation. The central question in the
+litigation was whether the legislature of Wisconsin could lawfully
+regulate rates on railroads inside the state. Since the bulk of the
+traffic on most roads crosses state borders at one time or another in
+its transit, the regulation of rates within a state normally affects
+interstate commerce. But the regulation of interstate commerce is
+vested in Congress by the terms of the Constitution. The railroad was
+quick to take advantage of the division of power between the states
+and the nation. Indeed, when fighting state legislation, the roads
+earnestly emphasized the exclusive power of Congress over interstate
+commerce; but when fighting national regulation, they equally
+deprecated any interference with the reserved rights of the states.
+Acting in accordance with its established practice, the Court decided
+that the state was authorized to regulate rates within its borders,
+even though such regulation indirectly affected persons outside, until
+Congress passed legislation concerning interstate commerce. Obviously
+this decision allowed the states to work out their railroad problems
+unhampered, and constituted one of the chief victories for the
+Grangers.
+
+In 1886, however, the Court overturned some of the principles which
+had been established in the Munn and Peik cases. The new development
+came about in connection with the Wabash railroad. It appeared that
+the road had been carrying freight from Peoria, Illinois, to New York
+for smaller rates than were charged from Gilman to New York, despite
+the fact that Peoria was eighty-six miles farther away. Since Illinois
+law forbade a road to levy a greater charge for a short haul than for
+a long one, a suit was instituted and carried to the Supreme Court.
+The company held that the Illinois legislation affected interstate
+commerce and hence trenched upon the constitutional power of Congress.
+This time the Court upheld the road. It decided that the
+transportation of goods from Illinois to New York was commerce among
+the states, that such commerce was subject to regulation by Congress
+exclusively, and that the Illinois statute was void. It seemed, then,
+that state regulation was a broken reed on which nobody could safely
+lean, and attention thereupon turned to the federal government.
+
+Congress had already been discussing federal regulation intermittently
+for some years. The so-called "Windom Report" of 1874 had advised
+federal construction and improvement of transportation facilities in
+order to lower rates through competition, but no action had resulted.
+In 1878 the "Reagan bill" had proposed government regulation, and from
+that time the subject had been almost continuously before Congress. In
+1885 the Senate had appointed a select committee of five to
+investigate and report upon the regulation of freight and passenger
+transportation. The committee was headed by Shelby M. Cullom, who had
+been a member of the legislature of Illinois and later governor, in
+the years when the railroad and warehouse laws were being put into
+effect. It endeavored to discover all shades of opinion by visiting
+the leading commercial centers, and by consulting business men, state
+commissioners of railroads, Granger officials and others. After a
+somewhat thorough investigation, the committee expressed its
+conviction that no general question of governmental policy occupied so
+prominent a place in the attention of the public as that of
+controlling the growth and influence of corporations. The needed
+relief might be obtained, the committee thought, through any one of
+four methods: private ownership and management, with a greater or less
+degree of government oversight; government ownership and management;
+government ownership with private management under public regulations;
+partial state ownership and management in competition with private
+companies. The widespread opposition to state ownership of railroads,
+the commission thought, seemed to point to some form of government
+regulation and control of the existing situation.
+
+Impressed with the magnitude of the abuses involved, and the
+hopelessness of regulation through state laws, the committee presented
+a bill designed to bring about regulation on a national scale through
+a federal agency. The resulting law was the Interstate Commerce Act of
+February 4, 1887. It provided that all railway charges should be
+reasonable and just; forbade the roads to grant rebates, or to give
+preferences to any person, locality or class of freight, or to charge
+more for a short haul than for a long one except with the consent of
+the proper authorities; it made pooling unlawful; and it ordered the
+companies to post printed copies of their rates, which were not to be
+altered except after ten days' public notice. The act also created an
+Interstate Commerce Commission of five members to serve six-year
+terms, into whose hands the administration of the measure was placed.
+Persons who claimed that the railways were violating the provisions of
+the law could make complaint to the Commission, or bring suit in a
+United States Court. In order that the Commission might know the
+condition of the roads, it was given power to call upon the carriers
+for information, to demand annual reports from them, and to require
+the attendance of witnesses. If the railroads refused to carry out the
+orders of the Commission, they could be brought before a United States
+district court.
+
+In forbidding pools, the Act committed the railroads to the policy of
+enforced competition, a policy which was commonly accepted at the time
+as the best one for the public interest. Such experts, however, as
+Professor A.T. Hadley and Charles Francis Adams, Jr., raised important
+objections. They cited the rate wars to indicate the results of
+competition and declared that railroads ought to be monopolies. If two
+grocery stores are established where trade enough exists for only one,
+they asserted, the weaker competitor can close his doors and the
+public loss is not heavy; but in the case of the railways a weak
+competitor must continue business even at disastrously low rates
+because all his interest charges continue and the depreciation on his
+property is extreme. The construction of an unnecessary road and its
+subsequent operation at a loss, its failure or its abandonment,
+constitute a great drain upon the public. Such objectors contended
+that pooling combinations did away with many of the evils of
+cut-throat competition, and they accordingly urged that the carriers
+be permitted to make such arrangements, under whatever government
+regulation might be needed to prevent unreasonable charges. By such
+means the available business of a region might be fairly divided among
+the roads entering it, without resort to competitive rate-cutting and
+its consequent evils.
+
+The passage of the law was looked upon with much hostility on the part
+of the railroad interests. James J. Hill thought that the railroads
+might survive, although the country would be ruined, and he predicted
+that Congress would shortly be called in special session to repeal the
+act. More important than mere hostility was the constant opposition
+and evasion which characterized the attitude of the carriers toward
+the operation of the law. Discriminations were commonly practiced and
+hidden away in accounts under false or misleading headings. Rebates
+were given and received, a fact which was due in no small degree to
+the shippers themselves. A large shipper might demand advantageous
+rates and threaten to turn his trade over to a rival road. As the
+arrangement would be secret, and the likelihood of discovery small,
+the temptation to break the law was correspondingly great.
+
+The good results of the passage of the law were disappointingly
+slight. To be sure, the Commission was gaining experience,
+administrative precedents were being established and injustice was
+somewhat less common than before. The first chairman was Judge T.M.
+Cooley, a noted lawyer whose appointment was considered an admirable
+one. Most important of all, the principle of government regulation was
+established. Nevertheless, progress was so slow as to be almost
+invisible. The courts hampered the activities of the Commission. When
+cases arose involving its decisions, they allowed a retrial of the
+entire case from the beginning, permitting the introduction of facts
+which had been designedly withheld by the carriers in order to
+undermine the influence of the Commission, and sometimes they reversed
+its findings and so dulled the effectiveness of its labors. Eleven
+years after the Act was passed the Commission declared that abuses
+were so constant that the situation was intolerable; a prominent
+railroad president made the charge that "good faith had departed from
+the railway world"; and an important authority on railroad affairs
+declared that the Commission had become an impotent bureau of
+statistics.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+More study has been made of railroad regulation and the technical side
+of railroading than of the history of transportation and the effects
+of the roads on the political and economic life of the people. An
+excellent single volume is John Moody, _The Railroad Builders_ (1919),
+which devotes attention to the important personages of railroad
+history, discusses the growth of large systems and contains valuable
+maps; the best concise account of the history of the railways is W.Z.
+Ripley, _Railroads: Rates and Regulation_ (1912). Chap. I; W.Z.
+Ripley, _Railway Problems_ (rev. ed., 1913), is reliable; E.R. Johnson
+and T.W. Van Metre, _Principles of Railroad Transportation_ (1916),
+has some excellent chapters and several informing maps; C.F. Carter,
+_When Railroads were New_, (1909), is a popular account; C.F. Adams,
+_Chapters of Erie_ (1886), exposes early railroad practices; H.G.
+Pearson, _An American Railroad Builder_ (1911), presents the career
+of J.M. Forbes as a railroad president; A.T. Hadley, _Railroad
+Transportation_ (1886), is a classic, early account. Consult also E.R.
+Johnson, _American Railway Transportation_ (1903); Frank Parsons,
+_Heart of the Railroad Problem_ (1906); C.F. Adams, Jr., _Railroads:
+Their Origin and Problems_ (1878, rev. ed., 1893); "A Decade of
+Federal Railway Regulation," in _Atlantic Monthly_ (Apr., 1898). On
+the personal side, the following are valuable: E.P. Oberholtzer, _Jay
+Cooke, Financier of the Civil War_ (2 vols., 1907); J.G. Pyle, _Life
+of J.J. Hill_ (2 vols., 1917); _Memoirs of Henry Villard_ (1909). On
+the subject of land grants and regulation: L.H. Haney, _Congressional
+History of Railways_ (2 vols., 1910); S.J. Buck, _The Granger
+Movement_ (1913), and the same author's _The Agrarian Crusade_ (1920),
+are best on the relation of unrest among the agricultural classes to
+the railroad problem. The "Cullom Report" is in Senate Reports, 49th
+Congress, 1st session (Serial Number 2356), in 2 vols., and is a mine
+of information on early abuses. The most important Granger cases are
+in _United States Reports_, vol. 94, p. 113 (Munn _v._ Ill.), and vol.
+118, p. 557 (Wabash case).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] For example, an investor might contribute $100 in cash to an
+enterprise. The "paid in capital" or "actual" capital would, then be
+$100. He might receive in return $100 in stock and $100 in bonds, in
+which case the "nominal capital" would be $200; the additional $100
+would be "water." If the enterprise paid interest on the bonds, and
+dividends on the stock, it would, of course, be paying a return on the
+water. The practice of stock-watering did not end with the days of
+Gould and Drew.
+
+[2] In this connection Professor Farrand mentions the statement of a
+railroad magnate that "in Republican counties he was a Republican, and
+in Democratic counties he was a Democrat, but that everywhere he was
+for the railroad." _Development of the United States_, p. 290.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+EXTREME REPUBLICANISM
+
+That the election of 1888 differed from its predecessors since 1865 was
+due chiefly to the independence, courage and political insight of
+President Cleveland. Hitherto campaigns had been contested with as
+little reference to real issues as conditions rendered possible.
+Neither party had possessed leaders with sufficient understanding of
+the needs of the nation to force a genuine settlement of an important
+issue. That 1888 saw a clear contest made it a memorable year in recent
+politics.
+
+It will be remembered that the tariff act of 1883 had been satisfactory
+only to a minority in Congress, because it retained the high level of
+customs duties that had been established during the Civil War. The
+congressional election of 1882 had resulted in the choice of a
+Democratic House of Representatives and had offered another opportunity
+for downward revision. Early in 1884, therefore, William R. Morrison
+presented a bill making considerable additions to the free list and
+providing for a "horizontal" reduction of about twenty per cent. on all
+other duties as levied under the act of 1883. The measure was defeated
+by four votes. Opposed to it were substantially all the Republicans and
+forty-one Democrats, most of them from the industrial states of New
+York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The Democratic tariff plank of
+1884, as has been seen, was practically meaningless, but the election
+of Cleveland, and the choice of a Democratic House gave another
+opportunity for revision. Again Morrison attempted a reduction, and
+again he was defeated by Samuel J. Randall and the other protectionist
+Democrats.
+
+The entire matter, however, was about to receive a new and important
+development at the hands of President Cleveland and John G. Carlisle,
+who was the Speaker of the House during the four years from 1885 to
+1889. Carlisle was a Kentuckian, a man of grave bearing, unflagging
+industry and substantial attainments. His tariff principles were in
+accord with those of the President, and his position as Speaker enabled
+him to determine the make-up of the Committee on Ways and Means, which
+would frame any tariff legislation. Cleveland had expressed his belief
+in the desirability of tariff reduction in his messages to Congress of
+1885 and 1886, basing his recommendations on the same facts that had
+earlier actuated President Arthur in making similar suggestions. His
+recommendations, however, had received the same slight consideration
+that had been accorded those of his Republican predecessor. He
+therefore determined to challenge the attention of the country and of
+Congress by means of a novel expedient.
+
+Previous presidential messages had covered a wide variety of
+subjects--foreign relations, domestic affairs, and recommendations of
+all kinds. Departing from this custom, the President made up his mind
+to devote an entire message to tariff reform. His project was startling
+from the political point of view, for his party was far from being a
+unit in its attitude toward reduction, a presidential campaign was at
+hand, and the Independents, who had had a strong influence in bringing
+about his success in 1884, sent word to him that a reform message would
+imperil his chances of re-election. This type of argument had little
+weight with Cleveland, however, and his reply was brief: "Do you not
+think that the people of the United States are entitled to some
+instruction on this subject?"
+
+On December 6, 1887, therefore, he sent to Congress his famous message
+urging the downward revision of the tariff. The immediate occasion of
+his recommendation, he declared, was the surplus of income over
+expenditure, which was piling up in the treasury at a rapid rate and
+which was a constant invitation to reckless appropriations. The portion
+of the public debt which was payable had already been redeemed, so that
+whatever surplus was not expended would be stored in the vaults, thus
+reducing the amount of currency in circulation, and making likely a
+financial crisis. The simplest remedy for the situation seemed to
+Cleveland to lie in a reduction of the income, and the most desirable
+means of reduction seemed to be the downward revision of the tariff, a
+system of "unnecessary taxation" which he denominated "vicious,
+inequitable, and illogical." Disclaiming any wish to advocate free
+trade, he expressed the hope that Congress would turn its attention to
+the practical problem before it:
+
+    Our progress toward a wise conclusion will not be improved by
+    dwelling upon the theories of protection and free trade. This
+    savors too much of bandying epithets. It is a _condition_ which
+    confronts us, not a theory.
+
+The effect of the message was immediate. Men began at once to take
+sides as if everybody had been waiting for a leader to speak his mind;
+and the parties adopted the definite principles to which they adhered
+for many years afterwards. The Democrats very generally rallied to the
+support of their champion; gaps in the ranks were closed up; and
+doubtless the usual pressure was applied to obstinate members who were
+disinclined to follow the leader. The Republican attitude was well
+expressed in the phrase of one of the politicians: "It is free-trade,
+and we have 'em!" The most prominent Republican, James G. Blaine, was
+in Paris, but true to his instinctive recognition of a good political
+opportunity he gave an interview which was immediately cabled to
+America. In it Blaine maintained that tariff reduction would harm the
+entire country, and especially the South and the farmers, and urged the
+reduction of the surplus by the abolition of the tax on tobacco, which
+he termed the poor man's luxury. The "Paris Message" was generally
+looked upon as the Republican answer to Cleveland, and as pointing to
+Blaine as the inevitable candidate for the ensuing campaign. On one
+point, most men of both parties were agreed--that the President had
+displayed great courage. "The presidential chair," declared James
+Russell Lowell, "has a MAN in it, and this means that every word he
+_says_ is weighted with what he _is_."
+
+The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in the House of
+Representatives, Roger Q. Mills, promptly presented a bill which
+conformed to the principles for which the President had argued. The
+discussion of the Mills bill was long known as the "Great Tariff Debate
+of 1888." The House seethed with it for more than a month. Mills and
+Carlisle on one side and William McKinley and Thomas B. Reed on the
+other typified the new leadership and the new positions which the
+parties were taking. Senator Morrill's idea that the war tariff was a
+temporary one, President Arthur's advice that the tariff be revised,
+the recommendations of the Tariff Commission of 1882 that reductions
+were necessary,--all these were no longer heard. Instead, the
+Republicans upheld the protective system as the cause of the unexampled
+prosperity of the nation. It is not to be supposed that protectionist
+or reductionist converts were made by the endless discussion, but the
+initial prejudices of each side were undoubtedly deepened. Each telling
+blow on either side was applauded by the partisans of each particular
+speaker, so that "applause" fairly dots the dull pages of the
+Congressional Record. McKinley enlivened his colleagues by pulling from
+his desk and exhibiting a suit of clothes which he had purchased for
+$10.00, a figure, he asserted, which proved that the tariff did not
+raise prices beyond the reach of the laboring man. Mills tracked down
+the cost of the suit and the tariff on the materials composing it, and
+further entertained the House by an exhibit showing that it cost $4.98
+to manufacture the suit and that the remainder of the price which the
+laborer paid was due to the tariff. In the end, the Mills bill passed
+the House with but four Democrats voting against it. Randall was so ill
+that he was unable to be present when the final vote was taken, but a
+letter from him declaring his opposition to the bill was greeted with
+great applause on the Republican side. Randall's day was past, however,
+and leadership was passing to new men.
+
+Meanwhile the Republicans in the Senate, where they were in control,
+had prepared a tariff bill which was designed to give evidence of the
+sort of act which would be passed if they were successful in the
+campaign. Senator Allison and Senator Aldrich were influential in this
+connection. The passage of leadership in tariff matters to Senator
+Aldrich and men of his type was as significant as the transition in the
+House. Aldrich was from Rhode Island, an able man who had had
+experience in state affairs, had served in the federal House of
+Representatives and had been in the Senate since 1881. He had already
+laid the foundations of the great financial and industrial connections
+which gave him an intimate, personal interest in protection and which
+later made him an important figure in American industry and politics.
+Since neither party controlled both branches of Congress, it was
+impossible to pass either the Mills bill or the Senate measure; but the
+proposed legislation indicated what might be expected to result from
+the election. Each side had thoroughly committed itself on the tariff
+question.
+
+In the meanwhile, great interest attached to the question of leaders
+for the campaign. Opposition to Cleveland was not lacking. His efforts
+in behalf of civil service reform had not endeared him to the
+office-seekers, and the hostility of the Democrats in the Senate was
+shown by their feeble support of him. The West did not relish his
+opposition to silver coinage, while his vetoes of pension legislation
+were productive of some hostility, even in his own party. Nor was the
+personality of the President such as to allay ill-feeling. Indeed,
+Cleveland was in a position comparable to that of Hayes eight years
+before. He was the titular party leader, but the most prominent
+Democratic politicians were not in agreement with his principles, and
+any step taken by him was likely to arouse as much hostility in some
+Democratic quarters as among the Republicans. Opposition to his
+nomination focused upon David B. Hill, Governor of New York, a man who
+was looked upon as better disposed towards the claims of party workers
+for office. Other leaders like Bayard, Thurman and Carlisle aroused
+little enthusiasm, and the gradual drift of sentiment toward Cleveland
+became unmistakable. If the politicians did not accept him with joy,
+they at least accepted him; for he was master of the party for the
+moment at least, and his hold on a large body of the rank and file was
+not to be doubted. When the Democratic convention met in St. Louis in
+June, 1888, his nomination was made without the formality of a
+ballot.[1]
+
+The platform was devoted, for the most part, to the question of revenue
+reform, indorsing the President's tariff message and urging that the
+party be given control of Congress in order that Democratic principles
+might be put into effect. Resolutions were also adopted recommending
+the passage of the Mills bill, which was still under discussion when
+the convention met.
+
+Among the Republicans the choice of a candidate was a far more
+difficult matter. The probable choice of the party was Blaine, but his
+letter from Italy, where he was travelling early in the convention
+year, forbade the use of his name and opened the contest to a great
+number of less well-known leaders. Publicly it was stated that Blaine
+refused for reasons which were "entirely personal," but intimate
+friends knew that he would accept a nomination if it came without
+solicitation and as the result of a unanimous party call. Although the
+demand for him still continued, there were smaller "booms" for various
+favorite sons, and as his ill health continued he made known his
+irrevocable decision to withdraw. Except for Blaine, the most prominent
+contender was Senator Sherman, whose candidacy reached larger
+proportions than ever before. The Ohio delegation was unitedly in his
+favor and considerable numbers of southern delegates were expected to
+vote for him. On the other hand, his lack of personal magnetism was
+against him and his career had been connected with technical matters
+which did not make a popular appeal. On the first ballot in the
+nominating convention his lead was considerable, although not decisive,
+but no fewer than thirteen other leaders also received votes. One of
+these was Senator Benjamin Harrison of Indiana whom Blaine had
+suggested as an available man and whom the New York delegation
+considered a strong candidate because he was poor, a reputable senator,
+a distinguished volunteer officer in the war and a grandson of William
+H. Harrison of Tippecanoe fame. Further voting only emphasized the lack
+of unanimity until the eighth ballot, when the delegates suddenly
+turned to Harrison and nominated him.
+
+The platform was long and verbose. It devoted much attention to the
+protective tariff which, in imitation of Henry Clay, it entitled the
+"American system"; it advocated the reduction of internal revenue
+duties, if necessary to cut down the surplus; and it urged civil
+service reform, liberal pensions and laws to control oppressive
+corporations.
+
+Two factions of the Labor party, as well as the Prohibitionists,
+nominated candidates and urged programs to which no attention was paid,
+but which were later taken up by both the great parties, such as
+arbitration in labor disputes, an income tax, the popular election of
+senators, woman suffrage and the prohibition of the manufacture of
+alcoholic beverages.
+
+The campaign deserves attention because of the unusual elements that
+entered into it. A spectacular feature which, although not new, was
+developed on a large scale, was the formation of thousands of political
+clubs, which paraded evenings with flaming torches. In this type of
+organization the Republicans were more successful than the Democrats
+and thus steered many young men into the party at a time when they were
+looking forward to casting their first ballot. The most unwholesome
+feature was, as before, the methods used to finance the campaign. In
+this connection both parties were guilty, but the Republicans were able
+to tap a new source of supply. The campaign was in the hands of Matthew
+S. Quay, a Pennsylvania senator whose career as a public official left
+much to be desired. Quay's political methods were vividly described at
+a later time by his friend and admirer Thomas C. Platt, whose account
+lost none of its delightfulness in view of the fact that Platt
+obviously felt that he was complimenting his friend in telling the
+story. Believing in the "rights" of business men in politics, Platt
+declared, Quay was always able to raise any amount of money needed,
+although when funds were raised by business interests against him, he
+lifted the "fiery cross" and virtuously exposed his opponents before
+the people. Having calculated with skill the number of votes needed for
+victory, he found out where he could get them--"and then he got them."
+
+That Quay was able to tap a new source of supply was due to a
+combination of circumstances. It will be remembered that the Pendleton
+civil service act of 1883 had forbidden the assessment of
+office-holders in political campaigns, and had made it necessary to
+procure funds elsewhere. In the campaign of 1888, business men who
+believed that the success of Cleveland would hurt their interests, and
+manufacturers who profited directly by the protective tariff rallied to
+the defence of Harrison and contributed heavily to his campaign
+fund.[2]
+
+The use to which the funds thus contributed were put was revealed in a
+letter written apparently by W.W. Dudley, treasurer of the National
+Republican Committee, and sent to party leaders in Indiana. The latter
+were directed to find out who had the "Democratic boodle" and force
+them, presumably by competition, to pay big prices for their own men.
+The leaders were also instructed to "divide the floaters into blocks of
+five and put a trusted man with the necessary funds in charge of these
+five, and make him responsible that none get away, and that all vote
+our ticket."
+
+On the other hand the most wholesome feature of the campaign was its
+educational aspect. Hundreds of societies, tons of "literature,"
+thousands of stump speeches attacked and defended the tariff.
+Schoolboys glibly retailed the standard arguments on one side or the
+other. Attention was centered, as it had not been since the war, on an
+important issue.
+
+At the close of the campaign the Republicans played a trick which was
+reminiscent of the Morey letter of Garfield's day. A letter purporting
+to be from a Charles F. Murchison, a naturalized American of English
+birth, was sent to the British minister in Washington, Lord
+Sackville-West. Murchison requested the minister's opinion as to
+whether President Cleveland's hostile policy in a recent controversy
+with Canada had been adopted for campaign purposes and whether after
+election the President would be more friendly toward England. Lord
+Sackville indiscreetly replied that he believed President Cleveland
+would show a conciliatory spirit toward Great Britain. The
+correspondence was held back until shortly before the election and was
+then published in the newspapers and on hand bills. Republicans
+triumphantly declared that Cleveland was the "British candidate." The
+President was at first inclined to overlook the incident but eventually
+gave way to pressure and dismissed the minister, whereupon the English
+government refused to fill the vacancy until there was a change of
+administration.
+
+In the ensuing election the vote cast was unusually heavy; the
+protectionists felt that a supreme effort must be made to preserve the
+tariff system, and the Democrats, having experienced the joys of power,
+were determined not to loosen their grip on authority; the
+Prohibitionists increased their vote over that of 1884 by 100,000,
+while the Labor party cast 147,000, almost as many ballots as the
+Prohibitionists had numbered in the earlier year. Cleveland received
+somewhat over 100,000 more votes than Harrison, but his support was so
+placed that his electoral vote was sixty-five less than his opponent's.
+
+From the standpoint of political history the result was unfortunate.
+The tariff question had been sadly in need of a definite answer, the
+people had been educated upon it and had given a decision, but the
+electoral system placed in power the party pledged to the theories of
+the minority. Aside from the unusual effect of our machinery of
+election, many small elements entered into the Republican victory. Some
+of the Independents had become disaffected since 1884 and had returned
+to the Republican fold. Disgruntled office-seekers opposed a President
+who did not reward his workers. In New York, which was the decisive
+factor, Hill was a candidate for re-election as governor and was
+elected by a small majority, while Cleveland lost the state by 7,000
+votes. This gave color to charges that the enemies of the President had
+made a bargain with the Republicans by which the latter voted for Hill
+as governor and the Democrats for Harrison as President.
+
+Benjamin Harrison, veteran of the Civil War in which he had attained
+the rank of brevet brigadier-general, and senator from Indiana for a
+single term, was hardly a party leader when he was nominated for the
+presidency. Although he was by no means unknown, he had been
+sufficiently obscure to be unconnected with factional party quarrels,
+and his career and character were without blemish. At the time of his
+accession to the executive chair he was fifty-six years of age, a short
+man with bearded face, and with head set well down between his
+shoulders. Accounts of his characteristics, drawn by his party
+associates, did not differ in any essential detail. As a public
+speaker, the new President was a man of unusual charm--felicitous in
+his remarks, versatile, tactful. In a famous trip through the South and
+West in 1891, he made speech after speech at a wide variety of places
+and occasions, and created a genuine enthusiasm. His remarks were
+widely read and highly regarded. Nevertheless there seems to have been
+some truth in the remark of one of his contemporaries that he could
+charm ten thousand men in a public speech but meet them individually
+and send every one away his enemy. His manner, even to senators and
+representatives of his own party, was reserved to the point of
+frigidity. When he granted requests for patronage he was so ungracious
+as to anger the recipients of favor. Although his personal character
+and integrity were as unquestioned as those of Hayes, and although he
+was a man of cultured tastes, well-informed, thoughtful and
+conscientious, it must be admitted that he lacked robust leadership and
+breadth of vision, and that he did not understand the real purposes of
+the policies which his party associates were embarking upon, or if he
+did that he tamely acquiesced in them. The party leaders were soon
+engaged in initiating practices and passing legislation which would
+strengthen the organization with certain groups of interested persons.
+Harrison, conscientious but aloof, provided no compelling force to turn
+attention toward wider and deeper needs.
+
+Two appointments to the cabinet were important. Since Blaine was the
+foremost leader of the party and had done much to bring about the
+election of Harrison, it was well-nigh impossible for the latter to
+fail to offer him the position of Secretary of State. The appointment
+was so natural that popular opinion looked upon it as the only
+possibility, yet the natures of the two men were so diverse and their
+positions in the party so different that friction seemed likely to
+result. Even before the administration began it was freely predicted
+that Blaine would "dominate" the cabinet, a prophecy that might well
+create a feeling of restraint between the two. The invitation to John
+Wanamaker to become Postmaster-General was regarded as significant.
+Wanamaker was a wealthy merchant of Philadelphia, who had organized an
+advisory campaign committee of business men which contributed and
+expended large sums of money during the canvass. Critical reformers
+like the editor of _The Nation_ were not slow to connect Wanamaker's
+large contribution to the campaign fund with his elevation to the
+cabinet, and to suggest that the business interests were being brought
+into close relations with the administration. T.C. Platt, expectant of
+a return for his campaign assistance, in the form of a cabinet
+position, and in fact understanding that a pledge had been made that he
+would be appointed, found himself superseded by William Windom of
+Minnesota in the Treasury and became a bitter opponent of the
+President.[3]
+
+It was an odd turn of the fortune of politics that brought Benjamin
+Harrison face to face with the responsibility for furthering the cause
+of civil service reform--the same Harrison who, as a senator, had
+sneered at Cleveland for surrendering to difficulties. The party
+platform had urged the continuation of reform, which had been
+"auspiciously begun under the Republican administration" and had
+declared that the party promises would not be broken as Democratic
+pledges had been; and Harrison had announced his adherence to the party
+statement. In some respects real progress was made. Secretary of the
+Navy Tracy introduced reform methods in his department. The appointment
+of Theodore Roosevelt to the Civil Service Commission was productive of
+good results. The work of reform was defended forcefully and
+successfully; its opponents were challenged to substantiate their
+charges. When Senator Gorman declared that in an examination for letter
+carriers in Baltimore the candidates were asked to tell the most direct
+route from Baltimore to China, Roosevelt at once wrote asking him to
+state the time and place of the examination himself or to send somebody
+to look over the papers, copies of which were in the commission's
+office. The senator did not reply.
+
+The removal of office holders, however, proceeded with amazing
+rapidity. The First Assistant Postmaster-General was J.S. Clarkson, who
+had been vice-chairman of the Republican National Campaign Committee.
+The speed with which he cleared the service of Democrats earned him the
+title "headsman" and is indicated by the estimate that he removed one
+every three minutes for the first year. When the force of clerks was
+increased for the taking of the census of 1890, the superintendent of
+the census office found himself "waist deep in congressmen" trying to
+get places for friends. The Republican postmaster of New York who had
+been continued by Cleveland was not re-appointed. It was soon
+discovered, also, that the President was placing his own and his wife's
+relatives in office and giving positions to large numbers of newspaper
+editors, thus indirectly subsidizing the press. The Commissioner of
+Pensions, Corporal James Tanner, distributed pensions so freely as to
+arouse wide-spread comment and was soon relieved of his position.[4]
+
+Curtis, addressing the National Civil Service Reform League, flayed the
+President because he had despoiled the service. A Republican newspaper,
+he declared, had said that the administration whistled reform down the
+wind "as remorselessly as it would dismiss an objectionable tramp."
+Prominent members of the party went to the President in person to urge
+on him the redemption of the platform promises.
+
+Although progress was not general, nevertheless there were particular
+reforms that commended themselves. The offensive Clarkson gave way to
+hostile criticism and retired. During the last half of the
+administration, the civil service rules were amended so as to add a
+considerable number of employees to the classified service, especially
+in the post office department. Quay and Dudley found their methods
+condemned by public opinion and resigned their positions on the
+National Republican Committee.[5]
+
+Aside from his choice of subordinates, Harrison contributed little to
+the political history of his administration, for the leadership was
+seized by a small coterie of extreme Republicans in the House of
+Representatives, of whom the chief figure was the Speaker, Thomas B.
+Reed. The House which had been elected with Harrison contained 159
+Democrats and 166 Republicans. The Republican majority was too slight
+for safety, for the questions which were coming before Congress were
+such as to arouse party feeling to a high pitch. The Republicans felt
+themselves commissioned, by a successful election, to put the party
+program into force, but so powerful a minority could readily block any
+legislation under the existing parliamentary rules. Only Reed knew what
+expedient would be resorted to in the attempt to put through the party
+program, and not even he could guarantee that the adventure would be
+successful.
+
+Thomas B. Reed had long represented Maine in the House of
+Representatives. He was a man of huge bulk, bland in appearance,
+imperturbable in his serenity, caustic, concise and witty of tongue,
+rough, sharp, strong, droll. In the cut-and-thrust of parliamentary
+debate and manoeuvre, as well as in his knowledge of the intricacies of
+procedure, Reed was a past master. He worsted his adversaries by
+turning the laugh on them, and his stinging retorts, which swept the
+House "like grapeshot," made him a powerful factor in partisan
+contests.[6]
+
+The political and economic philosophy of Reed and his associates was
+unusually important, because it controlled their action during the time
+when they dominated the House and determined the character of the
+legislation passed during Harrison's time. When President Cleveland's
+tariff message welded the Democrats together to demand reduction, it
+likewise influenced the Republicans to adopt the other extreme. That is
+not to say, of course, that the Republican attitude was due solely to
+Cleveland, for the party was already committed to protectionism.
+Nevertheless, many of its prominent leaders, including its presidents,
+had urged revision. That recommendation was now no longer heard. Such
+men as McKinley in the House fairly apotheosized the protective system.
+The philosophy of the party leaders received full exposition in a
+volume edited by John D. Long, ex-governor of Massachusetts, and
+composed of articles written by sixteen of the most prominent
+Republicans. It had been published during the campaign. The attitude of
+the party toward its chief tenet was expressed in the phrase, "The
+Republican party enacted a protective tariff which made the United
+States the greatest manufacturing nation on earth"; and its conception
+of the Democratic party in the statement that the Democrats were mainly
+old slave-holders, liquor dealers and criminals in the great northern
+cities. In the field of national expenditure, also, the party reacted
+from Cleveland's frugality. Senator Dolph frankly urged the expenditure
+of the surplus revenue rather than the reduction of taxation. McKinley
+took the position that prices might be too low. "I do not prize the word
+cheap," he said; "cheap merchandise means cheap men and cheap men mean
+a cheap country." Harrison remarked that it was "no time to be weighing
+the claims of old soldiers with apothecary's scales." This philosophy
+was now to have its trial, but first the obstructive power of the
+minority must be curbed. Reed's plan for accomplishing this result
+appeared late in January, 1890.
+
+A contested election case was up for decision in the House. The roll
+was called and three less than a quorum of representatives answered.
+Scores of Democrats were present, but by merely refusing to answer to
+their names they could be officially absent. Unless the Republicans
+could provide a quorum--that is, more than half the total membership of
+the chamber of their own number, they were helpless. Clearly they
+could not muster their full force at all times and especially on
+questions upon which the party might be divided. On the other hand, the
+right to refuse to vote was a long-standing one and had been used over
+and over again by Republicans as well as Democrats. Reed, however, had
+made up his mind to cut the Gordian knot. Looking over the House he
+called the names of about forty Democrats, directed the clerk to make
+note of them and then declared a quorum present. The meaning of the act
+was not lost on the opposition. Pandemonium broke loose. Members rushed
+up the aisle as if to attack the Speaker, but Reed, huge, fearless and
+undisturbed, stood his ground. The Democrats hissed and jeered and
+denounced him with a wrath which was not mollified by the derisive
+laughter of the Republicans, who were surprised by the ruling, but
+rallied to their leader. Two days later, when a member moved to
+adjourn, the Speaker ruled the motion out of order and refused to
+entertain any appeal from his decision. He then firmly but quietly
+stated his belief that the will of the majority ought not to be
+nullified by a minority and that if parliamentary rules were used
+solely for purposes of delay, it was the duty of the Speaker to take
+"the proper course."
+
+The rules committee then presented a series of recommendations designed
+to expedite business. One of the proposed changes provided that the
+chair should entertain no dilatory motions. Such motions, whose purpose
+was merely to obstruct action, had long been common. The Republicans
+were said to have alternated motions to adjourn and to fix a day for
+adjournment no less than one hundred and twenty-eight times in an
+attempt to defeat the Kansas-Nebraska bill in 1854. The second rule
+allowed the speaker to count members who were present and not voting in
+determining whether a quorum was present. Other rules systematized
+procedure and facilitated the passage of legislation. The Democrats
+raged, denounced Reed as a "Czar," fought against the adoption of the
+rules--all to no avail. The majority had its way; the Speaker
+dominated legislation.[7]
+
+The efficacy of the Reed reforms in expediting legislation was quickly
+demonstrated. One of the earliest proposals to pass the House was Henry
+Cabot Lodge's federal election law, which was intended to insure
+federal control at polling places. Theoretically the measure was
+applicable to the North as well as to the South, but no doubt existed
+that it was really designed to prevent southern suppression of the
+negro vote. The Democrats rallied to the opposition and denounced
+Lodge's plan as a "force act." Despite objections it passed the House,
+but it languished in the Senate and finally was abandoned. The generous
+expenditure policy which the new philosophy called for brought forth
+certain increases which were noteworthy. The dependent pension bill
+which Cleveland had vetoed was passed, and a direct tax which had been
+levied on the states during the Civil War was refunded. Another extreme
+party measure was the Sherman silver act which became law on July 14,
+1890. By it, 4,500,000 ounces of silver were to be purchased each
+month. Its partisan character was indicated by the fact that no
+Republicans voted against it, and no Democrats for it. Since the amount
+of silver to be purchased was practically the total output of the
+country, it was evident that the western mine owners were receiving the
+same attention that was being accorded manufacturers who sought
+protective tariff laws. Indeed, western Republicans, who were opposed
+to the high tariff which eastern Republicans favored, were brought to
+support such legislation only by a bargain through which each side
+assisted the other in getting what it desired.[8]
+
+The tariff measure which was thus entwined with the silver bill was
+intended to carry out the pledge made in the party platform. Harrison
+had early called the attention of Congress to the need of a reduction
+of the surplus, had urged the passage of a new tariff law and the
+removal of the tobacco tax which, he declared, would take a burden from
+an "important agricultural product." The framing of the bill was in the
+hands of William McKinley, the chairman of the Committee on Ways and
+Means. McKinley was a thorough-going protectionist whose attitude on
+the question had already been expressed somewhat as follows: previous
+Democratic tariffs have brought the country to the brink of financial
+ruin; without the protective tariff English manufacturers would
+monopolize American markets; under the protective system the foreign
+manufacturer largely pays the tax through lessened profits; under
+protection the American laborer is the best paid, clothed and contented
+workingman in the world; since it is necessary, then, to preserve
+protection, the surplus should be reduced by the elimination of the
+internal revenues; and protective tariff duties should be raised and
+retained, not gradually lowered and done away with.
+
+The Committee early proceeded to hold public hearings at which
+testimony was taken, and to which manufacturers came from all over the
+country to make known what duties they thought they ought to have. The
+bill which was finally presented to the House proposed a level of
+duties which was so high that it has generally been considered the
+extreme of protection. McKinley himself justified the high rates only
+on the ground that without them the bill could not be passed. With the
+help of the Reed rules and the western Republicans the McKinley tariff
+reached the President and was signed by him on October 1, 1890. It went
+into effect at once.
+
+The more prominent features of the measure sprang from the tariff creed
+which had been advocated through the campaign. In order to conciliate
+the farmers, the protective principle was applied to agricultural
+products, and tariffs were laid on such articles as cereals, potatoes
+and flax. On the cheaper grades of wool and woolens and on carpet wools
+there was a slight rise over even the rates of 1883. On the higher
+grades of woolen, linen and clothing the increase was marked. The duty
+on raw sugar was removed and one-half cent per pound retained on the
+refined product, but domestic sugar producers were given a bounty of
+two cents a pound in order to protect them against the free importation
+of the raw material. As the sugar duty had been productive of large
+amounts of revenue, its remission reduced the surplus by about sixty to
+seventy millions of dollars. In order to encourage the manufacture of
+tin-plates, a considerable duty was imposed, which was to cease after
+1897 unless domestic production reached specified amounts. As the
+result of Blaine's urgency, a reciprocity feature was introduced. The
+usual plan had been to reduce duties on certain products in case
+concessions to American goods were given by the exporting countries,
+but in the McKinley act the Senate inserted a novel provision. Instead
+of being given power to lower duties in case reciprocal reductions were
+made, the President was authorized to impose duties on certain articles
+on the free list when the exporting nation levied "unjust or
+unreasonable" customs charges on American products. It was expected
+that this plan would be applied to Latin-American countries and would
+increase our exports to them in return for sugar, molasses, tea, coffee
+and hides. In general, the McKinley act was the climax of protection.
+Under the impetus of President Cleveland's reduction challenge, the
+Republican party had recoiled to the extreme.
+
+The high rates levied by the new tariff act were quickly reflected in
+retail prices and caused immediate and wide-spread discontent. The
+benefits which the farmer had been led to expect did not put in their
+appearance. Unhappily for McKinley and his associates the congressional
+elections occurred early in November, scarcely a month after the new
+law went into effect, and when the dissatisfaction was at its height.
+The result was a stinging defeat for the Republicans. The 159 Democrats
+were increased to 235, and the 166 Republicans dwindled to 88. Even in
+New England the Democrats gained eleven members, in New York eight, and
+in Iowa five. In Wisconsin not one Republican survived, and among the
+lost in Ohio was McKinley himself.
+
+Although the Republicans retained control of the Senate after 1890, the
+Democratic House brought an end for a time to the domination of Reed
+and the primacy of the lower chamber in the government. Such extreme
+legislation as had characterized the first half of the Harrison regime
+stopped abruptly. The role played in all this by Harrison himself seems
+to have been a minor one. Many of his recommendations lacked the solid
+character of those made by Hayes, Arthur and Cleveland, and he did not
+make his influence felt in connection with the silver legislation, of
+which he probably disapproved. It is significant that the one piece of
+legislation which had the most enduring results was not a partisan act.
+This act, the Sherman Anti-Trust law, demands attention in detail.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+In addition to the general and special works already mentioned, C.
+Hedges, _Benjamin Harrison: Speeches_ (1892), provides useful material;
+Cleveland's tariff message of Dec. 6, 1887 is in J.D. Richardson,
+_Messages and Papers of the Presidents_, VIII, 580-591.
+
+On the administration, and particularly the ascendancy of the House of
+Representatives under Reed, consult: De A.S. Alexander, _History and
+Procedure of the House of Representatives_ (1916); Mary P. Follett,
+_Speaker of the House of Representatives_ (1896); C.S. Olcott, _William
+McKinley_ (2 vols., 1916); J.G. Cannon in _Harper's Magazine_ (Mar.,
+1920); _Annual Cyclopaedia_, 1890, pp. 181-191; S.W. McCall, _Thomas B.
+Reed_ (1914), well written, although adding little to what was already
+known; H.D. Croly, _Marcus A. Hanna_ (1912); W.D. Foulke, _Fighting the
+Spoilsman_ (1919), on Harrison and the civil service; G.W. Curtis,
+_Orations and Addresses_ (2 vols., 1894), summarizes the
+administration's attitude toward civil service; T.B. Reed, _Reed's
+Rules, A Manual of General Parliamentary Law_ (1894), gives a concise
+summary of parliamentary conditions from Reed's standpoint; H.B.
+Fuller, _The Speakers of the House_ (1909), excellent on the personal
+side. The tariff is well treated in Stanwood, Taussig and Tarbell. On
+pensions consult W.H. Glasson, _History of Military Pension Legislation
+in the United States_ (1900), or better, the same author's _Federal
+Military Pensions in the United States_ (1918).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The vice-presidential candidate was Allan G. Thurman of Ohio,
+affectionately known as the "noble old Roman," one of whose titles to
+fame was the ownership of a large red bandanna handkerchief which he
+nourished on all occasions.
+
+[2] A party worker who realized the opportunity which this fact
+presented complained that Pennsylvania manufacturers who made fortunes
+under protection did not contribute to the Republican campaign fund,
+and remarked: "If I had my way about it I would put the manufacturers
+of Pennsylvania under the fire and fry all the fat out of them."
+
+[3] The remaining members of the cabinet were: Redfield Proctor, Vt.,
+Secretary of War; W.H.H. Miller, Ind., Attorney-General; B.F. Tracy,
+N.Y., Secretary of the Navy; J.W. Noble, Mo., Secretary of the
+Interior; J.M. Rusk, Wis., Secretary of Agriculture.
+
+[4] Corporal Tanner is commonly supposed to have been so anxious to
+have a hand in the generous distribution of government revenue among
+the old soldiers that he declared one morning as he seated himself at
+his desk, "God help the surplus." This is a mistake, although the
+Corporal seems to have been more ready than the President to act
+quickly and generously on claims.
+
+[5] The open character of the financial corruption of the campaign
+also gave impetus to the movement for the secret or Australian ballot
+which was first introduced in Louisville, Ky., on Feb. 28, 1888, and in
+Massachusetts on May 29, of the same year. Another reform movement was
+that which resulted in the destruction of the Louisiana lottery. Cf.
+A.K. McClure, _Recollections_, 173-183, and Peck, _Twenty Years_,
+215-220.
+
+[6] An incident which occurred when he was not speaker may serve to
+illustrate the manner in which he routed his opponents. Representative
+Springer, of Illinois, who had a reputation for loquacity and
+insincerity, once asked for unanimous consent to correct a statement
+which he had previously made in debate. "No correction needed," shouted
+Reed. "We didn't think it was so when you made it."
+
+[7] In his _Manual of General Parliamentary Law_, Reed declared that
+the House prior to 1890 was the most unwieldy parliamentary body in the
+world. Three resolute men, he asserted, could stop all public business.
+A few years later, when the Democrats were in power, they adopted the
+plans which Reed had so successfully used.
+
+[8] These acts were part of the general financial history of the
+period and in that connection demand fuller discussion at a later
+point. Cf. Chap. XV.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+INDUSTRY AND _LAISSEZ FAIRE_
+
+About the time the Sherman Anti-trust law was being passed, in 1890,
+Henry D. Lloyd was writing his book _Wealth Against Commonwealth_, in
+which occurred a memorable passage:
+
+    A small number of men are obtaining the power to forbid any but
+    themselves to supply the people with fire in nearly every form known
+    to modern life and industry, from matches to locomotives and
+    electricity. They control our hard coal and much of the soft, and
+    stoves, furnaces, and steam and hot-water heaters; the governors on
+    steam-boilers and the boilers; gas and gas-fixtures; natural gas and
+    gas-pipes; electric lighting, and all the appurtenances. You cannot
+    free yourself by changing from electricity to gas, or from the gas
+    of the city to the gas of the fields. If you fly from kerosene to
+    candles, you are still under the ban.
+
+To understand the dangers of the monopolies which Lloyd feared and
+denounced, it is necessary to know the principal features in the
+development of American industry from the close of the Civil War to
+1890.
+
+It will be remembered that the consolidation of small railroad lines
+into large systems was accompanied by such advantages to the companies
+and to the travelling public, as to demonstrate that combination was the
+inevitable order of the day. The similar integration of small industrial
+and commercial enterprises took place more slowly between 1870 and 1890,
+but the process was no less inevitable on that account. The census of
+1890 indicated that the production of manufactured articles had greatly
+increased since 1870; more capital was engaged; the product was more
+valuable; and more workmen were employed. Nevertheless the number of
+establishments which were in operation had shown a considerable decline
+in many industries. An army of 100,000 employees represented the
+expansion of the wage-earning force in the iron and steel works, for
+example, and $270,000,000 the increase in the value of their products;
+yet the number of establishments engaged showed a shrinkage of nearly
+fourteen per cent. The workers in the textile mills grew from 275,000 to
+512,000, and the capital outlay from $300,000,000 to $750,000,000, but
+the number of factories declined from 4,790 to 4,114. A cartoon in
+_Puck_ on January 26, 1881, remarked that "the telegraph companies have
+been consolidated, which in simple language means that Mr. Jay Gould
+controls every wire in the United States over which a telegram can be
+sent."
+
+Some of the reasons for the prevalent tendency toward combination were
+not hard to discover. In the first place, although industrial
+organizations fought one another with the utmost bitterness, it was in
+the nature of things for them to combine if threatened by any common
+foe. Moreover, production on a large scale made possible savings and
+improvements that were outside the grasp of more modest enterprises;
+buying and selling large quantities of goods commanded opportunities for
+profit; waste products could be made use of and costly scientific
+investigations conducted in order to discover improved methods, overcome
+difficulties and open new avenues of activity; large salaries and
+important positions could be offered to men of executive capacity; and
+expensive equipment could be purchased and utilized.[1] An effective
+force which tended to drive industries to combine was the cut-throat
+competition which prevailed. Herbert Croly in his stimulating book _The
+Promise of American Life_ vividly describes the bitter, warlike
+character of industrial competition after 1865. Competition was battle
+to the knife and tomahawk. The leaders were constantly seeking bigger
+operations, to which the bigger risks only added zest. A company might
+be making unbelievable profits one year and "skirting" bankruptcy the
+next. Exciting as all this was, however, the desire for adventure was
+not as powerful as the desire for profits, and cut-throat competition in
+industry led as naturally to combination, as rate-wars on the railroads
+led to pooling agreements.
+
+An important factor in the development of large corporations was the
+increasing use of the corporation form of industrial organization, as
+contrasted with the co-partnership plan. If a few men enter a
+copartnership, each of them must supply a considerable amount of
+capital; but if a corporation is formed and stock is sold, the par value
+of the shares may be placed at a low figure--$100 or less, for
+example--and thus a large number of persons may be able to establish an
+industry which is far beyond the financial resources of any individual
+or small group among them. The corporation, moreover, is relatively
+permanent, for the death of one stock-holder among many is unimportant
+as compared with that of one member of a co-partnership. In case of
+disaster to the enterprise the liability of the stock-holder in a
+corporation is limited to the amount which he has invested, while any
+member of a partnership may be legally held for all the debts of the
+organization. With such advantages in its favor the corporation plan
+largely dominated the organization of industry.
+
+The most famous example of combination before 1890 was the Standard Oil
+Company, which was the cause of more litigation, more study and more
+complaint than any other industrial organization that has ever existed
+in America. In 1865 Rockefeller & Andrews started an oil-refining
+business in Cleveland, Ohio. Samuel Andrews was a mechanical genius and
+he attended to the technical end of the industry; John D. Rockefeller
+had bargaining capacity, and to him fell the task of buying the crude
+oil, providing barrels and other materials and selling the product. The
+firm prospered. H.M. Flagler was taken into the company and a branch was
+established in New York. In 1870 these three with a few others organized
+the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, with a capitalization of a million
+dollars. It controlled not over ten percent. of the business of
+oil-refining in the United States at that time. But the oil business was
+so profitable that capital flowed into it and competition became keen.
+Rockefeller and some associates, therefore, devised the South
+Improvement Company of Pennsylvania, a combination of refiners, headed
+and controlled by the Standard, the purpose of which was to make
+advantageous arrangements With the railroads for transportation
+facilities. Early in 1872, a most remarkable contract was signed between
+the company and the important railroads of the oil country--the
+Pennsylvania, the New York Central and the Erie. By it the roads agreed
+to establish certain freight rates from the crude-oil producing region
+of western Pennsylvania to such refining and shipping centers as New
+York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburg and Cleveland. From these rates
+the South Improvement Company was to receive substantial rebates,
+amounting to forty or fifty per cent. on crude oil and twenty-five to
+forty-five per cent. on refined. On their side the railroads were
+promised the entire freight business of the Company, each to have an
+assured proportion of the traffic, with freedom from rate-cutting
+competition. All this was the common railroad practice of the times.
+
+But another portion of the contract was not so common. It provided that
+the roads should give the South Improvement Company rebates on all oil
+shipped by its competitors and furnish it with full way-bills of all
+such shipments each day. In other words, the Company was to know exactly
+the amount of the business of its competitors and with whom it was being
+done. The contract allowed the roads to make similar rebates with
+anybody offering an equal amount of traffic, but the likelihood of such
+an outcome was slender in the extreme. Armed with this powerful weapon,
+Rockefeller entered upon a campaign to eliminate competition by offering
+to buy out independent refiners either with cash or with Standard Oil
+stock, at his estimate of the value of their property. Those who
+objected to selling were shown that the alliance between the South
+Improvement Company and the railroads was so strong that they faced the
+alternative of giving way or being crushed. Of the twenty-six refineries
+in Cleveland, at least twenty-one yielded. The capacity of the Standard
+leaped from 1,500 to 10,000 barrels a day and it controlled a fifth of
+the refining business of the country. When these facts came to be known
+in the oil country, the bitter Oil War of 1872 began. Independent
+producers joined to fight for existence, and at length the railroads
+gave way and agreed to abandon the contract with the South Improvement
+Company, and the legislature of Pennsylvania annulled its charter,
+although in one way or another rebates continued and the absorption of
+rivals went on. In 1882 the entire combination--thirty-nine refiners,
+controlling ninety to ninety-five per cent. of the product--was
+organized as the Standard Oil Trust. All stock-holders in the combining
+companies surrendered their certificates and received in return receipts
+or "trust-certificates," which showed the amount of the owner's interest
+in the trust. In order to secure unity of purpose and management, the
+affairs of the combination were put into the hands of nine trustees,
+with Rockefeller at the head.
+
+The wonderful success of the Standard Oil Company, however, was not due
+solely to the alliance with the railroads, although this advantage came
+at a strategic time when it was fighting for supremacy. Its marketing
+department gave it an unenviable reputation, but achieved amazing
+success. The department was organized to cover the country, find out
+everything possible about competitors, and then kill them off by
+price-cutting or other means. The great resources of the Company enabled
+it to undersell rivals, going below cost if necessary, and thus wearing
+out opposition. Continuity of control, also, contributed to Standard
+success; the narrow limits of the area in which the crude oil was
+produced before 1890 rendered the problem of securing a monopoly
+somewhat easier; the organization was extremely efficient and the
+constituent companies were stimulated to a high degree of productivity
+by encouraging the spirit of emulation; men of ability were called to
+its high positions; the policy of gaining the mastery over the trade in
+petroleum and its products was kept definitely and persistently to the
+front; and then there was John D. Rockefeller.
+
+Rockefeller was what used to be called a "self-made" man. He began his
+business life in Cleveland as a clerk at an extremely modest salary.
+Capacity for details and for shrewd bargaining, patience, frugality,
+seriousness, secretiveness, caution, an instinctive sense for business
+openings, self-control--all these were characteristic both of the
+Cleveland clerk and the later oil-refiner. In the bigger field he
+developed a daring caution, a quick understanding of the value of new
+inventions, a capacity for organization, quick grasp of essentials and a
+resourcefulness that dominated the entire Standard combination. He built
+his own barrels, owned the pipe-lines, tank-cars, tank-wagons and
+warehouses. Consolidation, magnitude and financial returns were his
+aims, and in achieving these he and his associates were so successful as
+to make the Standard a leader in all branches of business, except the
+ethics of industry. Litigation has been the constant accompaniment of
+Standard progress.
+
+Following the Standard Oil Company, other combinations found the trust
+form of organization a convenient one. The cotton trust, the whiskey
+trust, and the sugar, cotton bagging, copper and salt trusts made the
+public familiar with the term. Moreover, popular suspicion and hostility
+became aroused, and the word "trust" began to acquire something of the
+unpleasant connotation which it later possessed.
+
+Although it was upon the Standard Oil Company that people turned when
+they denounced the trusts and feared or condemned their practices, the
+principles to which the Standard adhered when under the strain of
+competition were the practices which were followed by their
+contemporaries, both big and little. When the Diamond Match Company, for
+example, was before the Courts of Michigan in 1889, it appeared that the
+organization was built up for the purpose of controlling the manufacture
+and trade in matches in the United States and Canada. Its policy was to
+buy up and "remove" competition, so that it might monopolize the
+manufacture and sale of matches. It could then fix the price of its
+commodity at such a point that it could recoup itself for the expense of
+eliminating competitors and also make larger profits than were possible
+when its rivals were active.
+
+Still more dangerous was the combination of the hard coal operators. By
+1873, six corporations owned both the hard coal deposits of Pennsylvania
+and the railroads which made it possible to haul the coal out to the
+markets. In the same year and later these companies made agreements
+which determined the amounts of coal that they would mine, the price
+which they would charge, and the proportion of the whole output that
+each company would be allowed to handle. Independent operators--that is,
+operators not in the combination--found their existence precarious in
+the extreme, for their means of transportation was in the hands of the
+six coal-carrying railroads, who could raise rates almost at will and
+find reasons even for refusing service. The states were powerless to
+remedy the situation because their authority did not extend to
+interstate commerce, yet it was intolerable for a small group of
+interested parties to have power to fix the output of so necessary a
+commodity as coal, on no other basis than that provided by their own
+desires.
+
+Other abuses appeared which showed that industrial combinations were
+open to many of the complaints which, in connection with the railroads,
+had led to the Interstate Commerce Act. Industrial pools resembled
+railroad pools and were objected to for similar reasons. Bankers and
+others who organized combinations were given returns that seemed as
+extravagant as the prices paid to railroad construction companies; the
+issues of the stock of corporations were bought and sold by their own
+officers for speculative purposes; and stock-watering was as common as
+in railroading. The industrial combinations also had somewhat the same
+effect on politics that the railroads had. Lloyd declared that the
+Standard Oil Company had done everything with the Pennsylvania
+legislature except refine it.
+
+One of the most noted cases of corporation influence in politics was
+that of the election of Senator Henry B. Payne of Ohio. In 1886 the
+legislature of the state requested the United States Senate to
+investigate the election of Payne because of charges of Standard Oil
+influence. The debate over the case showed clearly the belief on the
+part of many that the Standard, which controlled "business, railroads,
+men and things" was also choosing United States senators. Senator Hoar
+raised the question whether the Standard was represented in the Senate
+and even in the Cabinet. In denying any connection with the Oil Company,
+Payne himself declared that no institution or association had been "to
+so large an expense in money" to accomplish his defeat when he was a
+candidate for election to the lower house. Popular suspicion seemed
+confirmed, therefore, that the Company was taking an active share in
+government. Whether the trust was for or against Payne made little
+difference.
+
+A complaint that brought the trust problem to the attention of many who
+were not interested in its other aspects was the treatment accorded
+independent producers. The rough-shod methods employed by the Standard
+Oil Company, the Diamond Match Company and the coal operators were
+concretely illustrated in many a city and town by such incidents as that
+of a Pennsylvania butcher mentioned by Lloyd. An agent of the great meat
+slaughtering firms ordered the butcher to cease slaughtering cattle, and
+when he refused the agent informed him that his business would be
+destroyed. He then found himself unable to buy any meat whatever from
+Chicago, the meat-packing center, and discovered that the railroad would
+not furnish cars to transport his supplies. Faced by such overwhelming
+force, the independent producer was generally compelled to give way to
+the demands of the big concerns or be driven to the wall. The
+helplessness of the individual under such conditions was strikingly
+expressed by Mr. Justice Harlan of the Supreme Court in a decision in a
+suit against the Standard Oil Company:
+
+    All who recall the condition of the country in 1890 will remember
+    that there was everywhere, among the people generally, a deep
+    feeling of unrest. The Nation had been rid of human slavery ...
+    but the conviction was universal that the country was in real danger
+    from another kind of slavery sought to be fastened on the American
+    people, namely, the slavery that would result from aggregations of
+    capital in the hands of a few ... controlling, for their own ...
+    advantage exclusively, the entire business of the country, including
+    the production and sale of the necessaries of life.
+
+Observers noted that fortunes which outstripped the possessions of
+princes were being amassed for the few by combinations which sometimes,
+if not frequently, resorted to illegal and unfair practices, and they
+compared these conditions with the labor unrest, the discontent and the
+poverty which was the lot of the many.
+
+In the meanwhile there had arisen a growing demand for action which
+would give relief from the conditions just described. As early as 1879
+the Hepburn committee appointed by the New York Assembly had
+investigated the railroads and had made public a mass of information
+concerning the relation of the transportation system to the industrial
+combinations. In 1880 Henry George had published _Progress and Poverty_
+in which he had contended that the entire burden of taxation should be
+laid upon land values, in order to overcome the advantage which the
+ownership of land gave to monopoly. In 1881 Henry D. Lloyd had fired
+his first volley, "The Story of a Great Monopoly," an attack on the
+Standard Oil Company which was published in the _Atlantic Monthly_ and
+which caused that number of the periodical to go through seven
+editions.[2] In 1888 Edward Bellamy's _Looking Backward_ had pictured
+a socialized Utopian state in which the luxuries as well as the
+necessities of life were produced for the common benefit of all the
+people. Societies had been formed for the propagation of Bellamy's
+ideas, and the parlor study of socialism had become popular.
+
+The platforms of the political parties had given evidence of a
+continuing unrest without presenting any definite proposals for relief.
+As far back as 1872 the Labor Reformers had condemned the "capitalists"
+for importing Chinese laborers; in the same year the Republicans and
+Democrats had opposed further grants of public land to corporations and
+monopolies--referring in the main to the railroads; in 1880 the
+Greenbackers and in 1884 the Anti-Monopolists, the Prohibitionists and
+the Democrats had denounced the corporations and called for government
+action to prevent or control them; and in 1888 the Union Labor party,
+the Prohibitionists and the Republicans had urged legislation for doing
+away with or regulating trusts and monopolies. By 1890 eight states had
+already passed anti-trust laws. Among unorganized forces, possibly the
+independent producers were as effective as any. Although usually
+overcome by the superior strength of their big opponents, they
+frequently conducted vigorous contests and sometimes carried the issue
+to the courts where damaging evidence was made public.
+
+The solution of the problem of trust control was not easy to discover.
+The amount of property involved was so great that forceful legislation
+would be fought to the last ditch; while legislation that was obviously
+weak, on the other hand, would not satisfy public opinion. Public
+officials were hopelessly divergent in their views. Cleveland had
+called attention to the evils of the trusts in his tariff message of
+1887, but had laid his emphasis on the need of reduced taxation rather
+than upon control of the great combinations. Blaine was opposed to
+federal action. Thomas B. Reed had characteristically ridiculed the
+idea that monopolies existed:
+
+    And yet, outside the Patent Office there are no monopolies in this
+    country, and there never can be. Ah, but what is that I see on the
+    far horizon's edge, with tongue of lambent flame and eye of forked
+    fire, serpent-headed and griffin-clawed?
+
+Surely it must be the great new chimera "Trust." Quick, cries every
+masked member of the Ways and Means. Quick, let us lower the tariff.
+Let us call in the British. Let them save our devastated homes.
+
+More serious was the almost universal lack of knowledge of the elements
+involved in the situation. Industrial leaders were unenlightened and
+wrapped up in the attempt to outdo rivals who were equally
+unenlightened and absorbed; the nation needed instruction and
+leadership, and neither was to be found. Instead, the poorer classes
+became more and more hostile to big business interests; the capitalist
+class set itself stolidly to the preservation of its interests. The one
+saw only the abuses, the other only the benefits of combinations.
+Thoughtful men felt that industrialism was afflicted with a malady
+which would kill the nation unless a remedy were found.
+
+The legal and constitutional position of the trusts was almost
+impregnable. Ever since the decision of the Supreme Court in the
+Dartmouth College case, handed down in 1819, franchises and charters
+granted by states to corporations had been regarded as contracts which
+could not be altered by subsequent legislation. Moreover, the Court had
+so interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment, as has been seen, that the
+states had found great difficulty in framing regulatory legislation
+that would pass muster before the judiciary.[3] It was doubtful
+whether federal attempts at regulation would be more fortunate. More
+fundamental still, for public opinion underlies even constitutional
+interpretation, American industrial and commercial expansion had run
+ahead of our conception of the possible and proper functions of
+government. Government as the protector of property was an ancient
+concept and commonly held in the United States; government as the
+guardian of the individual against the powerful holder of a great deal
+of property was a new idea and not generally looked upon with favor.
+
+It has already been seen that the prevailing economic theory, _laissez
+faire_, was diametrically opposed to government regulation of the
+economic activities of the individual. According to this view,
+unrestricted industrial liberty would result in adjustment by business
+itself on honorable lines. Men whose integrity was such that they were
+in control of great enterprises, asserted an attorney for the Standard
+Oil Company, would be the first to realize that a fair policy toward
+competitors and the public was the most successful policy. Combination
+was declared to be inevitable in modern life and reductions in the
+price of many commodities were pointed to as a justification for
+leaving the trusts unhampered.
+
+Public opinion, however, was reaching the point where it was prepared
+to brush aside theoretical difficulties. President Harrison, Senator
+Sherman and others urged action. Large numbers of anti-monopoly bills
+were presented in Congress. The indifference of some members and the
+opposition of others was somewhat neutralized by the fiery zeal of such
+men as Senator Jones of Arkansas, who declared that the fortunes made
+by the Standard Oil Company did not represent a single dollar of honest
+toil or one trace of benefit to mankind. "The sugar trust," declared
+the senator, "has its 'long, felonious fingers' at this moment in every
+man's pocket in the United States, deftly extracting with the same
+audacity the pennies from the pockets of the poor and the dollars from
+the pockets of the rich."
+
+After much study of the mass of suggested legislation, Congress relied
+upon its constitutional power to regulate commerce among the several
+states and passed the Sherman Anti-trust Act, which received President
+Harrison's signature on July 2, 1890. Its most significant portions are
+the following:
+
+    Sec. 1. Every contract, combination in the form of trust or
+    otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among
+    the several States, or with foreign nations, is ... illegal.
+
+    Sec. 2. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize,
+    or combine or conspire with any other such person ... to monopolize
+    any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with
+    foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of misdemeanor.
+
+The purpose of the framers of the Act seems clearly to have been to
+draw up a general measure whose terms should be those usual in the
+English common law and then rest on the assurance that the courts would
+interpret its meaning in the light of former practice. For some
+centuries restraint of trade had been considered illegal in England,
+but no contract was held to be contrary to law if it provided only a
+_reasonable_ restraint--that is, if the restraint was merely minor and
+subsidiary. The Sherman act was a Senate measure, was presented from
+the Judiciary Committee and was passed precisely as drawn up by it. In
+speaking from the Committee, both Edmunds and Hoar took the attitude
+which the latter expressed as follows: "The great thing that this bill
+does ... is to extend the common-law principles, which protected fair
+competition ... in England, to international and interstate commerce in
+the United States." Just how far the members of Congress who were not
+on the Judiciary Committee of the Senate shared in this view or really
+understood the bill can not be said. Indeed, many members of both
+chambers absented themselves when the bill came to a vote.[4]
+
+For a long time the Sherman Act like the Interstate Commerce Act was
+singularly ineffective and futile. Trusts were nominally dissolved, but
+the separate parts were conducted under a common and uniform policy by
+the same board of managers. The Standard Oil Company changed its form
+by selecting the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey as a "holding
+corporation." Stock of the members of the combination was exchanged for
+stock in the New Jersey organization, leaving control in the same hands
+as before. The "same business was carried on in the same way but 'under
+a new sign.'" The wide variety of conditions tolerated under the
+corporation laws of the several states made confusion worse confounded.
+In its early attempts to convict corporations of violation of the law,
+the government was uniformly defeated.
+
+In 1893 came the climax of futility. The American Sugar Refining
+Company had purchased refineries in Philadelphia which enabled it to
+control, with its other plants, ninety-eight per cent. of the refining
+business in the country. The government asked the courts to cancel the
+purchase on the ground that it was contrary to the Sherman law, and to
+order the return of the properties to their former owners. The Supreme
+Court declared that the mere purchase of sugar refineries was not an
+act of interstate commerce and that it could not be said to restrain
+such trade, and it refused to grant the request of the government.
+Unhappily the prosecuting officers of the Attorney-General's office had
+drawn up their case badly, making their complaint the purchase, not the
+resulting restraint. No direct evidence was presented to show that
+interstate commerce in sugar and the control of the sugar business and
+of prices were the chief objects of the combination. To the public it
+seemed that the corporations were impregnable, for even the United
+States government could not control them.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The early history of anti-trust agitation centers about Henry D. Lloyd.
+His earliest article, "The Story of a Great Monopoly," is in _The
+Atlantic Monthly_ (Mar., 1881); his classic account of trust abuses is
+_Wealth against Commonwealth_ (1894); consult also C.A. Lloyd, _Henry
+D. Lloyd_ (2 vols., 1912). Early and valuable articles in periodicals
+are in _Political Science Quarterly_, 1888, pp. 78-98; 1889, pp.
+296-319; W.Z. Ripley, _Trusts, Pools, and Corporations_ (rev. ed.,
+1916), is useful; B.J. Hendrick, _Age of Big Business_ (1919), is
+interesting and contains a bibliography. Ida M. Tarbell, _History of
+the Standard Oil Company_ (2 vols., 1904), is carefully done and a
+pioneer work. Other valuable accounts are: S.C.T. Dodd, _Trusts_
+(1900), by a former Standard Oil attorney; Eliot Jones, _The Anthracite
+Coal Combination in the United States_ (1914); J.W. Jenks, _Trust
+Problem_ (1900), contains a summary of the economies of large scale
+production; J.W. Jenks and W.E. Clark, _The Trust Problem_ (4th ed.,
+1917), is scholarly and complete; J.D. Rockefeller, _Random
+Reminiscences of Men and Events_ (1916), is a brief defence of the
+Standard Oil Company; W.H. Taft, _Anti-Trust Act and the Supreme Court_
+(1914), summarizes a few important decisions on the Sherman law. Edward
+Bellamy, _Looking Backward_ (1888), describes an economic Utopia. Early
+proposed anti-trust laws, together with the Congressional debates on
+the subject are in _Senate Documents_, 57th Congress, 2nd session, vol.
+14, No. 147 (Serial Number 4428). No complete historical study has yet
+been made of the effects of industrial development, immediately after
+the Civil War, on politics and the structure of American society.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Charles M. Schwab mentions an unusual example. Under the direction
+of Andrew Carnegie, the wealthy steel magnate, he had a new mill
+erected, which seemed likely to meet all the demands which would be
+placed upon it. But in the process of building it Schwab had seen a
+single way in which it could be improved. Carnegie at once gave orders
+to have the mill taken down before being used at all, and rebuilt on
+the improved plan.
+
+[2] It was not until 1894 that Lloyd published _Wealth Against
+Commonwealth_, but his pen had been busy constantly between 1881 and
+1894.
+
+[3] Cf. above, pp. 89-93, on Fourteenth Amendment.
+
+[4] The authorship of the Sherman law has often been a source of
+controversy. Senator John Sherman, as well as other members, introduced
+anti-trust bills in the Senate in 1888. Senator Sherman's proposal was
+later referred to the Judiciary Committee, of which he was not a
+member. The Committee thoroughly revised it. Senator Hoar, who was on
+the Committee, thought he remembered having written it word for word as
+it was adopted. Recent investigation seems to prove that the senator's
+recollection was faulty and that Edmunds wrote most of it, while Hoar,
+Ingalls and George wrote a section each and Evarts part of a sentence.
+If this is the fact, it seems most nearly accurate to say that Sherman
+started the enterprise and that almost every member of the Judiciary
+committee, especially Edmunds, shared in its completion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+DEMOCRATIC DEMORALIZATION
+
+In view of the fact that Harrison had been successful in 1888 and that
+Cleveland had been the most able Democratic leader since the Civil War,
+it seemed natural that their parties should renominate them in 1892.
+Yet the men at the oars in the Republican organization were far from
+enthusiastic over their leader. It is probable that Harrison did not
+like the role of dispenser of patronage and that he indicated the fact
+in dealing with his party associates; at any rate, he estranged such
+powerful leaders as Platt, Quay and Reed by his neglect of them in
+disposing of appointments. The reformers were no better satisfied; much
+had been expected of him because his party had taken so definite a
+stand in 1888, and when his choice of subordinates failed to meet
+expectations, the scorn of the Independents found forceful vent. Among
+the rank and file of his party, Harrison had aroused respect but no
+great enthusiasm.
+
+The friends of Blaine were still numerous and active, and they wished
+to see their favorite in the executive chair. Perhaps Blaine felt that
+there would be some impropriety in his becoming an active candidate
+against his chief, while remaining at his post as Secretary of State;
+at any rate he notified the chairman of the National Republican
+Committee, early in 1892, that he was not a candidate for the
+nomination. The demand for him, nevertheless, continued and relations
+between him and Harrison seem to have become strained. Senator Cullom,
+writing nearly twenty years afterward, related a conversation which he
+had had with Harrison at the time. In substance, according to the
+senator, the President declared that he had been doing the work of the
+Department of State himself for a year or more, and that Blaine had
+given out reports of what was being done and had taken the credit
+himself. Cullom's recollection seems to have been accurate, at least as
+far as relations between the two men were concerned, for three days
+before the meeting of the Republican nominating convention Blaine sent
+a curt note to the President resigning his office without giving any
+reason, and asking that his withdrawal take effect immediately. The
+President's reply accepting the resignation was equally cool and
+uninforming. If Blaine expected to take any steps to gain the
+nomination, the available time was far too short. That the act would be
+interpreted as hostile to the interests of Harrison, however, admitted
+of no doubt, and it therefore seems probable that Blaine had changed
+his mind at a late day and really hoped that the party might choose
+him.[1]
+
+Despite Blaine's apparent change of purpose, it seemed necessary to
+renominate Harrison in order to avoid the appearance of discrediting
+his administration, and on the first ballot Harrison received 535 votes
+to Blaine's 183 and was nominated. The only approach to excitement was
+over the currency plank in the platform. Western delegates demanded the
+free coinage of silver, which the East opposed. The plank adopted
+declared that
+
+    The Republican party demands the use of both gold and silver as
+    standard money, with such restrictions and under such provisions,
+    to be determined by legislation, as will secure the maintenance of
+    the parity of values of the two metals.
+
+It was a meaningless compromise, but it seems to have satisfied both
+sides.
+
+Cleveland, during the Harrison administration, had been an object of
+much interest and not a little speculation. After seeing President
+Harrison safely installed in office, he went to New York city where he
+engaged in the practice of law. He himself thought that he was retiring
+permanently and not a few enemies were quite willing that this should
+be the case. The eminent Democratic editor, Henry Watterson, remarked
+that Cleveland in New York was like a stone thrown into a river, "There
+is a 'plunk,' a splash, and then silence.". He was constantly invited,
+nevertheless, to address public assemblies, which provided ample
+opportunity for him to express his thoughts to the country. Moreover,
+the McKinley Act of 1890 and the political reversal which followed
+brought renewed attention to the tariff message of 1887 and to its
+author. In February, 1891, Cleveland was asked to address a meeting of
+New York business men which had been called by the Reform Club to
+express opposition to the free coinage of silver. The question of the
+increased use of silver as a circulating medium, as has been seen, was
+a controverted one; neither party was prepared to take a definite
+stand, and, indeed, division of opinion had taken place on sectional
+rather than partisan lines. While the subject was in this unsettled
+condition Cleveland received his invitation to the Reform Club, and was
+urged by some of his advisors not to endanger his chances of
+renomination by taking sides on the issue. The counsel had no more
+effect than similar advice had produced in 1887 when the tariff was in
+the same unsettled condition. Although unable to attend, Cleveland
+wrote a letter in which he characterized the experiment of free coinage
+as "dangerous and reckless." Whether right or wrong, he was definite;
+people who could not understand the intricacies of currency standards
+and the arguments of the experts understood exactly what Cleveland
+meant. Little doubt now existed but that the name of the ex-president
+would be a powerful one before the nominating convention, for he would
+have the populous East with him on the currency issue--unless David B.
+Hill should upset expectations.
+
+Hill was an example of the shrewd politician. Like Platt, whom he
+resembled in many ways, he was absorbed in the machinery and
+organization of politics, rather than in issues and policies. Beginning
+in 1870, when he was but twenty-seven years of age, he had held public
+office almost continuously. In the state assembly, as Mayor of Elmira,
+as Lieutenant-Governor with Cleveland and later as Governor, he
+developed an unrivalled knowledge of New York as a political arena. In
+1892 he was at the height of his power and the presidency seemed to be
+within his grasp. The methods which he used were typical of the
+man--the manipulation of the machinery of nomination.
+
+The national Democratic nominating convention was called for June 21,
+but the New York state Democratic committee announced that the state
+convention for the choice of delegates would meet on February 22. So
+early a meeting, four months before the national convention, was
+unprecedented, and at once it became clear that a purpose lay behind
+the call. It was to procure the election of members to the state
+convention who would vote for Hill delegates to the nominating
+convention, before Cleveland's supporters could organize in opposition.
+Furthermore, it was expected that the action of New York would
+influence other states where sentiment for Cleveland was not strong.
+Hill's plan worked out as he had expected--at least in so far as the
+state convention was concerned--for delegates pledged to him were
+chosen. Cleveland's supporters, however, denounced the "snap
+convention" and a factional quarrel arose between the "snappers" and
+the "anti-snappers"; outside of New York it was so obvious that the
+snap convention was a mere political trick that the Hill cause was
+scarcely benefited by it. Delegates were chosen in other parts of the
+country who desired the nomination of Cleveland.
+
+The convention met in Chicago on June 21 and proceeded at once to adopt
+a platform of principles. The silver plank was hardly distinguishable
+from that of the Republicans, except that it was enshrouded with a
+trifle more of ambiguity. The adoption of a tariff plank elicited
+considerable difference of opinion, but the final result was an extreme
+statement of Democratic belief. Instead of adopting the cautious
+position taken in 1884, the convention declared that the constitutional
+power of the federal government was limited to the collection of tariff
+duties for purposes of revenue only, and denounced the McKinley act as
+the "culminating atrocity of class legislation."
+
+Although it was evident when the convention met, that the chances of
+Hill for the nomination were slight indeed, the battle was far from
+over. Hill was a "straight" party man, a fact which he reiterated again
+and again in his famous remark, "I am a Democrat." Cleveland was not
+strictly regular, a fact which Hill apparently intended to emphasize by
+constant reference to his own beliefs. The oratorical champion of the
+Hill delegation was Bourke Cockran, an able and appealing stump
+speaker. For two hours he urged that Cleveland could not carry the
+pivotal state, New York, and that it was folly to attempt to elect a
+man who was so handicapped. Eloquence, however, was of no avail. The
+first ballot showed that the Hill strength was practically confined to
+New York, and Cleveland was easily the party choice. For the
+vice-presidency Adlai E. Stevenson, a partisan of the old school, was
+chosen.
+
+Among the smaller parties there appeared for the first time the
+"People's Party," later and better known as the "Populists." Their
+nominee was James B. Weaver, who had led the Greenbackers in 1880.
+Their platform emphasized the economic burdens under which the poorer
+classes were laboring and listed a series of extremely definite
+demands.
+
+The campaign was a quiet one as both Cleveland and Harrison had been
+tried out before. So unenthusiastic were the usual political leaders
+that Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll declared that each party would like
+to beat the other without electing its own candidates. Although the
+financial issue was kept in the background, the tariff was fought out
+again somewhat as it had been in 1888. The New York _Sun_ shed some
+asperity over the contest by calling the friends of Cleveland "the
+adorers of fat witted mediocrity," and the nominee himself as the
+"perpetual candidate" and the "stuffed prophet"; and then added a ray
+of humor by advocating the election of Cleveland. The adoption of the
+Australian ballot, before the election, in thirty-four states and
+territories constituted an important reform; thereafter it was
+impossible for "blocks of five" to march to the polls and deposit their
+ballots within the sight of the purchaser. The Homestead strike near
+Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, somewhat aided the Democrats. The Carnegie
+Steel Company, having reduced wages, precipitated a strike which was
+settled only through the use of the state militia. As the steel
+industry was highly protected by the tariff, it appeared that the wages
+of the laboring man were not so happily affected as Republican orators
+had been asserting.[2]
+
+The result of the election was astonishing. Cleveland carried not
+merely the South but Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Indiana,
+Illinois, Wisconsin and California, while five of Michigan's fourteen
+electoral votes and one of Ohio's twenty-three went to him. In the
+last-named state, which had never gone against the Republicans, their
+vote exceeded that of the Democrats by only 1,072. For the first time
+since Buchanan's day, both Senate and House were to be Democratic. More
+surprising and more significant for the future, was the strength of the
+People's Party. Over a million ballots, twenty-two electoral votes, two
+senators and eleven representatives were included among their trophies.
+It was an important fact, moreover, that twenty-nine out of every
+thirty votes cast for the People's Party were cast west of Pennsylvania
+and south of Maryland. Something apparently was happening, in which the
+East was not a sharer. The politician, particularly in the East, was
+quite content to dismiss the Populists as "born-tired theorists,"
+"quacks," "a clamoring brood of political rainmakers," and "stump
+electricians," but the student of politics and history must appraise
+the movement less provincially and with more information.
+
+It was in the nature of things that the Populist movement should come
+out of the West. From the days of Clay and Jackson the westerner had
+been characterized by his self-confidence, his assertiveness and his
+energy. He had possessed unlimited confidence in ordinary humanity,
+been less inclined to heed authority and more ready to disregard
+precedents and experience. He had expressed his ideals concretely, and
+with vigor and assurance. He had broken an empire to the plow, suffered
+severely from the buffetings of nature and had gradually worked out his
+list of grievances. One or another of his complaints had been presented
+before 1892 in the platforms of uninfluential third parties, but not
+until that year did the dissenting movement reach large proportions.
+
+It has already been seen that the people of the West were in revolt
+against the management of the railroads. They saw roads going bankrupt,
+to be sure, but the owners were making fortunes; they knew that lawyers
+were being corrupted with free passes and the state legislatures
+manipulated by lobbyists; and they believed that rates were
+extortionate. The seizure and purchase of public land, sometimes
+contrary to the letter of the law, more often contrary to its spirit,
+was looked upon as an intolerable evil. Moreover, the westerner was in
+debt. He had borrowed from the East to buy his farm and his machinery
+and to make both ends meet in years when the crops failed. In 1889 it
+was estimated that seventy-five per cent. of the farms of Dakota were
+mortgaged to a total of $50,000,000. Boston and other cities had scores
+of agencies for the negotiation of western farm loans; Philadelphia
+alone was said to absorb $15,000,000 annually. The advantage to the
+West, if conditions were right, is too manifest to need explanation.
+But sometimes the over-optimistic farmer borrowed too heavily;
+sometimes the rates demanded of the needy westerners were usurious;
+often it seemed as if interest charges were like "a mammoth sponge,"
+constantly absorbing the labor of the husbandman. The demand of the
+West for a greater currency supply has already been seen, for it
+appeared in the platforms of minor parties immediately after the Civil
+War. Sometimes it seemed as if nature, also, had entered a conspiracy
+to increase the hardships of the farmer. During the eighties a series
+of rainy years in the more arid parts of the plains encouraged the idea
+that the rain belt was moving westward, and farmers took up land beyond
+the line where adequate moisture could be relied upon. Then came drier
+years; the corn withered to dry stalks; farms were more heavily
+mortgaged or even abandoned; and discontent in the West grew fast.
+
+The complaints of the westerner naturally found expression in the
+agricultural organizations which already existed in many parts of the
+country. The Grange had attacked some of the farmer's problems, but
+interest in it as a political agency had died out. The National
+Farmers' Alliance of 1880 and the National Farmers' Alliance and
+Industrial Union somewhat later were both preceded and followed by many
+smaller societies. Altogether their combined membership began to mount
+into the millions. When, therefore, the Alliances began to turn away
+from the mere discussion of agricultural grievances and toward the
+betterment of conditions by means of legislation, and when their
+principles began to be taken up by discontented labor organizations, it
+looked as if they might constitute a force to be reckoned with.
+
+The remedies which the Alliances suggested for current ills were
+definite. Fundamentally they believed that the government, state and
+federal, could remedy the economic distresses of the people and that it
+ought to do so. At the present day such a suggestion seems commonplace
+enough, but in the eighties the dominant theory was individualism--each
+man for himself and let economic law remedy injustices--and the
+Alliance program seemed like dreaded "socialism." The counterpart of
+the demand for larger governmental activity was a call for the greater
+participation of the people in the operation of the machinery of
+legislation. This lay back of the demand for the initiative, the
+referendum, and the popular election of senators. Currency ills could
+be remedied, the farmers believed, by a national currency which should
+be issued by the federal government only--not by national banks. They
+desired the free coinage of silver and gold until the amount in
+circulation should reach fifty dollars per capita. Lesser
+recommendations were for an income tax and postal savings banks. In
+relation to the transportation system, they declared that "the time has
+come when the railroad corporations will either own the people or the
+people must own the railroads." In order to prevent the waste of the
+public land and to stop its being held for speculative purposes, they
+urged that none be allowed to remain in the hands of aliens and that
+all be taken away from the railroads and corporations which was in
+excess of actual needs.
+
+The power of the new movement first became evident in 1890 and
+distinctly disturbed both the Republican and the Democratic leaders.
+Determined to right their wrongs, the farmers deserted their parties in
+thousands, flocked to conventions and crowded the country schoolhouses
+for the discussion of methods and men. Perhaps it was true, as one of
+their critics asserted, that they put a "gill of fact and grievance
+into a gallon of falsehood and lurid declamation" so as to make an
+"intoxicating mixture." If so, the mixture took immediate effect.
+Alliance governors were elected in several southern states; many state
+legislatures in the South and West had strong farmer delegations; and
+several congressmen and senators were sent to Washington. Success in
+1890 made the Alliances jubilant and they looked to the possibility of
+a countrywide political organization and a share in the campaign of
+1892. The first national convention was held in Omaha in July, 1892, at
+which many of the farmers' organizations together with the Knights of
+Labor and other groups were represented. The name "People's party" was
+adopted, the principles just mentioned were set forth in a platform and
+candidates nominated. In the ensuing election the party exhibited the
+surprising strength which has been seen.
+
+It has taken more time to describe the Populist movement than its
+degree of success in 1892 would justify. But it deserves attention for
+a variety of reasons. Its reform demands were important; it was a
+striking indication of sectional economic interests; it gave evidence
+of an effective participation in politics by the small farmers, the
+mechanics and the less well-to-do professional people--the "middle
+class," in a word; it was a long step toward an expansion of the
+activities of the central government in the fields of economic and
+social legislation; and finally it emphasized the significance of the
+West, as a constructive force in American life. If the Populists should
+capture one of the other parties or be captured by it, nobody could
+foresee what the results would be on American political history.
+
+The second administration of Grover Cleveland, from 1893 to 1897, was
+the most important period of four years for half a century after the
+Civil War. For twenty-five years after 1865 American politicians had
+been sowing the wind. Issues had rarely been met man-fashion, in direct
+combat; instead, they had been evaded, stated with skilful ambiguity,
+or beclouded with ignorance and prejudice. Politics had been concerned
+with the offices--the plunder of government. It could not be that the
+whirlwind would never be reaped.
+
+The situation in 1893 was one that might well have shaken the stoutest
+heart. International difficulties were in sight that threatened unusual
+dangers; labor troubles of unprecedented complexity and importance were
+at hand; the question of the currency remained unsettled, the treasury
+was in a critical condition, and an industrial panic had already begun.
+Each of these difficulties will demand detailed discussion at a later
+point.[3]
+
+To no small degree, the settlement of the political and economic issues
+before the country was complicated by the unmistakable drift toward
+sectionalism, and by the particular characteristics of the President.
+If the administration pressed a tariff reduction policy, it would
+please the South and West but bring hostility in the East. The demands
+of the West, so far as the Populists represented them, were for the
+increased use of the powers of the federal government and the
+application of those powers to social and economic problems; but the
+party in power was traditionally attached to the doctrine of restricted
+activity on the part of the central authority. The sectional aspects of
+the silver question were notorious; and only the eastern Democrats
+fully supported their leader in his stand on the issue.
+
+The personal characteristics of President Cleveland have already
+appeared.[4] He had a burdensome consciousness of his own individual
+duty to conduct the business of his office with faithfulness; a
+courageous sense of justice which impelled him to fight valiantly for a
+cause that he deemed right, however unimportant or hopeless the cause
+might be; a reformer's contempt for hypocrisy and shams, and a blunt
+directness in freeing his mind about wrong of every kind. He had the
+faults of his virtues, likewise. Sure of himself and of the right of
+his position, he had the impatience of an unimaginative man with any
+other point of view; he was intransigent, unyielding, rarely giving
+way a step even to take two forward. It seems likely that his political
+experience had accentuated this characteristic. For years he had thrown
+aside the advice of his counsellors and had shown himself more nearly
+right than they. As Mayor of Buffalo he had used the veto and had been
+made Governor of the state; as Governor he had ruggedly made enemies
+and had become President; as President he had flown in the face of
+caution with his tariff message and his Reform Club letter and had
+three times received a larger popular vote than his competitor. And
+each time his plurality was greater than it had been before. If he
+tended to become over-sure of himself, it should hardly occasion
+surprise. Furthermore he looked upon the duties and possibilities of
+the presidential office as fixed and stationary, rather than elastic
+and developing. He was a strict constructionist and a rigid believer in
+the checks and balances of the Constitution. Although constantly aware
+of the needs and rights of the common people, such as composed the
+Populist movement, his adherence to strict construction was so complete
+that he was unable to advocate much of the federal legislation desired
+by them. It was only with hesitation and constitutional doubts, for
+example, that he had been able to sign even the Interstate Commerce
+Act. In brief, then, the western demand for social and economic
+legislation on a novel and unusual scale was to take its chances with
+an honest, dogged believer in a restricted federal authority.
+
+The experience of the administration with the patronage question
+illustrates how much progress had been made in the direction of reform
+since the beginning of Cleveland's first term in 1885. In the earlier
+year it had required a bitter contest to make even the slightest
+advance; in his second term he retained Roosevelt, a Republican
+reformer, on the Commission and gradually extended the rules so as to
+cover the government printing office, the internal revenue service, the
+pension agencies, and messengers and other minor officials in the
+departments in Washington. Finally on May 6, 1896, he approved an order
+revising the rules, simplifying them and extending them to great
+numbers of places not hitherto included, "the most valuable addition
+ever made at one stroke to the competitive service." The net result was
+that the number of positions in the classified service was more than
+doubled between 1893 and 1897, making a total of 81,889 in a service of
+somewhat over 200,000.[5] By the latter year the argument against
+reform had largely been silenced. The dismal prediction of opponents
+who had feared the establishment of an office-holding aristocracy had
+turned out to have no foundation. Agreement was widespread that the
+government service was greatly improved. There were still branches of
+the service for the reformers to work upon but the great fight was over
+and won.[6]
+
+Although the Democrats came into power in 1893 largely on the tariff
+issue, Cleveland felt that the most urgent need at the beginning of the
+administration was the repeal of the part of the Sherman silver law
+that provided for the purchase of 4,500,000 ounces of silver each
+month. The financial and monetary aspects of this controversy demand
+relation at another point.[7] Politically its results were important.
+Western and southern Democrats, friendly to silver, fought bitterly
+against the repeal, and became thoroughly hostile to Cleveland whom
+they began to distrust as allied to the "money-power" of the East. At
+the time, then, when the President was most in need of united partisan
+support, he found his party crumbling into factions.
+
+Other circumstances which have been mentioned combined to make the time
+inauspicious for a revision of the tariff--the slight Democratic
+majority in the Senate, the deficit caused by rising expenditure and
+falling revenue, the imminent industrial panic and the prevailing labor
+unrest. Nevertheless it seemed necessary to make the attempt. If the
+results of the election of 1892 meant anything, they meant that the
+Democrats were commissioned to revise the tariff.
+
+The chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means was William L.
+Wilson, a sincere and well-read tariff reformer who had been a lawyer
+and a college president, in addition to taking a practical interest in
+politics. The measure which he presented to the House on December 19,
+1893, was not a radical proposal, but it provided for considerable
+tariff reductions and a tax on incomes over $4,000. There was a slight
+defection in party support, but it was unimportant because of the large
+majority which the Democrats possessed, and the bill passed the House
+without unusual difficulty.
+
+In the Senate a different situation presented itself. The Democratic
+majority over the Republicans, provided the Populists voted with the
+former, was only nine; and in case the Populists became disaffected,
+the Democrats could outvote the opposition only by the narrow margin of
+three, even if every member remained with his party. Such a degree of
+unanimity, in the face of prevailing conditions, was extremely
+unlikely. The Louisiana senators were insistent upon protection for
+their sugar; Maryland, West Virginia and Alabama senators looked out
+for coal and iron ore; Senator Hill of New York was unalterably opposed
+to an income tax; Senator Murphy, of the same state, obtained high
+duties on linen collars and cuffs; and Senators Gorman and Brice were
+ready to aid the opposition unless appeased by definite bits of
+protection which they demanded. Many years later Senator Cullom, a
+Republican, explained the practical basis on which the Senate
+proceeded: "The truth is, we were all--Democrats as well as
+Republicans--trying to get in amendments in the interest of protecting
+the industries of our respective States."
+
+The 634 changes made in the Senate were, therefore, mainly in the
+direction of lessening the reductions made by the House. After the bill
+had passed the Senate, it was put into the hands of a conference
+committee, where further changes were made. At this stage of the
+proceedings, Wilson read to the House a letter from the President
+condemning the form which the bill had taken under Senate management,
+and branding the abandonment of Democratic principles as an example of
+"party perfidy and party dishonor." The communication had no effect
+except to intensify differences within the party, and senators made it
+evident that they would have their way or kill the measure. The House
+thereupon capitulated and accepted what became known as the
+Wilson-Gorman act--a law which was only less protectionist than the
+McKinley act. The President, chagrined at the breakdown of the party
+program, allowed the act to pass without his signature, but expressed
+his mingled disappointment and disgust in a letter to Representative
+T.C. Catchings:
+
+    There are provisions in this bill which are not in line with honest
+    tariff reform.... Besides, there were ... incidents accompanying the
+    passage of the bill ... which made every sincere tariff reformer
+    unhappy.... I take my place with the rank and file of the Democratic
+    party ... who refuse to accept the results embodied in this bill as
+    the close of the war, who are not blinded to the fact that the
+    livery of Democratic tariff reform has been stolen and worn in the
+    service of Republican protection, and who have marked the places
+    where the deadly blight of treason has blasted the counsels of the
+    brave in their hour of might.
+
+A few phases of the attempt at tariff reduction indicate the extent to
+which political decay and especially Democratic demoralization had
+gone. As it passed the House, the Wilson bill left both raw and refined
+sugar on the free list. This was unsatisfactory to the Louisiana sugar
+growers, who desired a protective duty on the raw product, and was
+objected to by the Louisiana senators. On the other hand, the American
+Sugar Refining Company, usually known as the "Sugar Trust," desired
+free raw materials but sought protective duties on refined sugar. In
+the Senate, a duty was placed on raw sugar, partly for revenue and
+partly to satisfy the Louisiana senators. On refined sugar, rates were
+fixed which were eminently satisfactory to the Trust. Rumors at once
+began to be spread broadcast over the country that the sugar interests
+had manipulated the Senate. The people were the more ready to believe
+charges of this sort because of experience with previous tariff
+legislation and because the Sugar Trust had been one of the earliest
+and most feared of the monopolies which had already caused so much
+uneasiness. A Senate committee was appointed, composed of two
+Democrats, two Republicans and a Populist, to investigate these and
+other rumors. Their report, which was agreed to by all the members,
+made public a depressing story. It appeared that one lobbyist had
+offered large sums of money for votes against the tariff bill on
+account of the income tax provision. Henry O. Havermeyer, president of
+the American Sugar Refining Company, testified that the company was in
+the habit of contributing to the campaign funds of one political party
+or the other in the states, depending on which party was in the
+ascendancy; that these contributions were carried on the books as
+expense; and that they were given because the party in power "could
+give us the protection we should have." Further, one or more officers
+of the company were in Washington during the entire time when the
+tariff act was pending in the Senate and had conferred with senators
+and committees. Senator Quay testified that he had bought and sold
+sugar stocks while the Senate was engaged in fixing the schedules and
+added: "I do not feel that there is anything in my connection with the
+Senate to interfere with my buying or selling the stock when I please;
+and I propose to do so." Finally the committee summarized the results
+of its investigation, taking the occasion to
+
+    strongly deprecate the importunity and pressure to which Congress
+    and its members are subjected by the representatives of great
+    industrial combinations, whose enormous wealth tends to suggest
+    undue influence, and to create in the public mind a demoralizing
+    belief in the existence of corrupt practices.
+
+Yet one more drop remained to fill the cup of Democratic humiliation to
+overflowing. The constitutionality of the income tax had been assumed
+to have been settled by previous decisions of the Supreme Court,
+especially that in the case Springer _v._ United States, which had been
+decided in 1880, and in which the Court had upheld the law. The new tax
+was brought before the Court in 1894, in Pollock _v._ Farmers' Loan and
+Trust Company. The argument against the tax was pressed with great
+vigor, not merely on constitutional grounds, but for evident social and
+economic reasons. Important financial interests engaged powerful legal
+talent and it became clear that the question to be settled was as much
+a class and sectional controversy as a constitutional problem. Counsel
+urged the Court that the tax scattered to the winds the fundamental
+principles of the rights of private property. Justice Field, deciding
+against the tax, declared it an "assault upon capital" and a step
+toward a war of the poor against the rich. There was fear among some
+that the exemption of the smaller incomes might result in placing the
+entire burden of taxation on the wealthy. Justice Field, for example,
+felt that taxing persons whose income was $4,000 and exempting those
+whose income was less than that amount was like taxing Protestants, as
+a class, at one rate and Catholics at another. The sectional aspects of
+the controversy were brought out in objections that the bulk of the tax
+would fall on the Northeast. The most important point involved was the
+meaning of the word "direct" as used in the Constitution in the phrase
+"direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States ... according
+to their respective Numbers." If an income tax is a direct tax, it must
+be apportioned among the states according to population. Unhappily the
+framers of the Constitution were not clear as to what they meant by
+the word direct, and specifically they could not have told whether an
+income tax was direct or not, because no such tax existed in England
+or America at that time. Hence the Supreme Court was placed in the
+awkward position of defining a word which the framers themselves could
+not define, although the uniform practice hitherto had been to regard
+the income tax as indirect and therefore constitutional, even if not
+apportioned according to population.
+
+The Pollock case was heard twice. The result of the first trial was
+inconclusive and on the central point the Court divided four to four.
+After a rehearing, Justice Jackson, who had been ill and not present at
+the first trial, gave his vote in favor of constitutionality, but in
+the meantime another justice had changed his opinion and voted against
+it. By the narrow margin of five to four, then, and under such
+circumstances, the income tax provision of the Wilson-Gorman act was
+declared null and void. Probably no decision since the Dred Scott case,
+with the single exception of the Legal Tender cases, has put the
+Supreme Court in so unfortunate a light. Certainly in none has it
+seemed more swayed by class prejudice, and so insecure and vacillating
+in its opinion.
+
+Before the question regarding the constitutionality of the income tax
+was settled, the Democrats reaped the political results of the
+Wilson-Gorman tariff act. The law went into force on August 27, 1894;
+the congressional elections came in November. The Democrats were almost
+utterly swept out of the House, except for those from the southern
+states, their number being reduced from 235 to 105. Reed was replaced
+in the speaker's chair; tariff reform had turned out to be
+indistinguishable from protection; and the Democracy, after its only
+opportunity since 1861 to try its hand at government, was demoralized,
+discredited, and in opposition again.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The election of 1892 is described in the standard histories of the
+period, and especially well in Peck.
+
+The rise and growth of the Populist movement resulted in a considerable
+literature of which the following are best: S.J. Buck, _The Agrarian
+Crusade_ (1920), is founded on wide knowledge of the subject and
+contains bibliography; F.J. Turner in _The Atlantic Monthly_ (Sept.,
+1896), gives a brief but keen account; other articles in periodicals
+are F.E. Haynes, in _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, X, 269, W.F.
+Mappin, in _Political Science Quarterly_, IV, 433, and F.B. Tracy, in
+_Forum_, XVI, 240; F.E. Haynes, _Third Party Movements_ (1916), is
+detailed; M.S. Wildman, _Money Inflation in the United States_ (1905),
+presents the psychological and economic basis of inflation; J.A.
+Woodburn, _Political Parties and Party Problems_ (1914); F.L. Paxson,
+_New Nation_ (1915).
+
+Cleveland's administration is well discussed by D.R. Dewey, _National
+Problems_ (1907), and by H.T. Peck, who also presents an unusual
+analysis of Cleveland in _The Personal Equation_ (1898). The income tax
+is best handled by E.R.A. Seligman, _The Income Tax_ (1914).
+Cleveland's own account of the chief difficulties of the administration
+are in his _Presidential Problems_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Blaine died on Jan. 27, 1893.
+
+[2] Below, p. 320, for an account of the strike as an industrial
+dispute.
+
+[3] Below, Chaps. XIII, XIV, XV.
+
+[4] Above, Chap. VIII.
+
+[5] The sweeping reform order of Cleveland late in his second term
+illustrated the most common and effective method of making advance.
+Late in his administration the President adds to the classified
+service; his successor withdraws part of the additions, but more than
+makes up at the end of his term,--a sort of two steps forward and one
+backward process.
+
+[6] Cleveland's second cabinet was composed of the following: W.Q.
+Gresham, Ill., Secretary of State; J.G. Carlisle, Ky., Secretary of
+the Treasury; D.S. Lamont, N.Y., Secretary of War; R. Olney, Mass.,
+Attorney-General; W.S. Bissell, N.Y., Postmaster-General; H.A. Herbert,
+Ala., Secretary of the Navy; Hoke Smith, Ga., Secretary of the
+Interior; J.S. Morton, Neb., Secretary of Agriculture.
+
+[7] Below, pp. 336-340.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+THE TREND OF DIPLOMACY
+
+After the international issues arising from the Civil War were settled,
+and before foreign relations began to become more important late in the
+nineties, our diplomatic history showed the same lack of definiteness
+and continuity that stamped the history of politics during the same
+years. Eleven different men held the post of Secretary of State during
+the thirty-four years from 1865 to 1898, one of them, Blaine, serving
+at two separate times. The political situation in Washington changed
+frequently, few men of outstanding capacity as diplomatists were in the
+cabinets, and most of the problems which arose were not such as would
+excite the interest of great international minds. That any degree of
+unity in our foreign relations was attained is due in part to the
+continuous service of such men as A.A. Adee, who was connected with the
+state department from 1878, and Professor John Bassett Moore, long in
+the department and frequently available as a counselor.[1]
+
+Even before the Civil War, Americans had been interested in the affairs
+of the nations whose shores were touched by the Pacific Ocean.
+Missionaries and traders had long visited China and Japan. During the
+years when the transcontinental railroads were built, as has been seen,
+the construction companies looked to China for a labor supply, and
+there followed a stream of Chinese immigrants who were the cause of
+a difficult international problem. Our relations with Japan were
+extremely friendly. Until the middle of the nineteenth century the
+Japanese had been almost completely cut off from the remainder of the
+world, desiring neither to give to the rest of humanity nor to take
+from them. In 1854 Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the United States
+Navy had succeeded in obtaining permission for American ships to take
+coal and provisions at two Japanese ports. Townsend Harris shortly
+afterwards had been appointed consul-general to Japan and his knowledge
+of the East and his tactful diplomacy had procured increased trade
+rights and other privileges. In 1863 a Japanese prince had sought to
+close the strait of Shimonoseki which connects the inland sea of Japan
+with the outside ocean. American, French and Dutch vessels had been
+fired upon, and eventually an international expedition had been sent to
+open the strait by force. Seventeen ships of war had quickly brought
+the prince to terms. An indemnity had been demanded, of which the
+United States had received a share. The fund remained in the treasury
+untouched until 1883 when it was returned to Japan. The latter received
+the refund as "a strong manifestation of that spirit of justice and
+equity which has always animated the United States in its relations
+with Japan."
+
+The purchase of Alaska in 1867, stretched a long, curved finger out
+towards the Asiatic coast, but there was little interest in the new
+acquisition and no knowledge of its size or resources.[2]
+
+The first tangible and permanent indication that the United States
+might extend its interests into the sphere of the Pacific Ocean
+appeared as early as 1872, when an arrangement with a Samoan chief gave
+us the right to use the harbor of Pagopago on the island of Tutuila.
+Tutuila is far from American shores, being below the equator on the
+under side of the world, but the harbor of Pagopago is an unusually
+good one and its relation to the extension of American commerce in the
+South Pacific was readily seen. Not long afterward, similar trading
+privileges were granted to Germany and Great Britain. Conditions in the
+islands had by no means been peaceful even before the advent of the
+foreigners with their intrigues and jealousies, and in 1885 the
+Germans, taking advantage of a native rebellion, hauled down the Samoan
+flag on the government building in Apia and seemed about to take
+control. In the following year, at the request of the Samoan king, the
+American consul Greenebaum proclaimed a protectorate and hoisted the
+United States flag. The act was unauthorized and was disavowed at once
+by the government at Washington. In the hope of establishing order in
+the islands, Bayard, Secretary of State in President Cleveland's first
+administration, suggested a triple conference of Germany, Great Britain
+and the United States in Washington. During a recess in the conference
+a native rebellion overturned the Samoan government and Germany assumed
+virtual control. While civil war raged among native factions, the
+Germans landed armed forces for the protection of their interests. The
+American and British governments, fearful of danger to their rights,
+already had war vessels in the harbor of Apia and armed conflict seemed
+almost inevitable when a sudden hurricane on March 16, 1889, destroyed
+all the vessels except one. The _Calliope_, (English), steamed out to
+sea in the teeth of the great storm and escaped in safety. In the face
+of such a catastrophe all smaller ills were forgotten and peace reigned
+for the moment in Samoa.
+
+Meanwhile, just as Cleveland was retiring from office for the first
+time, another conference of the three powers was arranged which
+provided a somewhat complicated triple protectorate. After a few years
+of quiet, another native insurrection called attention to the islands.
+Cleveland was again in the presidential chair, and in a message to
+Congress he expressed his belief that the United States had made a
+mistake in departing from its century-old policy of avoiding entangling
+alliances with foreign powers. A year later he returned to the subject
+more earnestly than ever. A report from the Secretary of State
+presented the history of our Samoan relations and ventured a judgment
+that the only fruits which had fallen to the United States were
+expense, responsibility and entanglement. The President thereupon
+invited an expression of opinion from Congress on the advisability of
+withdrawing from our engagements with the other powers. For the time
+nothing came of Cleveland's recommendation, but the continuance of
+native quarrels later necessitated another commission to the islands.
+The American member reported that the harbor of Apia was full of war
+vessels and the region about covered with armed men, but that "not the
+sail or smoke of a single vessel of commerce was to be seen there or
+about the coasts of these beautiful islands." In 1899, the triple
+protectorate was abandoned, as it had complicated the task of governing
+the islands. The United States received Tutuila with the harbor of
+Pagopago, Germany took the remainder of the group, and England retired
+altogether. The trend of Samoan relations was significant: our
+connection with the islands began with the desire to possess a coaling
+station; the possession first resulted in entanglements with other
+nations, and later in the question whether we ought not to withdraw;
+and eventually we withdrew from some of the responsibilities, but not
+from all. Despite its traditional policy of not contracting entangling
+alliances, the United States was in the Pacific to stay.
+
+When Cleveland came into power the first time, he found a long-standing
+disagreement with Canada over the fisheries of the northeastern coast.
+An arrangement which had resulted from the Treaty of Washington in 1871
+came to an end in 1885, and the rights of American fishermen in
+Canadian waters then rested upon a treaty of 1818. This treaty was
+inadequate owing to various changes which had taken place during the
+nearly seventy years that had elapsed since it was drawn up. Several
+difficulties lay in the way of the arrangement of a new treaty, an
+important one being the readiness of the Republican Senate to embarrass
+the President and thus discredit his administration. Matters came to a
+critical point in 1886 when Canadian officials seized two American
+vessels engaged in deep-sea fishing. Cleveland then arranged a treaty
+which provided for reciprocal favors, and when the Senate withheld its
+assent the administration made a temporary agreement, (_modus
+vivendi_), under which American ships were allowed to purchase bait and
+supplies and to use Canadian bays and harbors by paying a license
+fee.[3]
+
+The peculiar geographical configuration of Alaska was, meanwhile,
+bringing the United States into another diplomatic controversy. An arm
+or peninsula of the possession extends far out into the Pacific and is
+continued by the Aleutian Islands, which resemble a series of
+stepping-stones reaching toward Siberia.[4] The Bering Sea is almost
+enclosed by Alaska and the Islands. Within the Sea and particularly on
+the islands of St. Paul and St. George in the Pribilof group, large
+numbers of seals gathered during the spring and summer to rear their
+young. In the autumn the herds migrated to the south, passing out
+through the narrow straits between the members of the Aleutian group,
+and were particularly open to attack at these points. As early as 1870
+the United States government leased the privilege of hunting fur seals
+on St. Paul and St. George to the Alaska Commercial Company, but the
+business was so attractive that vessels came to the Aleutian straits
+from many parts of the Pacific, and it looked as if the United States
+must choose between the annihilation of the herds and the adoption of
+some means for protecting them. The revenue service thereupon began the
+seizure in 1886 of British sealing vessels, taking three in that year
+and six during the next. The British government protested against the
+seizures on the ground that they had taken place more than three miles
+from shore--three miles being the limit to the jurisdiction of any
+nation, according to international law. The Alaskan Court which upheld
+the seizures justified itself by the claim that the whole Bering Sea
+was part of the territory of Alaska and thus was comparable to a harbor
+or closed sea (_mare clausum_), but Secretary Blaine disavowed this
+contention. The United States then requested the governments of several
+European countries, together with Japan, to cooperate for the better
+protection of the fisheries, but no results were reached.
+
+Continuance of the seizures in 1889 brought renewed protests from Lord
+Salisbury, who was in charge of foreign affairs. Blaine retorted that
+the destruction of the herds was _contra bonos mores_ and that it was
+no more defensible even outside the three mile limit than destructive
+fishing on the banks of Newfoundland by the explosion of dynamite would
+be. Lord Salisbury replied that fur seals were wild animals, _ferae
+naturae_, and not the property of any individual until captured. An
+extended diplomatic correspondence ensued, which resulted in a treaty
+of arbitration in 1892.[5]
+
+A tribunal of seven arbitrators was established, two appointed by the
+Queen of England, two by the President, and one each by the rulers of
+France, Italy and Sweden and Norway, the last two being under one
+sovereign at that time. Several questions were submitted to the
+tribunal. What exclusive rights does the United States have in the
+Bering Sea? What right of protection or property does the United States
+have in the seals frequenting the islands in the Sea? If the United
+States has no exclusive rights over the seals, what steps ought to be
+taken to protect them? Great Britain also presented to the arbitrators
+the question whether the seizures of seal-hunting ships had been made
+under the authority of the government of the United States.
+
+The decisions were uniformly against the American contention. It was
+decided that our jurisdiction in the Bering Sea did not extend beyond
+the three mile limit and that therefore the United States had no right
+of protection or property in the seals. A set of regulations for the
+protection of the herds was also drawn up. Another negotiation resulted
+in the payment of $473,000 damages by the United States for the illegal
+seizures of British sealers.[6]
+
+Relations with the Latin American countries south of the Mexican border
+had been unstable since the Mexican War, an unhappy controversy that
+left an ineradicable prejudice against us. John Quincy Adams and Henry
+Clay had hoped for a friendly union of the nations of North and South
+America, led by the United States, but this ideal had turned out to
+have no more substance than a vision. Moreover, the increasing trade
+activity of Great Britain and later of Germany had made a commercial
+bond of connection between South America and Europe which was, perhaps,
+stronger than that which the United States had established. Yet some
+progress was made. Disputes between European governments and the
+governments of Latin American countries were frequently referred to the
+United States for arbitration. An old claim of some British subjects,
+for example, against Colombia was submitted for settlement in 1872 to
+commissioners of whom the United States minister at Bogota was the most
+important. The problem was studied with great care and the award was
+satisfactory to both sides. In 1876 a territorial dispute between
+Argentina and Paraguay was referred to the President of the United
+States. In the case of a boundary controversy between Costa Rica and
+Nicaragua, President Cleveland appointed an arbitrator; Argentina and
+Brazil presented a similar problem which received the attention of
+Presidents Harrison and Cleveland.
+
+It fell to James. G. Blaine to revive the idea of a Pan-American
+conference which had been first conceived by Adams and Clay. As a
+diplomat, Blaine was possessed of outstanding patriotism and
+enthusiastic imagination, even if not of vast technical capacity or of
+an international mind. As Secretary of State under President Garfield
+in 1881 he invited the Latin American countries to share with the
+United States in a conference for the discussion of arbitration. The
+early death of Garfield and the ensuing change in the state department
+resulted in the abandonment of the project for the time being. Blaine,
+however, and other interested persons continued to press the plan and
+in 1888 Congress authorized the President to invite the governments of
+the Latin American countries to send delegates to a conference to be
+held in Washington in the following year. By that time President
+Harrison was in power. Blaine was again Secretary of State and was
+chosen president of the conference. Among the subjects for discussion
+were the preservation of peace, the creation of a customs union,
+uniform systems of weights, measures and coinage, and the promotion of
+frequent inter-communication among the American states. Little was
+accomplished, beyond a few recommendations, except the establishment of
+the International Bureau of American Republics. This was to have no
+governmental power, but was to be supported by the various nations
+concerned and was to collect and disseminate information about their
+laws, products and customs. The Bureau has become permanent under the
+name Pan American Union and is a factor in the preservation of friendly
+relations among the American republics. The reciprocity measure which
+Blaine pressed upon Congress during the pendency of the McKinley tariff
+bill was designed partly to further Pan-American intercourse.
+
+In the case of a disagreement with Chile, Blaine was less successful. A
+revolution against the Chilean President, Balmaceda, resulted in the
+triumph of the insurgents in 1891. The American minister to Chile was
+Patrick Egan, an Irish agitator who sympathized with President
+Balmaceda against the revolutionists and who was _persona non grata_ to
+the strong English and German colonies there. While Chilean affairs
+were in this strained condition, the revolutionists sent a vessel, the
+_Itata_, to San Diego in California for military supplies, and American
+authorities seized it for violating the neutrality laws. While the
+vessel was in the hands of our officers, the Chileans took control of
+it and made their escape. The cruiser _Charleston_ was sent in pursuit
+and thereupon the revolutionists surrendered the _Itata_. Not long
+afterward, however, a United States Court decided that the pursuit had
+been without justification under international law and ordered the
+release of the _Itata_. The result was that the United States seemed to
+have been over-ready to take sides against the revolutionists, and the
+latter became increasingly hostile to Americans.
+
+Relations finally broke under the strain of a street quarrel in the
+city of Valparaiso in the fall of 1891. A number of sailors from the
+United States ship _Baltimore_ were on shore leave and fell in with
+some Chilean sailors in a saloon. A quarrel resulted--just how it
+originated and just who was the aggressor could not be determined--but
+at any rate the Americans were outnumbered and one was killed. The
+administration pressed the case with vigor, declining to look upon the
+incident as a sailors' brawl and considering it a hostile attack upon
+the wearers of an American uniform. For a time the outbreak of war was
+considered likely, but eventually Chile yielded, apologized for its
+acts and made a financial return for the victims of the riot. Later
+students of Chilean relations have not praised Egan as minister or
+Blaine's conduct of the negotiations, but it is fair to note that the
+Chileans were prejudiced against the American Secretary of State
+because of an earlier controversy in which he had sided against them,
+and that the affair was complicated by the presence of powerful
+European colonies and by the passions which the revolution had aroused.
+
+Blaine was compelled to face another embarrassing situation in dealing
+with Italy in 1891-1892. In October, 1890, the chief of police of New
+Orleans, D.C. Hennessy, had been murdered and circumstances indicated
+that the deed had been committed by members of an Italian secret
+society called the Mafia. A number of Italians were arrested, of whom
+three were acquitted, five were held for trial and three were to be
+tried a second time. One morning a mob of citizens, believing that
+there had been a miscarriage of justice, seized the eleven and killed
+all of them. The Italian government immediately demanded protection for
+Italians in New Orleans, as well as punishment of the persons concerned
+in the attack, and later somewhat impatiently demanded federal
+assurance that the guilty parties would be brought to trial and an
+acknowledgment that an indemnity was due to the relatives of the
+victims of the mob. Failing to obtain these guarantees, the Italian
+government withdrew its minister. When a grand jury in New Orleans
+investigated the affair it excused the participants and none of them
+was brought to trial.
+
+The government at Washington was hampered by the fact that judicial
+action in such a case lies with the individual state under our form of
+government, whereas diplomatic action is of course entirely federal. If
+the states are tardy or derelict in action, the national government is
+almost helpless. President Harrison urged Congress to make offenses
+against the treaty rights of foreigners cognizable in the federal
+courts, but this was never done. Diplomatic activity, however, brought
+better results, and an expression of regret on the part of the United
+States, together with the payment of an indemnity of $24,000 closed the
+incident.
+
+Among the many troublesome questions that faced President Cleveland
+when he entered upon the Presidency in 1893 for the second time, the
+status of the Hawaiian Islands was important. Since the development of
+the Pacific Coast of the United States in the forties and fifties,
+there had been a growing trade between the islands and this country.
+Reciprocity and even annexation had been projected. In 1875 a
+reciprocity arrangement was consummated, a part of which was a
+stipulation that none of the territory of Hawaii should be leased or
+disposed of to any other power. In this way a suggestion was made of
+ultimate annexation. Moreover the commercial results of the treaty were
+such as to make a friendly connection with the United States a matter
+of moment to Hawaii. The value of Hawaiian exports had increased,
+government revenues enlarged, and many public improvements had been
+made. In 1884 the grant of Pearl Harbor to the United States as a naval
+station made still another bond of connection between the islands and
+their big neighbor.
+
+The King of Hawaii during this period of prosperity was Kalakaua.
+During a visit to the United States, and later during a tour of the
+world he was royally received, whereupon he returned to his island
+kingdom with expanded theories of the position which a king should
+occupy. Unhappily he dwelt more on the pleasures which a king might
+enjoy than upon the obligations of a ruler to his people. At his death
+in 1891 Princess Liliuokalani became Queen and at once gave evidence of
+a disposition to rule autocratically. Because of her attempts to revise
+the Hawaiian system of government so as to increase the power of the
+crown, the more influential citizens assembled, appointed a committee
+of public safety and organized for resistance. On January 17, 1893, the
+revolutionary elements gathered, proclaimed the end of the monarchical
+regime and established a provisional government under the leadership of
+Judge S.B. Dole. The new authorities immediately proposed annexation to
+the United States and a treaty was promptly drawn up in accord with
+President Harrison's wishes, and presented to the Senate. At this point
+the Harrison administration ended and Cleveland became President.
+
+Cleveland immediately withdrew the treaty for examination and sent
+James H. Blount to the islands to investigate the relation of American
+officials to the recent revolution. The appointment of Blount was made
+without the advice and consent of the Senate and was denounced by the
+President's enemies, although such special missions have been more or
+less common since the beginning of our history.[7] Blount reported
+that the United States minister to Hawaii, J.L. Stevens, had for some
+time been favorably disposed to a revolution in the islands and had
+written almost a year before that event asking how far he and the naval
+commander might deviate from established international rules in the
+contingency of a rebellion. "The Hawaiian pear is now fully ripe,"
+Stevens had written to the State Department, early in 1893, "and this
+is the golden hour for the United States to pluck it." Blount also
+informed the President that the monarchy had been overturned with the
+active aid of Stevens and through the intimidation caused by the
+presence of an armed naval force of the United States.
+
+The blunt language which Cleveland employed in his message to Congress
+on the subject, left no doubt about his opinion of the transaction.
+"The control of both sides of a bargain acquired in such a manner is
+called by a familiar and unpleasant name when found in private
+transactions." Believing that an injustice had been done and that the
+only honorable course was to undo the wrong, he sent A.S. Willis as
+successor to Stevens to express the President's regret and to attempt
+to make amends. One of the conditions however which President Cleveland
+placed upon the restoration of the Queen was a promise of amnesty to
+all who had shared in the revolution. The Queen was at first unwilling
+to bind herself and when she later agreed, a new obstacle appeared in
+the refusal of the provisional government to surrender its authority.
+Indeed it began to appear that the President's sense of justice was
+forcing him to attempt the impossible. The provisional government had
+already been recognized by the United States and by other powers, the
+deposition of the Queen was a _fait accompli_ and her restoration
+partook of the nature of turning back the clock. Moreover, force would
+have to be used to supplant the revolutionary authorities,--a task for
+which Americans had no desire. The President, in fact, had exhausted
+his powers and now referred the whole affair to Congress. The House
+condemned Stevens for assisting in the overturn of the monarchy and
+went on record as opposed to either annexation or an American
+protectorate. Sentiment was less nearly uniform in the upper chamber.
+The Democrats tended to uphold the President, the Republicans to
+condemn him. Although a majority of the committee on foreign relations
+exonerated Stevens, yet no opposition appeared to a declaration which
+passed the Senate on May 31, 1894, maintaining that the United States
+ought not to intervene in Hawaiian affairs and that interference by any
+other government would be regarded as unfriendly to this country.
+
+In the outcome, these events merely delayed annexation; they could not
+prevent it. In Hawaii the more influential and the propertied classes
+supported the revolution and desired annexation. In the United States
+the desire for expansion was stimulated by the fear that some other
+nation might seize the prize. The military and naval situation in 1898
+increased the demand for annexation, and in the summer of that year the
+acquisition was completed by means of a joint resolution of the two
+houses of Congress.[8] While negotiations were in progress Japan
+protested that her interests in the Pacific were endangered. Assurances
+were given, however, that Japanese treaty rights would not be affected
+by the annexation and the protest was withdrawn. The United States was
+now "half-way across to Asia."
+
+Most dangerous in its possibilities was the controversy with Great
+Britain over the boundary between British Guiana and Venezuela. British
+Guiana lies on the northern coast of South America, next to Venezuela
+and extends inland, with its western boundary roughly parallel to the
+valley of the Orinoco River. A long-standing disagreement had existed
+about the exact position of the line between the two countries--a
+disagreement which harked back to the claims of the Dutch, who had
+acquired Guiana in 1613 and had turned it over to the British in 1814.
+In 1840 England commissioned a surveyor named Schomburgk to fix the
+boundary but his decision was objected to by the Venezuelans who
+claimed that he included a great area that rightfully belonged to them.
+Gradually the British claims included more and more of the territory
+claimed by Venezuela, and the discovery of gold in the disputed region
+not only drew attention to the necessity of a settlement of the
+boundary but also attracted prospectors who began to occupy the land.
+In 1876 Venezuela began negotiations for some means of deciding the
+dispute and came to the conclusion that arbitration was her only
+recourse. On the refusal of Great Britain to heed her protests, the
+Venezuelan government suspended diplomatic relations in 1887, although
+the United States attempted to prevent a rupture by suggesting the
+submission of the difference to an arbitral tribunal. This offer was
+not accepted by Great Britain, and repeated exertions on the part of
+both Venezuela and the United States at later times failed to produce
+better results. When Cleveland returned to the presidency in 1893 he
+again became interested in the Venezuelan matter and Secretary of State
+Gresham urged the attention of the British government to the
+desirability of arbitration.
+
+President Cleveland was a man of great courage and had a very keen
+sense of justice. In his opinion a great nation was playing the bully
+with a small one, and the injustice stirred his feelings to the depths.
+With the President's approval Secretary Olney, who had succeeded
+Gresham on the death of the latter, drew up an exposition of the Monroe
+doctrine which was communicated to Lord Salisbury. This despatch, which
+was dated July 20, 1895, brought matters to a climax. In brief the
+administration took the position that under the Monroe doctrine the
+United States adhered to the principle that no European nation might
+deprive an American state of the right and power of self-government.
+This had been established American policy for seventy years. The
+Venezuelan boundary controversy was within the scope of the doctrine
+since Great Britain asserted title to disputed territory, substantially
+appropriating it, and refused to have her title investigated. At the
+same time Secretary Olney disclaimed any intention of taking sides in
+the controversy until the merits of the case were authoritatively
+ascertained, although the general argument of the despatch seemed to
+place the United States on the side of Venezuela. Moreover, Secretary
+Olney adopted a swaggering and aggressive, not to say truculent tone.
+He drew a contrast between monarchical Europe and self-governing
+America, particularly the United States, which "has furnished to the
+world the most conspicuous ... example ... of the excellence of free
+institutions, whether from the standpoint of national greatness or of
+individual happiness." The United States, he asserted, is "practically
+sovereign on this continent" because "wisdom and justice and equity are
+the invariable characteristics" of its dealings with others and because
+"its infinite resources combined with its isolated position render it
+master of the situation ... as against any or all other powers."
+
+Lord Salisbury did not reply to Secretary Olney for more than four
+months. He then asserted that President Monroe's message of 1823 had
+laid down two propositions: that America was no longer to be looked
+upon as a field for European colonization; and that Europe must not
+attempt to extend its political system to America, or to control the
+political condition of any of the American communities. In Lord
+Salisbury's opinion Olney was asserting that the Monroe doctrine
+conferred upon the United States the right to demand arbitration
+whenever a European power had a frontier difference with a South
+American community. He suggested that the Monroe doctrine was not a
+part of international law, that the boundary dispute had no relation to
+the dangers which President Monroe had feared and that the United
+States had no "apparent practical concern" with the controversy between
+Great Britain and Venezuela. He also raised some objections to
+arbitration as a method of settling disputes and asserted the
+willingness of Great Britain to arbitrate her title to part of the
+lands claimed. The remainder, he declared, could be thought of as
+Venezuelan only by extravagant claims based on the pretensions of
+Spanish officials in the last century. This area he expressly refused
+to submit to arbitration. The language of the Salisbury note was
+diplomatically correct, a fact which did not detract from the effect of
+the patronizing tone which characterized it.
+
+President Cleveland doggedly proceeded with his demands. On December
+17, (1895), he laid before Congress the correspondence with Lord
+Salisbury, together with a statement of his own position on the matter.
+Disclaiming any preconceived conviction as to the merits of the
+dispute, he nevertheless deprecated the possibility that a European
+country, by extending its boundaries, might take possession of the
+territory of one of its neighbors. Inasmuch as Great Britain had
+refused to submit to arbitration, he believed it incumbent upon the
+United States to take measures to determine the true divisional line.
+He suggested therefore that Congress empower the executive to appoint a
+commission to investigate and report. His closing words were so grave
+as to arouse the country to a realization of the dangerous pitch to
+which negotiations had mounted:
+
+    When such report is made and accepted it will in my opinion be the
+    duty of the United States to resist ... the appropriation by Great
+    Britain of any ... territory which after investigation we have
+    determined of right belongs to Venezuela. In making these
+    recommendations I am fully alive to the responsibility incurred,
+    and keenly realize all the consequences that may follow. I am
+    nevertheless firm in my conviction that while it is a grievous thing
+    to contemplate the two great English-speaking peoples ... as being
+    otherwise than friendly ... there is no calamity ... which equals
+    that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice.
+
+Congress at once acceded to Cleveland's wishes and appropriated
+$100,000 for the proposed investigation. For a brief moment neither
+Great Britain nor America quite realized the meaning of the President's
+warlike utterance. In America it had generally been felt previously
+that his foreign policy was conciliatory rather than aggressive and,
+besides, the Venezuelan dispute had but little occupied popular
+attention. When it became evident that war was a definite possibility,
+public interest followed every step with anxiety. Newspaper sentiment
+divided. The press generally judged Cleveland's stand strong and
+"American." On the other hand, a few periodicals like the _Nation_
+insinuated that the President was actuated by the desire to make
+political capital for a third term campaign and characterized his
+action as "criminally rash and insensate," "ignorant and reckless,"
+"impudent and insulting." Influential citizens in both countries made
+energetic attempts to prevent anything that might make war inevitable.
+The Prince of Wales and Lord Roseberry threw their influence on the
+side of conciliation. A.J. Balfour declared that a conflict with the
+United States would carry something of the "horror of civil war" and
+looked forward to the time when the country would "feel that they and
+we have a common duty to perform, a common office to fulfill among the
+nations of the world."
+
+The President appointed a commission which set to work to obtain the
+information necessary for a judicial settlement of the boundary, and
+both Great Britain and Venezuela tactfully expressed a readiness to
+cooperate. Their labors, however, were brought to a close by a treaty
+between the two disputants providing for arbitration. A prominent
+feature of the treaty was an agreement that fifty years' control or
+settlement of an area should be sufficient to constitute a title, a
+provision which withdrew from consideration much of the territory to
+which Venezuela had laid claim. In October, 1899, the arbitration was
+concluded. The award did not meet the extreme claims of either party,
+but gave Great Britain the larger share of the disputed area, although
+assigning the entire mouth of the Orinoco River to Venezuela.
+
+Besides giving new life to the Monroe doctrine as an integral part of
+our foreign policy, the incident served to illustrate the dangers of
+settling international disputes in haphazard fashion. In January, 1897,
+therefore, Secretary Olney and the British Ambassador at Washington,
+Sir Julian Pauncefote, negotiated a general treaty for the settlement
+of disputes between the two countries by arbitration. Even with the
+example of the possible consequences of the Venezuelan controversy
+before it, however, the Senate failed to see the necessity for such an
+expedient, defeated the treaty by a narrow margin and left the greatest
+problem of international relations--the settlement of controversies on
+the basis of justice rather than force--to the care of a future
+generation.
+
+On the whole, as has already been noted, the history of American
+diplomacy from 1877 to 1897 is scarcely more than an account of a
+series of unrelated incidents. Not only did the foreign policy of
+Blaine differ sharply from that of Cleveland, but there was no great
+question upon which public interest came to a focus, except temporarily
+over the Venezuelan matter, and no lesser problems that continued long
+enough to challenge attention to the fact that they remained unsolved.
+There were visible, nevertheless, several important tendencies. Our
+attitude toward Samoa and Hawaii indicated that the instinctive desire
+to annex territory had not disappeared with the rounding out of the
+continental possessions of the United States; American interest in
+arbitration as a method of settling disputes was expressed again and
+again; the place of the Monroe doctrine in American international
+policy was clearly shown; and the determination of the United States to
+be heard in all affairs that touched her interests was demonstrated
+without any possibility of doubt.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The most complete and reliable authority is J.B. Moore, _A Digest of
+International Law_ (8 vols. 1906), by one who was intimately connected
+with many of the incidents of which he wrote; the text of the treaties
+is in W.M. Malloy, _Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, etc.,
+between the United States of America and other Powers_ (2 vols., 1910).
+Valuable single volumes are: J.B. Moore, _American Diplomacy_ (1905);
+and C.B. Fish, _American Diplomacy_ (1915). W.F. Johnson, _America's
+Foreign Relations_ (2 vols., 1916), is interesting but somewhat marred
+by the author's tendency to take sides on controversial points; see
+also J.B. Henderson, _American Diplomatic Questions_ (1901). J.S.
+Bassett, _Short History of the United States_ (1913), contains a brief
+and compact chapter.
+
+Essential material on particular incidents is found in the following.
+On Japan, "Our War with One Gun" in _New England Magazine_, XXVIII,
+662; J.M. Callahan, _American Relations in the Pacific and the Far
+East_ (1901); W.E. Griffis, _Townsend Harris_ (1896). On Samoa, J.W.
+Foster, _American Diplomacy in the Orient_ (1903); R.L. Stevenson,
+_Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa_ (1892). On the seal fisheries, J.W.
+Foster, _Diplomatic Memoirs_ (2 vols., 1909). On Hawaii, Cleveland's
+message in J.D. Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the Presidents_,
+IX, 460. On Venezuela, Grover Cleveland, _Presidential Problems_,
+Chap. IV.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The development of the United States as a commercial power was
+seen in the increased use of consuls as agents for procuring and
+publishing industrial and commercial information.
+
+[2] Cf. Fish, _American Diplomacy_, 398.
+
+[3] For later aspects of the controversy, see below, pp. 532-533.
+
+[4] Cf. map p. 10.
+
+[5] J.W. Foster, who was intimately connected with the case, suggests
+that the defects in the American argument were due partly to following
+briefs prepared by an agent of the Alaska Commercial Company in
+Washington. The agent was interested in getting everything possible for
+his company but his knowledge of the law in the case was slight. Cf.
+Foster, _Memoirs_, II, 26 f.; Moore, _American Diplomacy_, 97-104.
+
+[6] The attempts to protect the herds by government regulation failed
+to have any important results. An international arrangement was made in
+1911, but the slaughter had proceeded so far that grave question arose
+whether any agreement would be effective short of absolute prohibition.
+In 1912 Congress passed a law forbidding any killing on the land for a
+term of five years; in 1917 when the restrictions were released the
+herds had greatly increased. In 1918 the seals numbered 530,480.
+_American Year Book_, 1918, 503-4.
+
+[7] Cf. _Political Science Review_, Aug., 1916, 481-499.
+
+[8] Cf. below, p. 387 ff. Hawaii was brought into the Union as a
+territory in 1900.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+THE RISE OF THE WAGE EARNER
+
+In their handling of the labor problem, the governments of the states
+and the nation showed greater ignorance and less foresight than
+characterized their treatment of any of the other issues of the
+quarter century following the Civil War. Yet the building of the
+railroads and their consolidation into great systems, the development
+of manufacturing and its concentration into large concerns, and the
+growth of an army of wage earners brought about a problem of such size
+and complexity as to demand all the information and vision that the
+country could muster.
+
+The phenomenal accumulation of wealth in the fields of mining,
+transportation and manufacturing which characterized the new
+industrial America formed the basis of a powerful propertied class.
+Some of the wealth was amassed by such unscrupulous methods as those
+which caused the popular demand for government regulation of the
+railroads and trusts. The prizes of success were big. The men who made
+their way to the top--men like Gould, Fisk, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller
+and Carnegie--were pioneers whose courage, foresight, and daring were
+combined with sufficient ruthlessness to enable them to triumph where
+others failed. A few of them, like Carnegie, had some slight
+conception of the meaning of the labor problem; most of them did not.
+Linked to the industrial pioneer by community of interest was the
+holder of the war bonds of the federal government. These securities
+were purchased with depreciated paper currency but increased very
+greatly in value after the successful outcome of the struggle, and
+formed an investment whose value it is extremely difficult to
+estimate. The owners of the stocks and bonds of the railroads and
+manufacturing combinations further swelled the ranks of the propertied
+class. Stability, continuous business and large earnings were the
+immediate considerations to this group. Anything which interfered was,
+naturally, a thing to be fought. Never before, unless in the South in
+slavery days, had a more powerful social class existed in the United
+States. A large fraction of the group was composed of men who had
+risen from poverty to wealth in a short time. From one point of view
+such a man is a "self-made" man, industrious, frugal, able, energetic,
+bold. From another point of view he is a _parvenu_, narrow,
+overbearing, ostentatious, proud, conceited, uncultivated. The
+relatively small size of the propertied class and an obvious community
+of interest tended to make its members reach a class consciousness
+even during the Civil War. The success of the group in preventing all
+tariff reduction after 1865 was a striking example of the solidarity
+of its membership and its readiness for action.
+
+Class consciousness among the wage earners developed much more slowly,
+and in the nature of things was much less definite. Nevertheless the
+history of the industrial turmoil of the quarter century after the
+Civil War is the history of a class groping for political, social and
+economic recognition.
+
+At the close of the war the labor situation was confused and
+complicated. A million and a half of men in the North and South had to
+be readmitted to the ranks of industry. Approximately another million
+had died or been more or less disabled during the conflict. A stream
+of immigrants, already large and constantly increasing, was pouring
+into the North and seeking a means of livelihood. As has been seen,
+most of these settled in the manufacturing and mining sections of the
+northern and eastern states, helped to crowd the cities, and
+overflowed into the fertile, free lands of the mid-West. Nearly
+800,000 of them reached the United States in one year, 1882. Most of
+them were men--an overwhelming portion of them men of working age,
+unskilled, frequently illiterate and hence compelled to seek
+employment in a relatively small number of occupations. Both the
+chances of unemployment and the danger of a lowered standard of living
+were increased by the immigrants.
+
+The greater use of machinery during the progress of the war has
+already been alluded to, but some of its results demand further
+mention.[1] Most evident was the huge increase in the volume and
+value of the products of the factories. The labor of a single worker
+increased in effectiveness many times; in other words, the labor cost
+of a unit of production greatly diminished with the improvement of
+mechanical devices. The labor cost of making nails by hand in 1813 was
+seventy fold the cost of making them by machinery in 1899; loading ore
+by hand was seventy-three times as expensive in 1891 as machine
+loading was in 1896. Increased production encouraged greater
+consumption, enhanced competition for markets, and opened the world to
+the products of American labor. Moreover, the introduction of
+machinery emphasized the importance of capital. When iron was rolled
+by hand, when cloth was produced by the use of the spinning wheel and
+hand-loom, when fields were tilled by inexpensive plow and hoe,
+relatively small amounts of capital were needed by the man who started
+in to work. Mechanical inventions revolutionized the situation. A
+costly power-loom enabled its owner to eliminate handworking
+competitors. If a workman could raise sufficient money or credit to
+purchase a supply of machines he could "set up in business," employ a
+number of "hands" and merely direct or manage the enterprise. Under
+such a system the employer must make enough profit to pay interest on
+his investment and to repair and replace his equipment. His attention
+was fixed on these elements of his industrial problem and the
+well-being of the laborer sank to a lower plane of importance. If the
+employer found the labor supply plentiful he had the upper hand in
+setting the wage-scale; the unorganized employee was almost completely
+at his mercy, because the employer could find another workman more
+easily than the workman could find another job. Meanwhile the workman
+knew the increased product which he was turning out, and became
+discontented because he did not see a corresponding increase in his
+remuneration.
+
+From about 1830, when the rapid development of the use of mechanical
+appliances began, to the late eighties and early nineties when the new
+regime was meeting its sternest conflicts in the trust problem and the
+militant labor unions, the army of the wage earner was growing faster
+than the population. Between 1870 and 1890, for example, the
+population increased 63 per cent., while the number of laborers
+engaged in manufacturing increased nearly 130 per cent. By the latter
+year, 6,099,058 persons, about a tenth of the total population, were
+employed in transportation, mining and manufacturing.
+
+It was noticeable, also, that the wage earners tended to concentrate.
+The laborers engaged in manufacturing were to be found, for the most
+part, in the Northeast, and especially in such leading industrial
+cities as New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. Furthermore, the
+development of the factory system and the consolidation of many small
+companies into a few great ones tended to localize the labor problem
+still further--in a relatively small number of plants. The
+concentration of industry in great factories where large numbers of
+workers labored side by side ended the paternal care which the
+old-time employer had expended upon his employees. With the
+introduction of machinery, the danger of accidents due to the
+ignorance or carelessness of fellow workmen increased. The use of
+mechanical appliances also gave opportunity for the employment of
+women and children, and thus raised the question whether any
+restrictions ought to be placed upon the employment of these classes
+of people. The construction of factories, their ventilation, sanitary
+appliances, and safe-guards for health and comfort became subjects of
+importance.
+
+With the example of consolidation before them that was presented by
+the railroads and the corporations, it was inevitable that the wage
+earners should organize for their protection and advancement. Labor
+organizations of wage earners have existed in the United States since
+1827, and between that time and 1840 came a considerable awakening
+among the laboring classes which was part of a general humanitarian
+movement throughout the country. Robert Owen, an English industrial
+idealist, had visited this country about 1825 and provided the
+initiative for a short-lived communistic settlement at New Harmony,
+Indiana. Similar enterprises were established at other points; the
+most famous of these was that at Brook Farm in Massachusetts, which
+enlisted the interest and support of many of the literary people of
+New England. The expanding humanitarian and idealistic movement was
+cut short by the Civil War, but the development of industrialism went
+on uninfluenced by the spirit of social progress which might have
+permeated it. After reconstruction was over, a new generation had to
+become impressed with the evils which needed correction and to set
+itself to the task which civil strife had thrust aside.
+
+The need of a responsible organization of wage earners was indicated
+by the career of the Molly Maguires. The Molly Maguires constituted an
+inner circle of Irish Catholics who controlled the activities of the
+branches of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in the hard-coal counties
+of eastern Pennsylvania. During the war and immediately after it the
+group gained a little power in local politics, and also undertook to
+punish mine owners, bosses and superintendents who offended members of
+the Order. Intimidation became common, and even murder was resorted to
+until the region was fairly terrorized. It seemed impossible to combat
+the Mollies because their activities were shrouded in secrecy.
+Usually, for example, when a murder was to be committed, a member
+would be brought in from an outside district in order that he might
+not be recognized if discovered, and he would be aided in escaping
+after the crime. Finally the president of the Philadelphia and Reading
+Railroad procured a Pinkerton detective named James McParlan who went
+into the region and remained for two years. During this time he posed
+as a fugitive from justice and as a counterfeiter, became a member of
+the Order, a confidant of the Molly Maguires, and collected evidence.
+Armed with the knowledge acquired by McParlan, the officials were able
+to arrest and convict twenty-four criminals, of whom ten were
+executed, and the career of the Mollies came to an end.
+
+The activities of the Molly Maguires were symptomatic of what might
+occur throughout the ranks of labor during the confused period of
+adjustment after the war, and yet they were temporary and local in
+their effect on the development of the labor movement. The history of
+the great labor controversies after the war properly begins with the
+Knights of Labor, an association which originated in Philadelphia in
+1869 as the result of the efforts of a garment cutter named Uriah S.
+Stephens.[2] In the beginning, the affairs of the Knights were veiled
+in dense secrecy; even the name of the society was never mentioned but
+was indicated by five stars--*****. As the number of members increased,
+however, all manner of disquieting and untruthful rumors spread
+concerning its purposes, so that the element of secrecy was done away
+with in 1881 and a declaration of principles was made public. The
+fundamental purpose of the Knights was the formation of an order which
+should include all branches of the wage earners and which should aim
+to improve their economic, moral, social and intellectual condition.
+Emphasis was placed, that is to say, on the welfare of the laboring
+classes as a whole, rather than upon that of any particular trade or
+craft. The organization was centralized and the interests of the group
+were developed on a national scale. The growth of the association was
+extremely rapid at times, reaching a climax in the middle eighties
+when about 700,000 members, both men and women, made it a power in
+industrial disputes. Some of the members taken in at this time were
+extremists--European anarchists, for example--who urged a violent
+policy and got almost if not quite out of control of the officers
+during 1886. In the late eighties the membership dwindled rapidly,
+owing to the failure of strikes instituted by the order, and its place
+and influence were largely taken by the American Federation of Labor.
+
+The latter body was the outgrowth of a convention held in Pittsburg in
+1881, but it did not adopt its final name until 1886. Its purpose was
+to group labor organizations of all kinds, leaving the government of
+each affiliated body with the body itself. Each of the members of the
+Federation is composed of workers in a given trade or industry, like
+the International Typographical Union, the United Mine Workers, and
+many others. The annual convention is composed of delegates from the
+constituent societies. The growth of the organization was rapid and
+continuous. Coincidently with the expansion of the Knights of Labor
+and the growth of the American Federation came the great development
+of the labor press. Professor Ely estimated late in the eighties that
+possibly five hundred newspapers were devoted to the needs of the
+labor movement. The numerous farmers' organizations, typified by the
+Patrons of Husbandry, are other examples of the growing tendency
+toward cohesion among the less powerful classes. Indeed, the Grange
+originated only a year earlier than the Knights of Labor, and like it
+was a secret order.
+
+The wage earners, then, were rapidly becoming class-conscious. They
+had found conditions which seemed to them intolerable, had formed
+organizations on a national scale and had drawn up a definite program
+of principles and reforms. The exact grievances which inspired the
+Knights, the Federation and other less important organizations are
+therefore of immediate importance.
+
+In order to secure for the wage earner a sufficient money return for
+his work, and sufficient leisure for the education of his intellectual
+and religious faculties, and to enable him to understand and perform
+his duties as a citizen, the Knights demanded the establishment of
+bureaus of labor for the collection of information; the reservation of
+the public lands for actual settlers; the abrogation of laws that did
+not bear equally on capital and labor; the adoption of measures for
+the health and safety of the working classes; indemnity for injuries
+due to the lack of proper safeguards; the recognition of the
+incorporation of labor unions; laws compelling corporations to pay
+laborers weekly; arbitration in labor disputes; and the prohibition of
+child labor. The Knights of Labor also favored state ownership of
+telegraphs and railroads, as well as an eight hour working day. The
+purposes of the American Federation scarcely differed from this
+program, although its methods and its form of organization were quite
+distinct.
+
+At the present time, when most of these demands have been met in one
+degree or another, it is difficult to see why there should have been
+delay and contention in agreeing to a program which, so far as it
+deals with labor problems pure and simple, appears both modest and
+reasonable. But the state of mind of a large fraction of the nation
+was not in accord with ambitions which doubtless seemed excessively
+radical. Fundamentally a great portion of the propertied classes held
+a low estimate of the value and rights of the laboring people, as well
+as of the possibilities of their development, and feared that evil
+results would follow from attempts to improve their condition. The
+employment of children in factories, it was thought, would inculcate
+in them the needed habits of industry, and the reduction of the
+working hours would merely provide time which would be spent in the
+acquirement of vicious practices. If, in addition, the employers
+opposed such changes as the abolition of child labor and the reduction
+of the working day to eight hours on the ground of the financial
+sacrifice which seemed to be involved, their attitude was in keeping
+with the ruthless exploitation of the human resources of the country
+which was common during this period. It should be remembered, too,
+that the lofty conception which most Americans held of the
+opportunities and customs of their country stood in the way of a frank
+study of conditions and an equally frank admission of abuses. For
+decades we had reiterated that America was the land of opportunity,
+that economic, political and social equality were the foundations of
+American life and that the American workingman was the best fed and
+the best clothed workingman in the world. In the face of this view of
+industrial affairs it was difficult to be alert to manifold abuses and
+needed reforms. To one holding this view of affairs--and it was a
+common view--the laborer who demanded better conditions was
+unreasonable and unappreciative of how "well off" he was. Hence the
+blame for the labor unrest was frequently laid on the foreigner, who
+was supposed to bring to America the opposition to government which
+had been fostered in him by less democratic institutions abroad.
+Undoubtedly immigration greatly complicated industrial conditions, as
+has been indicated, yet essentially the labor question arose from the
+upward progress of a class in American society and was as inevitable,
+foreigner or no foreigner, as the coming of a new century.
+
+Two illustrations will throw light upon some of the demands which the
+wage earners frequently presented. Writing in August, 1886, Andrew
+Carnegie, the prominent steel manufacturer, discussed the proper
+length of the working day. Every ton of pig-iron made in the world,
+with the exception of that made in two establishments, he asserted,
+was made by men working twelve hours a day, with neither holiday nor
+Sunday the year round. Every two weeks it was the practice to change
+the day workers to the night shift and at that time the men labored
+twenty-four hours consecutively. Moreover, twelve to fifteen hours
+constituted a day's work in many other industries. Working hours for
+women and children had almost equally slight reference to their
+physical well-being.
+
+The "truck-system" was a less widespread abuse, but one that caused
+serious trouble at certain points. Under this plan, a corporation
+keeps a store at which employees are expected to trade, or are
+sometimes forced to do so. Obviously such a store might be operated to
+the great benefit of the workman and without loss to the employer, but
+the temptation to make an unfair profit and to keep the laborer always
+in debt to the company was very great. A congressional committee which
+investigated conditions in Pennsylvania in 1888 found that prices
+charged in company stores ran from ten per cent. to 160 per cent.
+higher than prices in other stores in the vicinity, and that a workman
+was more likely to keep his position if he traded with the company.
+
+The most insistent cause of industrial conflict was the question of
+wages. Forty-one per cent. of all the strikes between 1881 and 1900
+were for more pay; twenty-six per cent., for shorter hours. Between
+the close of the war and the early nineties, industrial prosperity was
+widespread except for the period of prostration following 1873 and the
+less important depression of 1884. Not unnaturally the laborer desired
+to have a larger share of the product of his work. The individual,
+however, was impotent before a great corporation, when the wage-scale
+was being determined; hence workmen found it advantageous to combine
+and bargain collectively with their employer, in the expectation that
+he would hesitate to risk the loss of all his laboring force, whereas
+the loss of one or a few would be a matter of indifference.
+
+In the meanwhile, a little ameliorative labor legislation was being
+passed by state legislatures and by Congress. A Massachusetts law of
+1866 forbade the employment of children under ten years of age in
+manufacturing establishments, prohibited the employment of children
+between the ages of ten and fourteen for more than eight hours per
+day, and provided that children who worked in factories must attend
+school at least six months in the year. In 1868 a federal act
+constituted eight hours a day's work for government laborers, workmen
+and mechanics, but some doubt arose as to the intent of part of it and
+the law was not enforced. In many states eight-hour bills were
+introduced, but were defeated in all except six, of which Connecticut,
+Illinois and California were examples, and even in these cases the
+laws were not properly drawn up or were not enforced. In 1869 a Bureau
+of Statistics of Labor was established in Massachusetts which led the
+way for similar enterprises in other states. It collected information
+concerning labor matters and reported annually to the legislature. In
+1874 a Massachusetts ten-hour law forbade the employment of women and
+minors under eighteen for more than sixty hours a week, although
+refraining from the regulation of working hours for men. In 1879, in
+imitation of English factory acts, Massachusetts passed a general law
+relating to the inspection of manufacturing establishments. It
+provided that dangerous machinery must be guarded, proper ventilation
+secured, elevator wells equipped with protective devices and
+fire-escapes constructed. Other states followed slowly, but
+legislation was frequently negatived by lack of effective
+administration. In brief, then, agitation previous to 1877 had
+resulted in the passage of a few protective acts, but even these were
+restricted to a few states and were not well enforced. It was,
+therefore, more than a mere coincidence that the first general strike
+movement spread over the country in this same year, 1877.
+
+It will be remembered that the great railroad strikes of that year
+extended over many of the northern roads but caused most trouble in
+Martinsburg, West Virginia, Pittsburg and other railway centers. Much
+property was destroyed, lives were lost, and the strikers failed to
+obtain their ends.[3] Other effects of the controversy, moreover,
+made it an important landmark in the history of the labor question.
+The inconvenience and suffering which the strike caused in cities far
+distant from the scene of actual conflict indicated that the
+transportation system was already so essential a factor in welding the
+country together that any interruption to its operation had become
+intolerable. The hostility of some of the railway managers to union
+among their laborers and the rumors that they were determined to crush
+such organizations augured ill for the future. The hordes of
+unemployed workmen and the swarms of tramps which had resulted from
+the continued industrial depression of 1873 insured rioting and
+violence during the strike, whether the strikers themselves favored it
+and shared in it or not. The destruction of property which resulted
+from the strike caused many state legislatures to pass conspiracy laws
+directed against labor; more attention was paid to the need of trained
+soldiers for putting down strikes, and the construction of many
+armories followed; and the courts took a more hostile attitude toward
+labor unions. Equally important was the effect on the workmen
+themselves. When the strike became violent and the state militia
+failed to check it, the strikers found themselves face to face with
+federal troops. President Hayes could not, of course, refuse to
+repress the rioters; nevertheless his action aligned the power of the
+central government against the strikers, and seemed to the latter to
+align the government against the laborers as a class. Of a sudden,
+then, the labor problem took on a new and vital interest; workingmen's
+parties "began to spring up like mushrooms"; and the laboring men saw
+more clearly than ever the essential unity of their interests.
+
+Industrial unrest increased rather than diminished during the
+prosperous eighties; for the first five years of the decade, strikes
+and lockouts together averaged somewhat over five hundred annually.
+The climax came in "the great upheaval" of 1884 to 1886.[4] In the
+latter year nearly 1600 controversies involved 610,024 men and a
+financial sacrifice estimated at $34,000,000. Early in May, 1886,
+occurred the memorable Haymarket affair in the city of Chicago. The
+city was a center of labor agitation, some of it peaceful, some of it
+in the hands of radical European anarchists whose methods were shown
+in a statement of one of their newspapers, _The Alarm_, on February
+21, 1885:
+
+    Dynamite! Of all the good stuff, this is the stuff. Stuff several
+    pounds of this sublime stuff into an inch pipe ... plug up both
+    ends, insert a cap with a fuse attached, place this in the
+    immediate neighborhood of a lot of rich loafers ... and light
+    the fuse. A most cheerful and gratifying result will follow.
+
+On May 1 strikes began for the purpose of obtaining an eight hour day.
+During the course of the strike some workmen gathered near the
+McCormick Reaper Works; the police approached, were stoned, and
+retorted by firing upon the strikers, killing four and wounding many
+others. Thereupon the men called a meeting in Haymarket Square to
+protest against the action of the police; in the main they were
+orderly, for Mayor Carter Harrison was present and found nothing
+objectionable. Later in the evening, when the Mayor and most of the
+audience had left, remarks of a violent nature seem to have been made,
+and at this point a force of 180 police marched forward and ordered the
+meeting to disperse. Just then a bomb was thrown into the midst of the
+police, killing seven and wounding many others. The entire nation was
+shocked and terrified by the event, as hitherto anarchy had seemed to
+be a far-away thing, the product of autocratic European governments.
+The thrower of the bomb could not be discovered, but numerous
+anarchists were found who themselves possessed such weapons or had
+urged violence in their speeches or writings. Eight of them, nearly all
+Germans, were tried for murder on the ground that the person who threw
+the bomb must have read the speeches or writings of the accused
+anarchists and have been thereby encouraged to do the act. The
+presiding judge, Joseph E. Gary, was of the opinion that the
+disposition in the guilty man to throw the bomb was the result of the
+teaching and advice of the prisoners. The counsel for the accused
+declared that since the guilty person could not be found it was
+impossible to know whether he had ever heard or read anything said or
+written by the prisoners, or been influenced by their opinions.
+Eventually seven anarchists were convicted, of whom four were hanged,
+one committed suicide, and three were imprisoned. In 1893 the Governor
+of Illinois, John P. Altgeld, pardoned the three prisoners, basing his
+action mainly on the ground that no proof had been brought forward to
+show that they were in any way acquainted with the unknown
+bomb-thrower. The result of the conviction was the break-up of the
+radical anarchistic movement and also the temporary discrediting of the
+general agitation for an eight hour day, although neither the Knights
+of Labor nor the Federation of Labor had any connection with the
+anarchists, and both deprecated violence.
+
+In the meanwhile, Congress had concerned itself slightly with the labor
+problem. In 1884 a Bureau of Labor had been established to collect
+information on the relation of labor and capital. Two years later, just
+before the Haymarket affair, President Cleveland had sent a message to
+Congress in which he adverted to the many disputes which had recently
+arisen between laborers and employers, and urged legislation to meet
+the exigency. Considerations of justice and safety, he thought,
+demanded that the workingmen as a class be looked upon as especially
+entitled to legislative care. Although Cleveland deprecated violence
+and condemned unjustifiable disturbance, he believed that the
+discontent among the employed was due largely to avarice on the part of
+the employing classes and to the feeling among workmen that the
+attention of the government was directed in an unfair degree to the
+interests of capital. On the other hand, he suggested that federal
+action was greatly limited by constitutional restrictions. He
+accordingly urged that the Bureau of Labor be enlarged and that
+permanent officers be appointed to act as a board of arbitration in
+industrial disputes. The legislative branch was not inclined to follow
+Cleveland's lead, although he returned to the subject after the
+Haymarket affair, for it was commonly felt that his suggestion was too
+great a step in the direction of centralization of government. Two
+years later, in 1888, a modest act was passed which provided for the
+investigation of differences between railroads and their employees, but
+only when agreed to by both parties, and no provision was made for the
+enforcement of the decision of the investigators. The practical results
+were not important. Similar action had already been taken in a few
+states. By 1895 fifteen states had laws providing for voluntary
+arbitration, but the results were slight in most cases.
+
+Very little progress was being made in the states in the passage of
+other industrial legislation. In Alabama and Massachusetts in the
+middle eighties acts extended and regulated the liability of employers
+for personal injuries suffered by laborers while at work.[5] At the
+same time the attitude of the legislatures and the courts in some
+states toward strikes underwent a slight modification. In many states
+where the legislatures had not passed definite statutes to the
+contrary, it had been held by the courts that strikers could be tried
+and convicted for conspiracy. In a few cases, states passed acts
+attempting to define more exactly the legal position of strikers. A New
+York court in 1887, for example, held that the law of the state
+permitted workmen to seek an increase of wages by all possible means
+that fell short of threats or violence. Before the close of Cleveland's
+second administration, considerable progress had been made in state
+legislation concerning conditions and hours of labor for women and
+children, protection of workers from dangerous machinery, the payment
+of wages, employer's liability for accidents to workmen, and other
+subjects. On the other hand, in some cases unreasonable or
+ill-considered actions on the part of the unions or their active
+agents--the "walking delegates"--turned popular sentiment against them.
+Particularly was this true in cases of violence and of strikes or
+boycotts by unions in support of workmen in other trades at far distant
+points.
+
+During the presidential campaign of 1892 a violent strike at the
+Carnegie Steel Company's works in Homestead, Pennsylvania, arose from a
+reduction in wages and a refusal of the Company to recognize the Iron
+and Steel Workers' Union. An important feature of this disturbance was
+the use of armed Pinkerton detectives by the Company for the protection
+of its buildings. Armed with rifles they fell into conflict with the
+workmen, a miniature military campaign was carried on, lives were lost
+and large amounts of property destroyed. Eventually the entire militia
+of the state had to be called out to maintain peace.
+
+It remained, however, for Chicago and the year 1894 to present one of
+the most far-reaching, costly and complex labor upheavals that has ever
+disturbed industrial relations in America. So ill understood at the
+time were the real facts of the controversy that it is doubtful whether
+it is possible even now to distinguish between truth and rumor in
+regard to some of its aspects.
+
+The town of Pullman, near Chicago, was the home of the Pullman Palace
+Car Company, a prosperous corporation with a capital of $36,000,000. It
+provided houses for its employees, kept up open stretches of lawn,
+flower beds and lakes. In 1893 and 1894, when general business
+conditions were bad, the Company reduced the wages of its workmen about
+twenty-five per cent. A committee of the men asked for a return to
+former rates, but they were refused, three members of the committee
+were laid off, and the employees then struck. Late in June, 1894, the
+American Railway Union, to which many of the workmen belonged, took up
+the side of the men, and the General Managers' Association, comprising
+officials of twenty-four roads entering Chicago, took the side of the
+Company. Through the entry of the Union and the Association, the
+relatively unimportant Pullman affair expanded to large proportions.
+Violence followed; cars were tipped over and burned; property was
+stolen and tracks ruined; and eventually the United States government
+was drawn into the controversy.
+
+Numerous complaints having reached Washington that the mails were being
+obstructed and interstate commerce interfered with, President Cleveland
+decided to send troops to Chicago. The Constitution requires that the
+United States protect states against domestic violence on the application
+of the legislature, or of the executive when the legislature is not
+in session. Moreover the statutes of the United States empower the
+President to use federal force to execute federal laws. The position
+taken by the Governor of Illinois, John P. Altgeld, was expressed in
+his telegram to President Cleveland protesting against the action of
+the executive:
+
+    Should the situation at any time get so serious that we cannot
+    control it with the State forces, we will promptly and freely ask
+    for Federal assistance; but until such time I protest with all due
+    deference against this uncalled-for reflection upon our people,
+    and again ask for the immediate withdrawal of these troops.
+
+The President replied that troops were being sent in accordance with
+federal law upon complaint that commerce and the passage of the mails
+were being obstructed. A somewhat acrimonious correspondence between
+the Governor and the President resulted but the troops were retained
+and assisted in bringing the strike to a conclusion.
+
+The attitude of the courts, meanwhile, had brought up a serious
+situation. On July 2 a "blanket injunction" was issued by the United
+States District Court of Illinois and posted on the sides of the cars.
+It forbade officers, members of the Union and all other persons to
+interfere in any way with the operation of trains or to force or
+persuade employees to refuse to perform their duties. Under existing
+law, anybody who disobeyed the injunction could be brought before the
+Court for contempt, and sentenced by the judge without opportunity to
+bring witnesses and to be tried before a jury. When Eugene V. Debs, the
+president of the Union, and other officers continued to direct the
+strike they were arrested for contempt of court and imprisoned.[6]
+With federal troops against them and their officers gone, the strikers
+could hardly continue and gave up in defeat. The loss in property and
+wages had already reached $80,000,000.
+
+The apportionment of the blame for so appalling a controversy was not a
+simple task. On the one hand, a writer in the _Forum_ declared that
+
+    The one great question was of the ability of this Government to
+    suppress insurrection. On the one, side was the party of lawlessness,
+    of murder, of incendiarism, and of defiance of authority. On the
+    other side was the party of loyalty to the United States.
+
+But this was a superficial view. A commission of investigation
+appointed by President Cleveland looked into the matter more deeply.
+Its unanimous report made important assertions: the Pullman Company,
+while providing a beautiful town for its employees, charged rents
+twenty to twenty-five per cent. higher than were charged in surrounding
+towns for similar accommodations, and the men felt a compulsion to
+reside in the houses if they wished to retain their positions; when
+wages were reduced, the salaries of the better paid officers were
+untouched, so that the burden of the hard times was placed on the
+poorest paid employees; there was no violence or destruction of
+property in Pullman, and much of the rowdyism in Chicago, but not all
+of it was due to the lawless adventurers and professional criminals who
+filled the city at that time;[7] when various public officials and
+organizations attempted to get the Company to arbitrate the dispute,
+the uniform reply was that the points at issue were matters of fact and
+hence not proper subjects for arbitration; and the Managers'
+Association selected, armed and paid 3,600 federal deputy marshals who
+acted both as railroad employees and as United States officers, under
+the direction of the Managers.
+
+In view of the amount of labor disturbance after the Civil War, it was
+noteworthy that it attracted the interest of political parties to so
+slight a degree previous to 1896. In general the national platforms of
+the two large parties reflected an indefinite if not remote concern
+with the welfare of the wage earner. It was urged, to be sure, by both
+protectionists and tariff reformers that customs duties should be
+framed with the welfare of the laborer in mind, but the sincerity of
+this concern was sometimes open to question. The smaller parties, as
+usual, were far less vague in their demands. The Labor Reformers in
+1872 demanded the eight-hour day, for example; the Greenbackers had a
+definite program for relief in 1880; the Anti-Monopolists in 1884 and
+the Union Labor and the United Labor parties in 1888. By 1892 the great
+parties found themselves face to face with a growing labor vote. The
+labor planks in the two platforms of that year were strikingly similar.
+Each called for federal legislation to protect the employees of
+transportation companies, but looked to the states for the relief of
+employees engaged in manufacturing. Neither the Socialist Labor party
+nor the Populists, however, were greatly troubled by the question of
+the proper distribution between state and nation of the responsibility
+for the welfare of the wage earner. Both proposed definite action; both
+urged the reduction in length of the working day. The Populists
+condemned the use of Pinkertons in labor disputes and the Socialists
+urged arbitration, the prohibition of child labor, restrictions on the
+employment of women in unhealthful industries, employers' liability
+laws and the protection of life and limb.
+
+In brief, then, the situation of the wage-earning classes in the middle
+nineties was becoming accurately defined. The strike as a weapon was
+open to serious objections. The leaders of the two large parties had
+given no evidence of an effective and immediate interest in labor
+unrest. The other political parties were too small to afford chances of
+success. If less reliance was to be placed upon the strike and more
+upon political action, either a third party must be constructed or the
+leadership in one of the old ones must be seized. When the conference
+of labor officials met in Chicago and concluded that the Pullman strike
+was lost, it issued an address to the members of the American Railway
+Union advising a return to work, closer organization of the laboring
+class and the correction of industrial wrongs at the ballot box. If
+this advice should be taken, and if the wage earner should attempt to
+control legislation for his economic interest, as the propertied class
+had long been doing for its benefit, the struggle might be shifted to
+the political arena. The interest of the workers in the South and West
+in the Populist movement suggested the possibility that such a shift
+might occur.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+Surprisingly little attention has been paid to the social aspects of
+the growth of the laboring classes before 1896. There is ample
+material, however, on the more obvious sides of the labor movement,
+such as the growth of the organizations and the use of the strike.
+
+The _Documentary History of American Industrial Society_ (10 vols.,
+1910-1911), contains a little documentary material on the period after
+1865; J.R. Commons and others, _History of Labour in the United States_
+(2 vols., 1918), is the best and most recent historical account; T.S.
+Adams and H.L. Sumner, _Labor Problems_ (1905), is useful; consult also
+R.T. Ely, _Labor Movement in America_ (3rd ed., 1890); C.D. Wright,
+_The Industrial Evolution of the United States_ (1897), by a practical
+expert; G.E. McNeill, _The Labor Movement_ (1887); J.R. Buchanan,
+_Story of a Labor Agitator_ (1903); S.P. Orth, _The Armies of Labor_
+(1919), contains a good bibliography; John Mitchell, _Organized Labor_
+(1903); T.V. Powderly, _Thirty Years of Labor_ (1890); _Quarterly
+Journal of Economics_ (Jan., 1887), Knights of Labor; J.H. Bridge,
+_Inside History of the Carnegie Steel Co._ (1903). On the Haymarket
+affair, compare _Century Magazine_ (Apr., 1893), and J.P. Altgeld,
+_Reasons for Pardoning Fielden, Neebe and Schwab_; on the Pullman
+strike, Grover Cleveland, _Presidential Problems_, and the report of
+the commission of investigation in Senate Executive Documents, 53rd
+Congress, 3rd session, vol. 2 (Serial Number 3276). Edward Stanwood,
+_History of the Presidency_, contains political platform planks on
+labor. The reports of the Commissioner of Labor (1886-), and of the
+state bureaus of statistics of labor in such states as Massachusetts
+(1870-), and New York (1884-), are essential for the investigator.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Cf. above, p. 64
+
+[2] Two earlier organizations had a brief existence, the National
+Labor Union and the Industrial Brotherhood.
+
+[3] Above, pp. 133-134.
+
+[4] For the effect on the Knights of Labor, see p. 310.
+
+[5] For the legal side of this matter, consult Wright, _Industrial
+Evolution_, 278-282.
+
+[6] The Court based its action mainly on the provisions of Section 2
+of the Sherman anti-trust law, which thus had an unforeseen effect. The
+Supreme Court upheld the action, although on broader grounds. Above, p.
+256, cf. 159 _U.S. Reports_, 564.
+
+[7] In 1893 the "World's Fair" in Chicago had celebrated the four
+hundredth anniversary of the landing of Columbus, and many of the
+criminals attracted by the event had remained in the city.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+MONETARY AND FINANCIAL PROBLEMS
+
+The critical monetary and financial situation during Cleveland's second
+administration is understandable only in the light of a series of acts
+which were passed between 1878 and 1893. It will be remembered that in
+the former year the Bland-Allison act had provided for the purchase and
+coinage of two million to four million dollars' worth of silver bullion
+per month, and that the force behind the measure had been found chiefly
+among westerners who wished to see the volume of the currency increased
+and among mine owners who were producing silver.
+
+The passage of the law did not end all opposition to the greater use of
+silver, nor did it solve all our monetary difficulties. In the first
+place, the United States sent delegates to an International Monetary
+Conference in Paris, in conformity with one of the provisions of the
+Bland-Allison act, to discuss a project for the utilization of silver
+through an agreement among the commercial nations of the world. No
+tangible results were obtained, however, so that it was plain that for
+the time, at least, the United States would be alone in its attempt to
+bring about the greater use of the white metal. In the meantime the law
+was put into operation, and the secretary of the treasury exercised his
+option by purchasing the minimum amount, two million dollars' worth of
+bullion. It was impossible to keep the coins in circulation, however,
+mainly because of their weight, and the policy was therefore adopted
+of storing part of the silver in the government vaults and issuing
+paper "silver certificates" in its place. As these were of small
+denominations and circulated on a par with gold, no immediate
+difficulty was experienced in making them part of the currency supply
+of the country.
+
+The currency question, nevertheless, remained as complicated as ever
+and the differences of opinion upon it as diverse as before. The market
+price of silver steadily declined through the eighties and the bullion
+value of the metal in a dollar sank from ninety-three cents in 1878 to
+less than seventy-one cents in 1889. Both Republican and Democratic
+secretaries of the treasury gave warning that the inflow of silver into
+the currency supply was too great. President Arthur urged the repeal of
+the Bland-Allison act in his first annual message; President Cleveland
+again and again reiterated the same advice, warning Congress of the
+danger that silver would be substituted for gold. The argument of the
+opponents of silver could hardly be stated in more concise or complete
+terms. As soon as the supply of currency became too great, he asserted,
+the unnecessary portion would go out of circulation;[1] it was the
+experience of nations that the more desirable coin--gold, in this
+case--would be hoarded by banks and speculators; it would then become
+apparent that the bullion value of the gold dollar was greater than
+that of the silver dollar and the two coins would part company; those
+who, in such a contingency, could get gold dollars would demand a
+premium for them, while the laboring man, unable to demand gold, would
+find his silver dollar sadly shrunken in value.
+
+Although the coinage of silver in the twelve years during which the
+Bland-Allison act was in force amounted to $378,000,000, the danger
+that Cleveland's prophecy would come to pass was lessened by several
+facts. The country was, in the first place, passing through a period of
+industrial expansion that required an enlarged circulating medium; the
+revenues of the government were exceeding expenditures, and part of the
+surplus was being stored in the vaults in Washington; and the volume of
+the national bank notes shrank more than $158,000,000 between 1880 and
+1890. Falling prices for agricultural products continued to keep
+western discontent alive and far from being convinced by Cleveland's
+warnings, western conventions and representatives in Congress continued
+to urge legislation to increase the amount of silver to be coined, and
+free-coinage bills were constantly introduced and frequently near
+passage. Manifestly the demand that something more be done for silver
+was not at an end.
+
+Although agitation over the use of silver currency resulted in no
+further important legislation for the time being, the general financial
+situation was complicated by a series of important acts. During the
+eighties the federal revenues mounted to an unprecedented height and as
+expenses did not increase proportionately, a surplus of large and
+finally of embarrassing and dangerous size appeared.
+
+[Illustration:
+Financial Operations, 1875-1897 in millions]
+
+Between 1880 and 1890 it averaged more than $100,000,000 annually.
+Although part of it was used to reduce the public debt, the remainder
+began to accumulate in the treasury and thereby seriously reduced the
+amount of currency available for the ordinary needs of business. In
+1888, for example, the surplus in the treasury was one-fourth as great
+as the entire estimated sum outside. The one device for doing away with
+the surplus upon which all leaders could unite was the reduction of the
+national debt. Between 1879 and 1890 over $1,000,000,000 were thus
+disposed of. Yet even this process raised difficulties. Although a
+portion of the debt came due in 1881 and could be redeemed at the
+pleasure of the government, other bonds were not redeemable until 1891
+and 1907, unless the federal authorities chose to go into the market
+and buy at a premium. Eventually this was done for a time, although
+prices were thereby forced up to 130 in 1888, and as a result the
+redemption of $95,000,000 during the year cost more than $112,000,000.
+The treasury also adopted the expedient of depositing surplus funds in
+banking institutions, but the plan was open to serious objections. In
+order to qualify for receiving government deposits the banks had to
+present United States bonds as security, but these were already at a
+high premium because of purchase by the treasury itself. There
+remained, therefore, two general policies which might be
+followed--reduction of revenue or enlargement of expenditure.
+
+Both parties were theoretically committed to the economical conduct of
+the nation's business, but Republican advocacy of a high tariff tended
+to restrict that party's answer to the surplus problem. The revenue
+came largely from tariff and internal taxes. The latter were reduced,
+as has been seen, by the tariff act of 1883, but the redundant income
+continued. The Republicans then faced the alternative of lowering the
+customs or turning to the policy of increased expenditure. The latter
+policy would delay the reduction of duties and was in line with the
+Republican tendency toward increased federal activity. For the
+Democrats the problem was easier. Since the party was tending toward
+advocacy of low customs duties, had constantly condemned Republican
+extravagance in administration and was traditionally the party of a
+restricted national authority, it was logical to turn to severe
+reduction of revenue in order to solve the problem of the surplus.
+
+President Cleveland's political and personal philosophy led toward
+economy in expenditure and therefore toward revenue reduction. By
+nature he was frugal; in politics, a strict constructionist. In vetoing
+an appropriation bill he succinctly set forth his creed:
+
+    A large surplus in the Treasury is the parent of many ills, and
+    among them is found a tendency to an extremely liberal, if not
+    loose, construction of the Constitution. It also attracts the gaze
+    of States and individuals with a kind of fascination, and gives
+    rise to plans and pretensions that an uncongested Treasury never
+    could excite.
+
+The Republicans were becoming committed to the policy of large
+expenditures. President Harrison, to be sure, in his first annual
+message urged the reduction of receipts, declaring that the collection
+of money not needed for public use imposed an unnecessary burden upon
+the people and that the presence of a large surplus in the treasury was
+a disturbing element in the conduct of private business. Nevertheless
+such party leaders as Reed and McKinley, who effectively controlled the
+legislation of the Harrison administration, acted on the philosophy of
+Senator Dolph:
+
+    If we were to take our eyes off the increasing surplus in the
+    Treasury and stop bemoaning the prosperity of the country, ... and
+    to devote our energies to the development of the great resources
+    which the Almighty has placed in our hands, to increasing (our
+    products) ... to cheapening transportation by the improving of our
+    rivers and harbors, ... we would act wiser than we do.
+
+Congress was more inclined to follow the policy suggested by Dolph than
+that proposed by Cleveland. One project was the return of the direct
+tax which had been levied on the states at the outbreak of the Civil
+War. At that time Congress had laid a tax of $20,000,000 apportioned
+among the states according to population. About $15,000,000 had been
+collected, mainly, of course, from the northern states. It was
+suggested that the levy be returned, a plan which would give the
+northern states a return in actual cash and the southern states "the
+empty enjoyment of the remission from a tax which no one now dared to
+suggest was ever to be made good." President Cleveland had vetoed such
+a bill, during his first administration, believing it unconstitutional
+and also objectionable as a "sheer, bald gratuity." Under the Harrison
+administration the scheme was revived and carried to completion, March
+2, 1891.
+
+Pension legislation was even more successful as a method of reducing
+the unwieldy surplus. Garfield had declared in 1872, when introducing
+an appropriation bill in the House of Representatives, "We may
+reasonably expect that the expenditures for pensions will hereafter
+steadily decrease, unless our legislation should be unwarrantably
+extravagant," and in fact the cost of pensions for 1878 had been lower
+by more than $7,000,000 than in 1871. The Arrears act of 1879 had given
+a decided upward tendency to pension expense, which amounted to over
+$20,000,000 more in 1880 than in 1879. The surplus was a constant
+invitation to careless generosity. Liberality to the veteran was a
+patriotic duty which lent itself to the fervid stump oratory of the
+time and presented an opportunity to the undeserving applicant to place
+his name on the rolls of pensioners along with his more worthy
+associates. Besides, an administration which seemed niggardly in its
+attitude toward the veterans was certain to lose the soldier vote, and
+neither party was willing to incur such a risk. Hence, despite
+Cleveland's vetoes of private pension legislation, hundreds of such
+measures passed during his first term. The Harrison administration
+proceeded upon the President's theory that it "was no time to be
+weighing the claims of old soldiers with apothecary's scales." A
+dependent pension bill like that which President Cleveland vetoed in
+1887 was passed in 1890. The list of pensioners more than doubled in
+length; the number of applications for aid increased tenfold in two
+years. It became necessary for President Harrison to displace his
+over-liberal commissioner of pensions, but the mischief was already
+done. The total yearly pension expenditure quickly mounted beyond the
+one hundred million mark, where it has remained ever since. Indeed, the
+cost of pensions in 1872 when Garfield made his prophecy was less than
+one-sixth as great as in 1913. Large pension expenditure was clearly a
+permanent charge.
+
+The improvement of the rivers and harbors of the country has always
+been a ready means of disposing of any embarrassing surplus and of
+assisting Congressmen to get money into their districts. "Promoters of
+all sorts of schemes, beggars for the widening of rivulets, the
+deepening of rills" clustered about the treasury during the eighties.
+During the early seventies expenditure on this account had not reached
+$6,500,000 annually, although in 1879 it exceeded $8,000,000. In 1882,
+the year of the mammoth surplus, Congress passed over Arthur's veto a
+bill carrying appropriations which amounted to almost nineteen million
+dollars.[2] Expenditures were somewhat reduced in the years
+immediately following, and Cleveland continued the repressive policy of
+his predecessor. Harrison in his first message to Congress in December,
+1889, recommended appropriations for river and harbor improvement,
+although deprecating the prosecution of works not of public advantage.
+The recommendation fell upon willing ears and appropriations for
+undertakings of this sort at once increased again. Expenditure for
+rivers and harbors, like that for pensions, remained at a high level,
+the wise and necessary portions of such measures being relied upon to
+carry the unwise and unnecessary ones.
+
+A project which lacked many of the unpleasant features of river and
+harbor legislation was the Blair educational bill, which proposed to
+distribute a considerable portion of the surplus among the states. As
+discussion of the Blair bill proceeded, it became clear that its
+results might be more far-reaching than had been anticipated. A gift
+from the national government seemed sure to retard local efforts at
+raising school funds and would initiate a vicious tendency to rely on
+federal bounty. Hence although the Senate passed the bill in 1884, 1886
+and 1888, it never commended itself sufficiently to the House and
+eventually was dropped.
+
+A small portion of the increased expenditure in the eighties was due to
+improvements in the navy, in which both parties shared. Presidents
+Arthur and Cleveland urged upon Congress the need of modern defences.
+Progress was slow and difficult. Although the day of steel ships had
+come, the American navy was composed of wooden relics of earlier days.
+The manufacture of armor and of large guns had to be developed, and
+skill and experience accumulated. Results began to appear in the late
+eighties when the number of modern steel war vessels increased from
+three to twenty-two in four years. Expenditures mounted from less than
+$14,000,000 in 1880 to over $22,000,000 in 1890.
+
+As effective as new expenditure was the McKinley tariff act of 1890,
+the details of which from the point of view of tariff history have
+already been noted.[3] The extremely high rates levied under that
+legislation caused a slight reduction in customs revenue in 1891 and a
+sharp decline in 1892. Moreover the coincidence of instability in the
+currency system, business depression and the relatively high
+Wilson-Gorman tariff schedules of 1894 continued the decline of income
+from customs during the middle nineties.
+
+In the meantime the silver agitation, which had been somewhat repressed
+by the well-known attitude of Cleveland during his first administration
+revived with increased vigor. The election of 1888, it will be
+remembered, had turned wholly on the tariff and had been a victory for
+the Republicans. The western states had almost uniformly supported
+Harrison in the election and during 1889 four more were admitted to the
+Union. Their representatives in Congress were mainly silver advocates.
+In his first message to Congress the President declared that the evil
+anticipations which had accompanied the use of the silver dollar had
+not been realized but he feared nevertheless that either free coinage
+or any "considerable increase" of the present rate of coinage would be
+"disastrous" and "discreditable." He announced that a plan would be
+presented by the Secretary of the Treasury, to which he had been able
+to give only a hasty examination. The scheme for expanding the silver
+coinage which the Secretary, William Windom, presented was not
+acceptable to Congress, but the result of the agitation was the law
+generally known as the Sherman silver purchase act, which was passed on
+July 14, 1890. It directed the secretary of the treasury to purchase
+4,500,000 ounces of silver bullion per month and to issue in payment
+"Treasury notes of the United States." These notes were legal tender
+for all debts and were receivable for customs and all public dues.
+Further, the secretary was directed to redeem the notes in gold or
+silver at his discretion, "it being the established policy of the
+United States to maintain the two metals on a parity with each other."
+
+[Illustration:
+Total Silver Coinage, 1873-1894, in millions of dollars]
+
+The silver to be purchased was substantially the total output of the
+American mines. Fearing the strength of the silver element in the
+Senate and doubtful of the position which the President might take,
+former Secretary Sherman, now in the Senate, supported the act,
+although confessing that he was ready to vote for repeal at any time
+when it could be done without substituting free coinage. The provision
+for the purchase of four and one-half million ounces instead of four
+and one-half million dollars' worth was introduced at Sherman's
+suggestion. This clause kept the amount to be absorbed at a uniform
+level, whereas the purchase of a fixed number of dollars' worth would
+have increased the coinage when the price of bullion fell. The vote on
+the Sherman act was strictly partisan--no Republicans opposing it and
+no Democrats favoring it when the measure was finally passed, although
+116 members of the House failed to answer to their names on the
+roll-call.
+
+In view of the fact that the industrial and commercial countries of
+Europe were almost universally reducing their silver coinage, the
+passage by the United States of an act which substantially doubled
+the amount of silver purchased under the Bland-Allison law seems
+extraordinary. Moreover, only six years later a presidential campaign
+was fought almost wholly on the silver issue and at that time the
+Republican party resolutely opposed free coinage. It is obvious that
+powerful forces must have been at work to align the party so unitedly
+in behalf of the Sherman law. It was to be expected that western
+Republicans would support it, but the eastern members were found
+voting for it as well. Doubtless many things contributed to the
+result. Some perhaps agreed with Sherman that the silver advocates
+were so strong that free coinage would result in case Congress refused
+to pass legislation of any kind. Some may have feared with Platt of
+Connecticut, that a party split would ensue unless the wishes of the
+westerners were acceded to--hence an act which gave liberal assistance
+to silver to please the West and South but stopped short of free
+coinage so as to please the East. That opportunist politics had an
+influence with certain members is indicated by the remarks of a
+Massachusetts Republican representative who later favored the gold
+standard:
+
+    It is pure politics, gentlemen; that is all there is about it.
+    We Republicans want to come back and we do not want you (to
+    the Democratic side) to come back in the majority, because,
+    on the whole, you must excuse us for thinking we are better
+    fellows than you are. That is human nature, that is all there
+    is in this silver bill (laughter on the Republican side); pure
+    politics.
+
+A Democrat who favored free coinage denounced the act as "Janus-Faced,"
+moulded so as to look like silver to the West and gold to the East.
+Important, also, seems to have been the attitude of the western members
+on the tariff. The party had returned to power on the tariff issue and
+it seemed necessary to pass some sort of legislation on the subject.
+Yet the party majority in Senate and House was slight and the
+westerners were understood to be ready to defeat the McKinley bill
+which was then pending, unless something was done for silver. Harrison
+seems to have been unwilling to endanger successful tariff legislation
+by opposing the considerable extension of the coinage of silver.[4]
+
+Contrary to the expectations of the proponents of the act, the price of
+silver fell gradually until the value of the bullion in a dollar was
+sixty cents in 1893 and forty-nine cents in 1894. They who had opposed
+the law saw their fears verified; as they had prophesied, silver began
+to replace gold in circulation; the latter was hoarded and used for
+foreign shipments; customs duties, which had hitherto been paid largely
+in gold, were now paid in paper currency; since gold was now more
+desired than silver, large amounts of paper were presented to the
+government for redemption in the more valuable metal. To be sure, the
+Sherman law allowed the secretary of the treasury to redeem the
+treasury notes of 1890 in gold or silver at his discretion, but it
+contained a proviso that the established policy of the United States
+was to maintain the two metals on a parity or equality. The secretary
+believed that if he refused to redeem the treasury notes in whatever
+coin the holder desired, that is if he insisted on redemption in silver
+only, a discrimination would be made in favor of gold and the equality
+of the two metals would be destroyed. Parity would be maintained, the
+government held, only when any kind of money could be exchanged for any
+other kind, at the option of the holder.
+
+For the redemption of the greenbacks, the government had since 1879
+maintained a fund known as the gold reserve. No law fixed its amount,
+but custom had set $100,000,000 as the minimum. Hitherto a negligible
+amount of paper had been presented for redemption, but as soon as the
+Sherman law came into effective operation the demand for gold became
+increasingly great and the level of the reserve promptly fell. Between
+July 1, 1890, and July 15, 1893, the supply of gold in the treasury
+decreased more than $132,000,000, while the stock of silver increased
+over $147,000,000. Evidently silver was replacing gold in the treasury,
+and it was equally clear that a continuation of the process would
+result in forcing the government to pay its obligations in silver and
+to refuse to redeem paper in gold--in other words, go upon a silver
+standard.
+
+The situation when Cleveland's second administration began on March 4,
+1893, was complex and critical. The annual expenditures had increased
+by $119,000,000 between 1880 and 1893, while the revenue had expanded
+by only half that amount; the surplus had decreased every year during
+Harrison's administration and a deficit had been avoided only by the
+cessation of payments on the public debt; the supply of currency in
+circulation was being heavily increased by the operation of the Sherman
+law; and the gold reserve had been kept at the traditional amount only
+through extraordinary efforts on the part of Harrison's Secretary of
+the Treasury as the administration came to a close.
+
+Cleveland's attitude toward the Sherman law was well-known. He had long
+urged the repeal of the Bland-Allison act; before the election of 1892
+he had predicted disaster in case the nation entered upon "the
+dangerous and reckless experiment of free, unlimited, and independent
+silver coinage"; it was his belief that the distresses under which the
+country labored were due principally to the Sherman silver purchase
+law. He therefore called a special session of Congress for August 7,
+(1893), sent a message giving a succinct account of the operation of
+the law and urged its immediate repeal.[5] In the House, repeal was
+voted with surprising promptness, although a strong free-silver element
+fought vigorously to prevent it. That party lines were broken was
+indicated by the fact that two-thirds of the Democrats and four-fifth
+of the Republicans voted in accord with the President's request.
+
+In the Senate the silver advocates were stronger. The entire history of
+coinage was discussed at length. Members who favored repeal disliked to
+overturn the tradition of the Senate which allowed unlimited debate,
+and the silver senators therefore filibustered through the summer and
+early fall. Senator Jones of Nevada made a single speech that filled a
+hundred dreary pages of the _Congressional Record_. Senator Allen of
+Nebraska quoted more than thirty authorities, ranging from the Pandects
+of Justinian to enlivening doggerel poetry. Feeling ran high. In the
+West, Jones, Allen and others were looked upon as heroes; in the East,
+as villains. To a satirical onlooker it seemed that the nation had
+become insanely obsessed with the question of repeal:
+
+    All men of virtue and intelligence know that all the ills of
+    life--scarcity of money, baldness, the comma bacillus, Home
+    Rule, ... and the Potato Bug--are due to the Sherman Bill. If it
+    is repealed, sin and death will vanish from the world, ... the
+    skies will fall, and we shall all catch larks.
+
+Not until October 30 were the silver supporters overcome. Including
+members who were paired, twenty-two Democrats and twenty-six
+Republicans favored repeal, and twenty-two Democrats, twelve
+Republicans and three Populists opposed. Again the West and South were
+aligned against the North and East. The Democratic party was divided
+and charges and countercharges had been made that augured ill for party
+success, as has been seen, in dealing with the tariff and other
+important problems.[6] Worst of all, the chief question--the volume
+and content of the currency--was still unanswered. Something had been
+done for silver--and undone--but there was no scientific settlement of
+the problem.
+
+The disastrous financial and industrial crisis of 1893 made yet more
+complex the already tangled skein of economic history during President
+Cleveland's second administration. The catastrophe has been ascribed to
+a variety of causes but the relative importance of the various factors
+is still a matter of disagreement. Rash speculation on the part of
+industrial interests here and abroad seems to have made weak links in
+the international commercial chain; financial conditions both in
+Germany and in Great Britain were precarious during the early part of
+1890; the collapse of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad in
+February, 1893, and of the National Cordage Company soon afterwards
+were warnings of what was to follow; the silver purchase law produced
+widespread fear that the United States would not be able to continue
+the redemption of paper currency; and the change of political control
+had produced the usual feeling of uncertainty. The dwindling of the
+gold reserve, which has already been mentioned, assisted in causing a
+critical situation. Foreign investors, fearful of financial conditions
+here, sold their American railroad and other securities and received
+payment in gold. The one place where the yellow metal could be readily
+obtained was the United States treasury and upon it the strain
+centered. People attempted to turn property of all kinds into gold
+before the existing standard should change to a depreciated silver
+basis. At the same time there was a rush to the banks to withdraw
+funds, and the visible supply of currency therefore was seriously
+reduced. "Under these conditions gold seemed scarce. In reality gold
+was only relatively scarce in comparison with the abnormal offering of
+property for sale on account of the fear of the silver standard." In an
+incredibly short time, currency became so scarce as to create a genuine
+panic and was purchased like any commodity at premiums ranging from one
+to three per cent. In order to enable their families to pay the running
+expenses of every day at the summer resorts, business men were
+compelled to buy bills and coin and send them in express packages. The
+national banks were unable to supply the demand for currency so
+quickly, and 158 of them failed in 1893 and hundreds of state and
+private financial institutions were forced to close their doors.
+Industrial firms were affected by the uncertainty and panic and over
+15,000 failures resulted, with liabilities amounting to $347,000,000 in
+the single year. Production of coal and iron fell sharply; railway
+construction nearly ceased and the value of securities shrank to a
+fraction of their former value. The distress among the wage-earners
+became extreme; unemployment was common; strikes, like that beginning
+in Pullman in 1894, were bitter and prolonged. "Coxey's army," composed
+of unemployed workmen, marched to Washington with a petition for
+relief.
+
+As is usually the case in our politics, the blame for the industrial
+disturbance was laid at the door of the party in power. The argument of
+an Ohio congressman in the debate over the repeal of the Sherman law
+typified the political use made of the crisis of 1893. Until November,
+1892, the orator declared, prosperity was undimmed. "Iron furnaces
+throughout the country were in full blast, and their cheerful light was
+going up to heaven notifying the people of the United States of
+existing prosperity and warning them against change of conditions."
+Then came the election of the party "which had declared war on the
+system upon which our whole industrial fabric had been erected." "One
+by one the furnaces went out, one by one the mines closed up, one after
+another the factories shortened their time." Business interests, he
+asserted, were fearful of Democratic rule and especially of tariff
+reform; hence prosperity and confidence could be renewed only by
+leaving the Sherman law intact and by refusing to undertake any
+sweeping revision of the protective tariff.
+
+[Illustration:
+Net Gold in the Treasury, by months,
+Jan., 1883 to Feb., 1896, in millions of dollars]
+
+Further to complicate the financial trials of the burdensome mid-nineties,
+the depletion of the gold reserve demanded immediate attention. During
+the closing months of President Harrison's administration, in fact, the
+Secretary of the Treasury had ordered the preparation of plates for
+engraving an issue of bonds by which to borrow sufficient gold to
+replenish the redemption fund. By a personal appeal to New York bankers,
+however, he was able to exchange paper for gold and so keep the level
+above the one hundred million mark, and when Cleveland succeeded to
+the chair, the reserve was $100,982,410. In the meantime the scarcity
+of gold continued, and the combination of large expenditures and
+slender income severely embarrassed the government in its attempts to
+obtain a sufficient supply of gold to keep the reserve intact. The
+administration, indeed, was all but helpless. Paper presented for
+redemption in gold had to be paid out to meet expenses and was then
+turned in for gold again. Hence, as Cleveland ruefully reminded
+Congress, "we have an endless chain in operation constantly depleting
+the Treasury's gold and never near a final rest." On April 22, 1893,
+the reserve fell momentarily below $100,000,000 and later in the year
+it was apparent that the reduction was likely to become permanent.
+By January, 1894, the reserve was less than $70,000,000, while
+$450,000,000 in paper which might be presented for redemption were in
+actual circulation. Only one resource seemed available--borrowing gold.
+The treasury therefore sold bonds to the value of $50,000,000. Even
+this, however, did not remedy the ill. Bankers obtained gold to
+purchase bonds by presenting paper currency to the government for
+redemption. Relief was temporary. On the last day of May the reserve
+amounted to only $79,000,000; in November, to $59,000,000. Another
+issue of bonds was resorted to in November, but the results were not
+better than before. At the same time the Pullman strike during the
+summer months, the Wilson-Gorman tariff fiasco and an unfortunate
+harvest seemed to indicate that man and nature were determined to make
+1894 a year of ill-omen.
+
+By February, 1895, the treasury found itself confronted with a reserve
+of only $41,000,000. It seemed useless to attempt borrowing under the
+usual conditions, and Cleveland therefore resorted to a new device. A
+contract was made with J.P. Morgan and a group of bankers for the
+purchase of 3,500,000 ounces of gold to be paid for with United States
+four per cent. bonds. In order to protect the reserve from a renewed
+drain, the bankers agreed that at least half the gold should be
+obtained abroad, and they promised to exert all their influence to
+prevent withdrawals of gold from the treasury while the contract was
+being filled. The terms of the contract were favorable to the bankers,
+but the President defended the agreement on the ground that the
+promise to protect the reserve entitled the bankers to a favorable
+bargain. The fact, however, that the Morgan Company was able to market
+the bonds with the public and make a large profit, increased the
+demand that the administration sell directly to the people and make
+the profit itself. In January, 1896, occurred a fourth sale--to the
+public, this time--and 4,640 bids were received, for a total several
+times greater than the $100,000,000 called for. By this time, business
+conditions were improving, confidence was restored among the financial
+classes and gold again began to flow out of hiding and into the
+treasury. The endless chain was broken.
+
+The denunciation which Cleveland received for the untoward monetary and
+industrial events of his administration was unusual even for American
+politics in the middle nineties. Such extreme silver men as Senator
+Stewart of Nevada declared that Cleveland's second administration was
+probably the worst administration that ever occurred in this or any
+other country; that he was a bold and unscrupulous stock-jobber; that
+he deliberately caused the panic of 1893 and that he sent the Venezuela
+message in order to divert the attention of the people from the silver
+question. The New York _World_ described the transaction between the
+government and the Morgan Company as a "bunco" game, and charged that
+Cleveland had dishonest, dishonorable and immoral reasons for bringing
+about the transaction and that he did it for a "consideration."
+Representative W.J. Bryan, who belonged to the President's party and
+who ordinarily was chivalrous to his opponents, declared that Cleveland
+could no more escape unharmed from association with the Morgan
+syndicate than he could expect to escape asphyxiation if he locked
+himself up in a room and turned on the gas. The Democratic party, he
+thought, should feel toward its leader as a confiding ward would feel
+toward a guardian who had squandered a rich estate, or as a passenger
+would feel toward a trainman who opened a switch and precipitated a
+wreck.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The standard works, mentioned under Chapter V, by Dewey, Hepburn and
+Noyes continue valuable. The attitude of Hayes and of succeeding
+Presidents is found in J.D. Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the
+Presidents_; F.W. Taussig, _The Silver Situation in the United States_
+(1892), is concise; _Political Science Quarterly_, III, 226, discusses
+the surplus revenue; _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, III, 436, on the
+direct tax; W.H. Glasson, _Federal Military Pensions_, has already been
+mentioned. W.J. Lauck, _Causes of the Panic of 1893_ (1907), lays the
+blame for the industrial distress of 1893 wholly on the silver law of
+1890. On the gold reserve, consult Grover Cleveland, _Presidential
+Problems_; D.R. Dewey, _National Problems_ (1907); _Political Science
+Quarterly_, X, 573; and _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, XIII, 204.
+"The Silver Debate of 1890," in _Journal of Political Economy_, I, 535,
+contains a detailed account of the discussion in Congress. W.J. Bryan,
+_First Battle_ (1897), should be consulted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] According to the principle known as Gresham's law, bad money tends
+to drive out good; or overvalued money to drive out undervalued money.
+If the face value of a coin is more than its worth as bullion, it is
+"overvalued." Thus, if coins of equal face value, but of different
+bullion value, circulate side by side, there will be a tendency for the
+possessors of the coins to pass on the currency with the smaller
+bullion value and to withdraw the others for sale as bullion and for
+use in the arts.
+
+[2] Above, p. 164.
+
+[3] Above, pp. 238-240.
+
+[4] The law remained in force about three years. During that interval
+nearly $156,000,000 worth of silver bullion was purchased with the new
+treasury notes. The government began retiring these notes in 1900.
+
+[5] The call for the extra session, together with news of the
+suspension of free-coinage in India, sent the bullion price of silver
+down twenty-one cents per ounce in two weeks. The President was
+seriously handicapped at this time by a cancerous growth in the jaw,
+necessitating an operation, news of which was withheld from the public
+for fear of its ill effect on the financial situation. Cf. _Saturday
+Evening Post_, 22 Sept., 1917.
+
+[6] Above, p. 274.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+1896
+
+The political situation in 1896, when the parties began to prepare for
+the presidential election, was more complex than it had been since
+1860. The repeal, in 1893, of the purchase clause of the Sherman silver
+act had divided the Democrats into factions; the financial and
+industrial distress in the same year had been widely attributed to fear
+of Democratic misgovernment; the Wilson-Gorman tariff act of 1894 had
+discredited the party and aroused ill-feeling between the President and
+Congress; the Pullman strike and the use of the injunction had aroused
+bitterness in the labor element against the administration; the income
+tax decision of 1895 had done much to shake popular confidence in the
+Supreme Court; the Hawaiian and Venezuelan incidents had caused minor
+dissent in some quarters; and the bond sales had made Cleveland
+intensely unpopular in the West and South. The Democratic party was
+demoralized and leaderless. The Republicans were better off because
+they had been out of power during the years of dissension and panic,
+but they had been without a leader since the death of Blaine in 1893
+and were far from united in regard to the most pressing issues. Indeed,
+the sectional differences in both parties, and the unexpected strength
+of the Populist movement caused no little anxiety among the political
+leaders. And finally, the volume and character of the currency was
+still undetermined. The Democrats had divided on the question. The
+Republicans were almost as little united; they had played politics in
+passing the Sherman silver act and three years later had assisted a
+President of the opposite party in accomplishing the repeal of its most
+important provision. From the standpoint of the silver supporters
+neither party organization was to be trusted. The outstanding political
+questions of 1896, therefore, were whether the supporters of silver
+could capture the machinery of one of the parties and whether the other
+unsettled issues could ride into the campaign on the strength of the
+financial agitation. The answers to these questions gave the campaign
+and election its peculiar significance.
+
+The background of 1896 is to be found in the South and West, where the
+farmers' alliances and the Populist party continued their success in
+arousing and directing the ambitions of the discontented classes. In
+1892, it will be remembered, the Populists had cast more than a million
+ballots and had chosen twenty-two presidential electors, two senators,
+and eleven representatives. In 1894, at the time of the congressional
+election, they had increased their voting strength more than forty per
+cent., and had elected six senators and six members of the House,
+besides several hundreds of state officials. In the Senate it happened
+that the two great parties had been almost equally strong, after the
+election of 1894, so that the Populist group had held the balance of
+power. The insistence of the South and West that Congress do something
+further for silver had not lessened. A measure providing for the
+coinage of a portion of the silver bullion in the treasury had been
+defeated in 1894 only through the President's veto. Indeed the only
+hope of the East and of the supporters of the gold standard was the
+unflinching determination of the head of a party to which the East and
+the gold supporters were, in the main opposed.
+
+The growing enthusiasm for silver which was sweeping over the South and
+West and rapidly developing into something resembling frenzy was
+difficult for the more stolid East to comprehend. Not merely the
+politician, but the man on the street and in the store, the
+school-teacher, the farmer and the laborer, in those portions of the
+country, fell to discussing the virtues of silver as currency and the
+effect of a greater volume of circulating medium upon prices and
+prosperity. The two metals became personified in the minds of the
+people. Gold was the symbol of cruel, snobbish plutocracy; silver of
+upright democracy. Gold deserted the country in its hour of need;
+silver remained at home to minister to the wants of the people. Such
+arguments as those presented in _Coin's Financial School_, published in
+1894, brought financial policy within the circle of the emotions of its
+readers even if they did not satisfy the more critical student of
+monetary problems. This influential little volume, written by W.H.
+Harvey, acted as a hand-book of free coinage, cleverly setting forth
+the major arguments for the increased use of silver and bringing
+forward objections which were triumphantly demolished. Simple
+illustrations enforced the lessons taught by its pages: a wood-cut of a
+cripple with one leg indicated how handicapped the country was without
+the free coinage of two metals; in another, Senator Sherman and
+President Cleveland were depicted digging out the silver portion of the
+foundations of a house which had been erected on a stable basis of both
+gold and silver; in a third, western farmers were seen industriously
+stuffing fodder into a cow which capitalists were milking for the
+benefit of New York and New England.[1] With the enthusiasm and the
+sincerity of the early crusaders, the people assembled in ten thousand
+schoolhouses to debate the absorbing subject of the currency. Indeed
+the South and West had become convinced that the miseries inflicted
+upon mankind by war, pestilence and famine had been less "cruel,
+unpitying, and unrelenting than the persistent and remorseless
+exaction" which the contraction of the volume of the currency had made
+upon society. Low prices, the stagnation of industry, empty and idle
+stores, workshops and factories, the increase of crime and
+bankruptcy--all were laid at the door of the gold standard.
+
+The East looked upon the rising in the West at first with amusement,
+and was quite ready to accept the diagnosis of a western newspaper man,
+quoted by Peck in his _Twenty Years of the Republic_:
+
+    What's the matter with Kansas?
+
+    We all know; yet here we are at it again. We have an old
+    moss-back Jacksonian who snorts and howls because there is a
+    bath-tub in the State House. We are running that old jay for
+    Governor.... We have raked the ash-heap of failure in the State
+    and found an old human hoop-skirt who has failed as a business
+    man, who has failed as an editor, who has failed as a preacher,
+    and we are going to run him for Congressman-at-large.... Then we
+    have discovered a kid without a law practice and have decided to
+    run him for Attorney-General.
+
+Later the East looked upon tendencies in the West with more concern:
+Roosevelt, although admitting the honesty of the Populists, characterized
+their ignorance as "abysmal"; others were more inclined to doubt their
+sincerity; their conventions were supposed to be made up of cranks and
+unsexed women; and their principles were looked upon as "wild and crazy
+notions."
+
+In fact it was no simple task to distinguish between the legitimate
+grievances and ambitions of the westerners, and their eccentricities
+and errors. Nor was this difficulty lessened by the reputation with
+which some of the proponents of silver were justly or unjustly
+credited. "Sockless Jerry" Simpson and Mrs. Lease were among them--the
+Mrs. Lease to whom was ascribed the remark "Kansas had better stop
+raising corn and begin raising hell!"[2] Benjamin R. Tillman was
+another--a rough, forceful character, leader of the poor whites and
+small farmers of South Carolina, organizer of the "wool hats" against
+the "silk hats" and the "kid gloves"--Governor of the state and later
+member of the federal Senate. Although a Democrat, he was thoroughly at
+odds with Cleveland, and publicly declared it was his ambition to stick
+his pitchfork into the President's sides.[3] Richard P. Bland, of
+Missouri, had the disadvantage of having been one of the earliest of
+the silver supporters, since he had initiated the bill which resulted
+in the Bland-Allison act, and was looked upon in the East as a
+thorough-going, free-silver radical. Governor Altgeld, of Illinois,
+leader of the Democrats of that state from 1892 to 1896, was a
+successful lawyer who was looked upon by his friends as a
+liberal-minded humanitarian, the friend of
+
+    The mocked and the scorned and the wounded,
+    the lame and the poor,
+
+whose sympathies with the laboring classes had given him the support of
+the reformers and the wage earners. But his pardon of the Haymarket
+anarchists and his attitude during the Pullman strike had led the East
+to regard him as a dangerous revolutionist and an enemy to society.[4]
+
+The free-silver movement nevertheless continued to gather momentum. For
+some years influential silver advocates had been associated in the
+Bimetallic League, an organization which supported the free coinage
+of both gold and silver. Among its members were prominent Democrats,
+Republicans and Populists, especially from the western states, and some
+of the foremost labor leaders. At one of its meetings in 1893 it was
+determined to invite every labor and industrial organization in the
+country to send delegates. A few experts, even in the East, gave some
+scientific support to the argument for the greater use of silver.
+Eastern Republicans like Senator Henry Cabot Lodge proposed free coinage
+of both metals by an international agreement, which, they thought,
+might be brought about through threats of tariff discrimination against
+nations refusing to adhere to the arrangement. A silver convention in
+Nebraska in 1894 was attended by a thousand delegates. From the point of
+view of party harmony the subject was a nuisance. Democratic state
+conventions were badly divided. Thirty of them adopted resolutions
+distinctly favorable to free coinage and fourteen opposed. Ten of the
+latter committed themselves definitely to the gold standard. The
+fourteen included all the northeastern states, together with Michigan,
+Wisconsin and Minnesota. Such gold Democrats as President Cleveland
+sought to stem the tide, but Cleveland's control over his followers was
+rapidly dwindling, and it seemed likely that the silver element of the
+party might reach out to seize the organization and displace the former
+leaders.
+
+The Republican professional politicians were as ignorant of technical
+monetary problems as the Democrats, and moreover did not wish to risk
+popular disapproval in any section by utterances which might be
+offensive to that part of the country. The first Republican state
+convention during 1896 was that in Ohio. Its financial plank was
+awaited with interest, because of the early date of the meeting and
+because its proceedings were in the hands of friends of the most
+prominent candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. The
+convention dodged the issue by demanding that all our currency be
+"sound as the Government and as untarnished as its honor," and that
+both metals be used as currency and kept at parity by legislative
+restrictions. The New York _Tribune_ thought that this could mean
+nothing but a gold standard; the _Times_ was fearful that it would lead
+to silver; the _Springfield Republican_ condemned it as "chock full of
+double-dealing." Its ambiguity, however, was in line with the purposes
+and ambitions of two men who were actively preparing for the campaign
+of 1896--Marcus A. Hanna and Major William McKinley.
+
+Marcus A. Hanna, or "Mark" Hanna as he was universally known, was an
+Ohioan, born in 1837.[5] As a young man he entered upon a business
+career in Cleveland, first in a wholesale grocery company, later in a
+coal and iron firm and finally in a variety of industrial and
+commercial enterprises which his energy and ability opened to him. The
+expansion of industrial America after the Civil War was coincident with
+the greater part of Hanna's career and he was a typical product of that
+period in his political, economic and social philosophy. After he had
+attained a degree of business success he became actively interested in
+politics and took a prominent part in placing Joseph B. Foraker in the
+governor's chair in Ohio in 1885. Strained relations between the two
+turned Hanna's attention to the fortunes of John Sherman. When it
+became apparent in 1888 that the presidential campaign would turn upon
+President Cleveland's tariff principles, Hanna, who looked upon the
+protective tariff as synonymous with industrial expansion and even of
+industrial safety, threw his weight upon the side of Sherman, who was
+again seeking the Republican nomination. The failure of Sherman was a
+blow to Hanna, but it called to his attention the pleasing personality
+of a more prominent protectionist, William McKinley. He was an
+important agent in McKinley's successful campaign for the governorship
+of Ohio in 1891. Two years later the Governor met serious financial
+reverses, and again Hanna proved to be a firm friend. Aided by other
+men of means he rescued McKinley from bankruptcy. Between the two there
+sprang up a mutual admiration of unusual strength, and finally, in
+1894-1895, Hanna withdrew from his business enterprises in order to
+devote his entire time to the political fortunes of his friend.
+
+Mark Hanna had extraordinary capacity for leadership. Sociable,
+open-handed, full of energy, direct, aggressive, shrewd, daring, a hard
+fighter, a loyal friend, an organizer and a man of his word, he was
+essentially a man of action. In politics he was practical and
+straight-forward. He wanted results, not reforms, and results meant
+accepting the prevailing methods and using them. When he wished a
+street-railway franchise in Cleveland, he bought enough influence with
+the city government to get what he wanted, as others of his day did. He
+was a strict party man; good government and safety to industry, he
+believed, were dependent upon Republican control. Patriotism therefore
+demanded his utmost energy in getting Republicans elected. In political
+campaigns his counsel, his energy and his money were always available.
+A protective customs tariff, a "sound" currency system and a free hand
+in the conduct of business were the things which he most desired from
+the government.
+
+William McKinley would have been a formidable competitor for the
+presidential nomination in 1896 even without the assistance of his
+rugged friend. His personality was attractive, in a pleasing, soothing,
+tactful, ingratiating way. His military career had been honorable even
+if not famous. For most of the time from 1877 to 1891 he had been a
+member of the House of Representatives, becoming identified
+particularly with the high protective tariff and acting as sponsor for
+the McKinley act of 1890. After being defeated for re-election, just
+subsequent to the passage of the tariff law, he had become Governor of
+Ohio for two terms. The panic of 1893 and the ill-fated Wilson-Gorman
+tariff act during the time when he was Governor caused the tide of
+popular favor to swing away from the Democrats; McKinley, as the
+apostle of protection, appeared in a more favorable light; and his
+partisans began to press him forward as the logical nominee for 1896
+and as "the advance agent of Prosperity." The fact that his home was in
+a populous state in the Middle West was also in his favor, because the
+Republicans had frequently chosen their candidate from this debatable
+ground rather than from the Northeast, where success was to be had
+without a struggle.
+
+Hanna's first care upon determining to devote himself to the interests
+of McKinley was to keep the candidate before the people as the one man
+who could rescue the nation from industrial depression. To that end he
+widely circulated the Cleveland _Leader_, a strong McKinley organ, for
+eighteen months at his own expense; he rented a house in Georgia,
+entertained Governor McKinley there and brought numbers of southern
+politicians to meet the candidate; and experienced political workers
+were sent all over the country and especially to the South to prepare
+the way for the election of delegates to the nominating convention.
+Hanna himself went to the East to discover on what terms the support of
+some of the states in that section could be obtained. On his return he
+reported that aid would be assured by a guarantee that the patronage of
+the administration would go to certain powerful politicians; Hanna
+thought the bargain a desirable one, but the candidate objected and
+Hanna acquiesced. The campaign of publicity and of personal canvass for
+delegates and influence continued. First and last, it is estimated,
+Hanna contributed over $100,000 for this purpose, urging his assistants
+always to use funds only for legitimate ends, although promising
+McKinley partisans who aided in the work that they would be "consulted"
+in the disposition of patronage.
+
+Two difficulties stood in the way of completely ensuring the choice of
+McKinley as the candidate by the convention. Several states had
+"favorite sons" whom they would be sure to present, and if so many of
+these should appear as to prevent McKinley's nomination on the first
+ballot or at least on an early one, there might be a stampede to an
+unknown man--a "dark horse"--and then Hanna's ambitions would be
+frustrated. Thomas B. Reed of Maine was an especial source of anxiety
+as he possessed considerable strength throughout New England. To guard
+against such a danger, Hanna sedulously cultivated the popular demand
+for Governor McKinley and also fought in the state conventions for
+delegates even against favorite sons. A crucial state was Illinois,
+where Senator Cullom was powerful. The Senator says that a
+representative of McKinley offered him "all sorts of inducements" to
+withdraw, but McKinley's biographer mentions no such attempt at a
+bargain. Eventually Cullom made the fight and was defeated, and from
+then on, the nomination of McKinley seemed sure unless he should be
+tripped by the currency issue.
+
+The silver question was the second obstacle in the way of success. Not
+only was the party divided, but McKinley's record on the subject was
+far from consistent. He had voted for the Bland free-silver bill in
+1877, for the Bland-Allison act in 1878 and for the passage of that act
+over President Hayes's veto. In 1890 he had urged the passage of the
+Sherman silver purchase law, intimating that he would support a free
+coinage measure if it were possible to pass it. Hardly more than a year
+later he was campaigning for the governorship of Ohio, and there he
+denounced the free coinage of silver and advocated international
+bimetallism. In 1896 McKinley feared that a definite public utterance
+on the one side or the other of the question would widen the division
+in the party, prevent his nomination and lose the election. Hence the
+ambiguous currency plank in the Ohio state convention and hence, also,
+the refusal of the candidate to commit himself openly. Nevertheless he
+commissioned a friend to go to the East and explain his attitude
+privately to certain leaders and prominent business men, urging them
+not to force a declaration for gold before the convention met. In this
+way, he thought, the currency issue might be subordinated, the tariff
+emphasized and the party held together. In this state of uncertainty
+the currency situation was allowed to rest until the convention met at
+St. Louis on June 16.
+
+The platform adopted was, for the most part, of the usual sort. It
+urged popular attention to the matchless achievements of thirty years
+of Republican rule and contrasted that period of "unequalled success
+and prosperity" with the "unparalleled incapacity, dishonor, and
+disaster" of Democratic government; it promised the "most ample
+protection" to the products of mine, field and factory; generous
+pensions, American control of Hawaii, a Nicaragua canal, the Monroe
+doctrine, restricted immigration and the arbitration of labor disputes
+affecting interstate commerce received the support of the party.
+
+It was the currency plank, however, that differentiated the platform of
+1896 from that of other campaigns. Many Republican leaders and business
+men, particularly in the East, were disposed to call for a definite
+party statement in favor of a gold standard and had reached the point
+where they could not be put off by the usual meaningless straddle.
+Thomas C. Platt, Henry Cabot Lodge, Joseph B. Foraker, Charles W.
+Fairbanks and other party chiefs were among them. Hanna was ready to
+declare for gold after he had been assured of the nomination of his
+candidate. McKinley was willing to stand for gold, although he
+preferred not to mention that word in the plank and hoped to make the
+contest on the tariff. Moreover so many silver delegates had already
+been elected to the Democratic convention, which was soon to be held,
+that a definite utterance from that party seemed a certainty. The
+Prohibitionists had already divided into halves over the dominant
+issue. It was almost imperative, therefore, for the Republican
+convention to be more explicit than it had hitherto ventured to be. As
+leader after leader arrived who was insistent upon a gold standard, it
+became increasingly evident to Hanna that he must proceed with caution.
+If McKinley committed himself to gold, the silver advocates would balk
+at his candidacy, and perhaps unite on somebody else; if he committed
+himself to silver, he would lose the eastern leaders. The astute Hanna
+therefore allowed sentiment in favor of the gold plank to gather force,
+although holding the discussion as far as possible under cover, and
+kept McKinley from making a definite statement. Then at the last
+minute, when the McKinley delegates were numerous enough to ensure the
+nomination of the Major and when it was too late for the silver forces
+to agree upon an opposition candidate, Hanna gave way to the pressure
+for gold and agreed to the plank which he had always favored.[6]
+
+Despite the canny management of Hanna a defection took place over the
+decision on the currency issue. As soon as the platform was read,
+Senator Henry M. Teller, of Colorado, moved to replace the gold plank
+by one advocating the free coinage of silver. The earnestness with
+which Teller urged the adoption of the substitute was an indication of
+the sincerity of the western wing of the party. He had been a strict
+Republican since the formation of the party in the mid-fifties, yet he
+now found himself forced to accept a policy which he believed to be
+pernicious or break the political bonds which had held him for forty
+years. The majority of the convention, however, was determined to adopt
+the gold plank and overwhelmingly defeated the Teller amendment,
+whereupon the Senator and thirty-three other silver supporters solemnly
+withdrew from the hall.
+
+The way was now clear for the nomination of a candidate. Thomas B.
+Reed, Senator Quay and other favorite sons received but scant support,
+and McKinley was nominated by an overwhelming majority on the first
+ballot. Garrett A. Hobart, a lawyer and business man whose reputation
+was confined to New Jersey, his home state, was nominated for the
+vice-presidency. The platform and the candidate were generally hailed
+with favor in the East. To be sure, critical newspapers were inclined
+to look askance upon McKinley's past. The New York _Evening Post_, for
+example, favored a gold standard but decried the candidate's "absence
+of settled convictions about leading questions of the day, and his want
+of clear knowledge on any subject." Yet on the whole, the platform and
+the candidate were popular, and, in view of the serious factional
+disputes among the Democrats, the Republicans seemed likely to make
+good their boast that victory would be so easy that they could nominate
+and elect a "rag baby" if they chose. The redoubtable Hanna was
+appointed chairman of the National Republican Committee, from which
+office he was to direct the campaign. McKinley still believed that the
+contest would be of the old-fashioned sort and that it would turn on
+the tariff, despite the platform utterance of the party. And so it
+might have proved had it not been for an important change of purpose
+and leadership in the opposition.
+
+The friends of free silver coinage went to the Democratic convention at
+Chicago on July 7 with the same determination to get a definite
+statement on the currency question that had characterized the eastern
+leaders at the Republican convention. Without the loss of a moment they
+wrested the control of the organization from the former leaders by
+defeating Senator Hill of New York, a gold Democrat, for the temporary
+chairmanship and electing Senator Daniel of Virginia, a recognized
+proponent of free silver. Hill's support came mainly from the
+Northeast; Daniel's, from the West and South. Senator White of
+California, a representative of the silver wing, was then chosen
+permanent chairman and the convention was ready for the contest over
+the platform. While it awaited that document, however, it listened to
+several favorite leaders, of whom Senator Tillman and Governor Altgeld
+of Illinois were the best known. From the sentiments expressed by these
+men it was clear that the radical Democrats believed that they were
+speaking for the masses of the people and that they were bent upon
+making far-reaching changes both in the organization and the creed of
+the party.
+
+A disquieting feature was a degree of turbulence beyond that which
+usually characterizes our nominating conventions. The official
+proceedings record the following, for example, while Senator Tillman
+was addressing the delegates:
+
+    I hope that when this vast assembly shall have dispersed to its home
+    the many thousands of my fellow-citizens who are here will carry
+    hence a different opinion of the pitchfork man from South Carolina
+    to that which they now hold. I come to you from the South--from the
+    home of secession--from that State where the leaders of--(the
+    balance of the sentence of the speaker was drowned by hisses). Mr.
+    Tillman (resuming): There are only three things in the world that
+    can hiss--a goose, a serpent, and a man....
+
+    In the last three or four or five years the Western people have come
+    to realize that the condition of the South and the condition of the
+    West are identical. Hence we find to-day that the Democratic party
+    of the West is here almost in solid phalanx appealing to the South,
+    and the South has responded--to come to their help.... Some of my
+    friends from the South and elsewhere have said that this is not a
+    sectional issue. I say it is a sectional issue. (Long prolonged
+    hissing.)
+
+At length, the platform was presented. It was a summary of the
+complaints against the East which had been forming in the West and
+South ever since the days of the Greenbackers and the "Ohio idea." It
+recognized first that the money question was paramount to all others;
+laid hard times at the door of the gold standard, which it denounced as
+a British policy; and demanded the free coinage of both metals at the
+existing legal ratio, under which sixteen parts of silver by weight
+were declared equivalent to one part of gold in minting coins. Nor
+would the party wait for the consent of any other nation. It opposed
+the issuance of interest-bearing bonds in time of peace, condemned the
+bond transactions of the Cleveland administration and denounced the
+national bank-note system. The McKinley tariff was declared a prolific
+breeder of trusts which enriched the few at the expense of the many.
+The plank concerning the income tax, which had so recently been
+declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, excited much
+condemnation among Republicans and conservative Democrats, who
+denounced it as an attack on the Court. It noted that the Court had
+uniformly sustained income taxes for nearly a hundred years and
+declared it to be the duty of Congress
+
+    to use all the constitutional power which remains after that
+    decision, or which may come from its reversal by the court as
+    it may hereafter be constituted, so that the burdens of taxation
+    may be equally and impartially laid, to the end that wealth may
+    bear its due proportion of the expenses of the government.
+
+The reaction of the party on the labor disputes of recent years and
+especially the Pullman strike was clearly in evidence. Arbitration of
+such controversies was called for; "interference" by federal
+authorities in local affairs was condemned; government by injunction
+was objected to; and the passage of such laws was demanded as would
+protect all the interests of the laboring classes.
+
+A minority of the platform committee now presented the opposing point
+of view. It objected to many of the planks; complained that some were
+ill-considered, others revolutionary; and offered two amendments,
+one advocating the gold standard, the other expressing commendation
+of Cleveland's administration. The contest was then on. Tillman
+excoriated Cleveland and declared that the East held the West and
+South in economic bondage; Hill denounced the currency, income tax and
+Supreme Court planks as furiously as any Republican could have wished.
+The currency plank, he thought, was unwise, that on the income tax
+unnecessary, that on the Court assailed the supreme tribunal, and the
+entire program was "revolutionary."
+
+As yet, nobody had quite expressed the feelings of the convention.
+Tillman was too crude; Hill had no remedy for long-standing ills. At
+this juncture William J. Bryan stepped upon the platform. He was a
+young man--only thirty-six years of age--and known but slightly as a
+representative from Nebraska who possessed many of the arts and
+abilities of an orator. Bryan began with a modest and tactful
+declaration that his opposition to the gold wing of the party was
+based solely on principles and not at all on personalities. The
+convention had met, he insisted, not to debate but to register a
+judgment already rendered by the people. Old leaders had been cast
+aside because they had refused to express the desires of those whom
+they aspired to lead. Briefly he outlined the reply of the radicals
+to the objections made by Hill and the gold wing to the proposed
+platform. The conservatives, Bryan declared, had complained that
+free silver coinage would disturb business:
+
+    We say to you that you have made the definition of a business man
+    too limited in its application. The man who is employed for wages is
+    as much a business man as his employer; the attorney in a country
+    town is as much a business man as the corporation counsel in a great
+    metropolis; the merchant at the cross-roads store is as much a
+    business man as the merchant of New York; the farmer who goes forth
+    in the morning and toils all day--who begins in the spring and toils
+    all summer--and who by the application of brain and muscle to the
+    natural resources of the country creates wealth, is as much a
+    business man as the man who goes upon the board of trade and bets
+    upon the price of grain; the miners who go down a thousand feet into
+    the earth, or climb two thousand feet upon the cliffs, and bring
+    forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured into
+    the channels of trade are as much business men as the few financial
+    magnates who, in a back room, corner the money of the world. We come
+    to speak for this broader class of business men.
+
+The time was at hand, Bryan insisted, when the currency issue must be
+squarely met:
+
+    We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned; we have
+    entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded; we have
+    begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came. We beg no
+    longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them.
+
+The radical wing of the Democracy had now found its orator. Every word
+was driven straight to the hearts of the sympathetic hearers. The income
+tax law had been constitutional, Bryan complained, until one of the
+judges of the Supreme Court had changed his mind; the tariff was less
+important than the currency because "protection has slain its thousands,
+the gold standard has slain its tens of thousands." Fundamentally, he
+insisted, the contest was between the idle holders of idle capital and
+the struggling masses who produce the capital:
+
+    If they come to meet us on that issue we can present the history of
+    our nation. More than that; we can tell them that they will search
+    the pages of history in vain to find a single instance where the
+    common people of any land have ever declared themselves in favor of
+    the gold standard. They can find where the holders of fixed
+    investments have declared for a gold standard, but not where the
+    masses have....
+
+    You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the
+    gold standard; we reply that the great cities rest upon our broad and
+    fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your
+    cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and
+    the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country....
+
+    Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world,
+    supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and
+    the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold
+    standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow
+    of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a
+    cross of gold.
+
+The frenzy of approval which this brief speech aroused was proof that
+the West and South had found a herald. Whether wisely or not, the
+radicals acclaimed their leader and the party was embarked upon a
+program that made the campaign of 1896 a memorable one. Without further
+ado, the amendments of the conservatives were voted down--the vote
+being sectional, as before. Proposals that changes in the monetary
+standard should not apply to existing contracts and that if free
+coinage should not effect a parity between gold and silver at a ratio
+of 16 to 1 within a year, it should be suspended, were both voted down
+without so much as a division. The platform was then adopted by an
+overwhelming majority and radical democracy had the bit in its teeth.
+In the East the platform was viewed with amazement. The New York
+_World_, a Democratic newspaper, expressed the opinion that the only
+doubt about the election would be the size of McKinley's victory. The
+Republican _Tribune_ thought that the party was afflicted with
+"lunacy"; that it had become the "avowed champion of the right of
+pillage, riot and trainwrecking"; that the platform was an anarchist
+manifesto and a "call to every criminal seeking a chance for outrage."
+
+Before Bryan's speech it had been impossible to foretell who the party
+candidate for the presidency would be, although the veteran free silver
+leader, Richard P. Bland, had been looked upon as a logical choice in
+case his well-known principles should become those of the convention.
+After the speech, however, it was clear that Bryan embodied the
+feelings of many of his colleagues and on the fifth ballot he was
+chosen as the candidate. The vice-presidential choice was Arthur
+Sewall, of Maine, a shipbuilder and banker who believed in the free
+coinage of silver.
+
+The gold Democrats were now in a quandary. Many of them had refrained
+from voting at all in the convention after the silver element had
+gained control. Strict partisans, however, adopted the position of
+Senator Hill who was asked after the convention whether he was a
+Democrat still. "Yes," he is said to have retorted, "I am a Democrat
+still--very still." Some frankly turned toward the Republican party,
+while others organized the National Democratic party and adopted a
+traditional Democratic platform, with a gold plank. After considering
+the possibility of nominating President Cleveland for a third term, the
+party chose John M. Palmer for the presidency and Simon B. Buckner for
+the vice-presidency. Soon after the Democratic convention, the People's
+party and the Silver party met in St. Louis. Both nominated Bryan for
+the presidency, and thereafter the Democrats and the Populists made
+common cause.
+
+At the opening of the campaign, then, it was evident that class and
+sectional hatreds would enter largely into the contest. The Populists
+and the radical Democrats felt that they were fighting the battle of
+the masses against "plutocracy"--the subtle and corrupting control of
+public affairs by the possessors of great fortunes; they thought that
+they saw arrayed against them the forces of wealth and the
+corporations, seeking to enslave them. The conservative Democrats and
+the gold Republicans saw in their opponents an organized attempt to
+carry out a program of dishonesty and socialism. The one side believed
+that the creditor class desired to scale debts upward; the other, that
+the debtor class wished to scale them down. The radicals believed that
+the Supreme Court was in the control of the wealthy; the conservatives,
+that their opponents sought to assail the highest tribunal in the land.
+The peculiar circumstances preceding the year 1896, however, focussed
+attention on the monetary standard rather than upon the other demands
+of the Populist-Democratic fusion.
+
+Each candidate adopted a plan of campaign that was suited to his
+individual situation. Bryan was relatively unknown and he therefore
+decided to appeal directly to the people, where his powers as a speaker
+would have great effect. The usual "notification" meeting was held in
+Madison Square Garden, in New York City, so as to carry the cause into
+the heart of "the enemy's country." During the few months of the
+campaign the Democratic candidate travelled 18,000 miles, made 600
+speeches and addressed nearly five million people. The effect was
+immediate. The forces of social unrest, hitherto silent in great
+measure, were becoming vocal and nobody could measure their extent.
+McKinley had prophesied that thirty days after the Republican
+convention nothing would be heard about the currency. When the thirty
+days had passed, on the contrary, scarcely anything was heard except
+that very question. Whatever his personal wishes, McKinley must meet
+the problem face to face, and in alarm, Hanna and the Republican
+campaign leaders put forth unparalleled efforts to save the party from
+defeat.
+
+The share of McKinley in these efforts was a novel one. Instead of
+going upon the stump, he remained at his home in Canton, Ohio. A
+constant stream of visiting delegations of supporters from all points
+of the compass came to hear him speak from his front porch. Some of the
+delegations came spontaneously; the visits of others were prearranged;
+but in all cases the speeches delivered were looked over beforehand
+with great care. The candidate memorized or read his own remarks and
+carefully revised those which the spokesman of the visitors planned to
+offer. In this way, any such untoward incident as the Burchard affair
+was avoided and the accounts of the front-porch speeches which went out
+through the press contained nothing which would injure the chances for
+success. The effectiveness of the plan was attested on all sides.
+
+In addition, extraordinary attempts were put forth to instruct the
+people on various aspects of the currency question. A small army was
+organized to distribute literature and address rallies; 120,000,000
+documents were distributed from the Chicago and New York headquarters;
+newspapers were supplied with especially prepared matter; posters and
+buttons were scattered by the carload. At the dinner-table, on the
+street corner, in the railroad train, in store, office and shop, the
+people gave themselves over to a heated discussion of the merits of
+gold and silver as currency and to the feasibility of free coinage at a
+ratio of 16 to 1. The amount of money which these efforts required was
+unusually large. Business men and banking institutions, especially in
+New York, contributed liberally. The Standard Oil Company gave
+$250,000; large life insurance companies helped freely, although the
+fact was well concealed at the time. Business men were fearful that
+Bryan's election would mean a great shrinkage in the value of their
+properties. Many feared that the Democrats would assail the Supreme
+Court and that their leader would surround himself with advisors of a
+reckless and revolutionary character. Funds therefore poured into the
+Republican war-chest to an amount estimated at three and a half million
+dollars.
+
+Before the close of the campaign a feeling akin to terror swept over
+the East; contracts were made contingent upon the election of McKinley;
+employees were paid on the Saturday night before election day and
+notified that they need not return to work in the event of Democratic
+success. Although caution and good manners characterized the utterances
+of the two candidates, their supporters were hardly so restrained. The
+following, for example, is typical of the editorial utterances of the
+New York _Tribune_:
+
+    Let us begin with the Ten Commandments. "Thou shalt not take the
+    name of the Lord thy God in vain." The Bryan campaign from beginning
+    to end has been marked with such a flood of blasphemy, of taking
+    God's name in vain, as this country, at least, has never known
+    before. "Thou shalt not steal." The very foundation of the Bryan
+    platform is wholesale theft. "Thou shalt not bear false witness."
+    In what day have Bryan and his followers failed to utter lies,
+    libels and forgeries? "Thou shalt not covet." Why, almost every
+    appeal made by Bryan, or for him, has been addressed directly to
+    the covetousness, the envy, and all the unhallowed passions of
+    human nature. A vote for Bryan is a vote for the abrogation of
+    those four Commandments.
+
+At the close of the campaign _The Nation_ sagely observed, "Probably no
+man in civil life has succeeded in inspiring so much terror, without
+taking life, as Bryan."
+
+The result of the election was decisive. McKinley and a Republican
+House of Representatives were elected, and the choice of a Republican
+Senate assured. The successful candidate received seven million
+votes--a half million more than his competitor. All the more densely
+populated states, together with the large cities--where the greatest
+accumulations of capital had taken place--were carried by the
+Republicans. Not a state north of the Potomac-Ohio line and east of
+the Mississippi was Democratic, and even Kentucky, by a narrow margin,
+and West Virginia crowded their way into the Republican column. On
+the other hand Bryan's hold on the South and West was almost equally
+strong. Never before had any presidential candidate received so great a
+vote and not for twenty years did a Democratic candidate surpass it.
+Moreover, although the Democratic vote on the Atlantic seaboard was
+less than that received by Cleveland in 1892, Bryan's support in the
+Middle West showed considerable gains over the earlier year, while
+Kansas, Nebraska and all the mining states except California were
+carried by the silver cause. On the whole the election seemed to
+indicate that the voters of the country, after unusual study of the
+issues of the campaign, clearly distrusted the free-silver program, but
+that class and sectional discontent had reached large proportions.
+
+[Illustration:
+The Presidential Election of 1896--the shaded states
+gave Bryan pluralities]
+
+The political results of the election of 1896 were important. It
+definitely fixed the attitude of the Republican party on the currency
+question; it gave the party control of the executive chair and of
+Congress at an important time; and it ensured the domination of the
+propertied classes and the _laissez faire_ philosophy in the party
+organization. On the other hand, the Democratic party had incurred the
+suspicion and hostility of the East, with hardly a compensating
+increase of strength in the West; its principles had become radical for
+that day and had abruptly changed from those of previous years; its
+membership included more of the discontented classes than before; and
+its leadership had been snatched from the hands of an experienced and
+conservative leader and placed in the care of an untried radical. It
+remained to be seen whether the victors would attempt to study and meet
+the complaints of the farmer and the wage earner; whether the new
+Republican leaders would be able to preserve the _laissez faire_
+attitude toward the railroads and the corporations; and whether the
+forces of dissent represented in Populism and radical Democracy had
+received a death blow or only a rebuff.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+Peck contains one of the most illuminating accounts of the rising in
+the West, together with the campaign of 1896. H. Croly, _Marcus A.
+Hanna_ (1912), is one of the few critical biographies of leaders who
+have lived since the Civil War. W.J. Bryan, _The First Battle_ (1897),
+is indispensable; C.S. Olcott, _William McKinley_ (2 vols., 1916), is
+uncritical and eulogistic, but makes important material available; C.A.
+Beard, _Contemporary American History_ (1914), contains a good chapter;
+W.H. Harvey, _Coin's Financial School_ (1894), is mentioned in the
+text; Carl Becker's clever essay in _Turner Essays in American History_
+(1910), throws light on Kansas psychology; S.J. Buck, _Agrarian
+Crusade_ (1920), is excellent. Consult also D.R. Dewey, _National
+Problems_ (1907); J.A. Woodburn, _Political Parties and Party Problems_
+(1914); _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, X, 269; and F.E. Haynes,
+_Third Party Movements_ (1916). The files of _The Nation_, and the New
+York _Tribune_ and _Sun_ well portray eastern opinion. The references
+to the rise of the populist movement under Chap. XII are also of
+service.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] I have drawn at this point upon Peck, _Twenty Years of the
+Republic_, 453-456.
+
+[2] Peck, 451-453.
+
+[3] For brief accounts of Tillman, see Leupp, _National Miniatures_,
+117; N.Y. _Times_, July 4, 1918; N.Y. _Evening Post_, July 3, 1918.
+
+[4] Cf. Whitlock, _Forty Years of It_, 64 ff.; Altgeld, _Live
+Questions_ and _The Cost of Something for Nothing_.
+
+[5] In connection with the following pages, consult Croly, _Marcus A.
+Hanna_, one of the few satisfactory biographies of this period.
+
+[6] As finally adopted, the gold plank asserted: "We are unalterably
+opposed to every measure calculated to debase our currency or impair
+the credit of our country. We are, therefore, opposed to the free
+coinage of silver, except by international agreement with the leading
+commercial nations of the world, which we pledge ourselves to promote,
+and until such agreement can be obtained the existing gold standard
+must be preserved. All our silver and paper currency must be maintained
+at parity with gold, and we favor all measures designed to maintain
+inviolably the obligations of the United States and all our money,
+whether coin or paper, at the present standard, the standard of the
+most enlightened nations of the earth." Several leaders claimed to
+have been the real author of the gold plank. It seems more nearly true
+that many men came to the convention prepared to insist on a definite
+statement and that each thought himself the originator of the party
+policy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+REPUBLICAN DOMINATION AND WAR WITH SPAIN
+
+The ceremonies attendant upon the inauguration of William McKinley on
+March 4, 1897, were typical of the care-taking generalship of Mark
+Hanna. The details of policing the crowds had been foreseen and
+attended to; the usual military review was effectively carried out to
+the last particular; "the Republican party was coming back to power as
+the party of organization, of discipline, of unquestioning obedience to
+leadership."[1]
+
+The political capacity, the characteristics and the philosophy of the
+new President were sufficiently representative of the forces which were
+to control American affairs for the next few years to make them matters
+of some interest. McKinley was a traditional politician in the better
+sense of the word. As an executive he was patient, calm, modest, wary.
+Ordinarily he committed himself to a project only after long
+consideration, and with careful propriety he avoided entangling
+political bargains. His engaging personality, his consummate tact and
+his thorough knowledge of the temper and traditions of Congress enabled
+him to lead that body, where Cleveland failed to drive it. As a speaker
+he seldom rose above an ordinary plane, but he was simple and sincere.
+His messages to Congress breathed an atmosphere of serenity and of
+deferential reliance upon the wise and judicious action of the
+legislative branch. Their smug and genial tone formed a sharp contrast
+with his predecessor's anxious demands for multifarious reforms; while
+Cleveland inveighed against narrow partisanship and selfish aims,
+McKinley benignantly observed: "The public questions which now most
+engross us are lifted far above either partisanship, prejudice, or
+former sectional differences."
+
+The political philosophy of McKinley typified that of his party. The
+possibilities which he saw in protective tariffs, which occupied the
+foremost position among his principles, were well set forth in his
+message to Congress on March 15, 1897. Additional duties should be
+levied on foreign importation, he asserted,
+
+    to preserve the home market, so far as possible, to our own
+    producers; to revive and increase manufactures; to relieve and
+    encourage agriculture; to increase our domestic and foreign
+    commerce; to aid and develop mining and building; and to render
+    to labor in every field of useful occupation the liberal wages
+    and adequate rewards to which skill and industry are justly
+    entitled.
+
+Like most American presidents, McKinley was a peace-lover, pleasantly
+disposed toward the arbitration of international difficulties and
+prepared to welcome any attempt to further that method of preserving
+the peace of the world. His conception of the presidential office
+differed somewhat sharply at several points from that of his
+predecessor. Like Cleveland he looked upon himself as peculiarly the
+representative of the people, but he was far less likely either to lead
+public opinion or to attempt to hasten the people to adopt a position
+which he had himself taken. This fact lay at the bottom of the
+complaints of his critics that he always had his "ear to the ground" in
+order that he might be prepared to go with the majority. On the other
+hand, although he was aware of constitutional limitation upon the
+functions of the executive, he was not so continually hampered by the
+strict constructionist view of the powers of the federal government as
+Cleveland had been. McKinley's attitude toward Congress was far more
+sagacious than Cleveland's. He distributed the usual patronage with
+skill; he approached Congressmen individually with the utmost tact; he
+appointed them to serve on commissions and boards of arbitration, and
+later, when matters upon which the commissions had been engaged came
+before Congress in the form of treaties or legislation, these men found
+themselves in a position to lead in the adoption of the principles
+which the President desired. All this indicated an ability to "touch
+elbows" with Congress that has rarely been exceeded. When coupled with
+the organizing power of Hanna, the harmonizing sagacity of the
+President soon brought about a notable degree of party solidarity. As a
+political organization, the Republican party reached a climax.
+
+McKinley was hardly an idealist, and distinctly not a reformer.
+Although sensitive to pressure from the reform element, he was not
+ahead of ordinary public opinion on matters of economic and political
+betterment. Leaders in federal railroad regulation found the President
+cold toward projects to strengthen the Interstate Commerce law; the
+Sherman Anti-trust Act was scarcely enforced at all during McKinley's
+administration, and the parts of his messages which relate to the
+regulation of industry are vague and lacking in purpose. One searches
+these documents in vain for any indication that the Republican leader
+had either vigorous sympathy with the economic and social unrest which
+had made the year 1896 so momentous or even any thorough understanding
+of it. Even if he had possessed both sympathy and understanding,
+however, it is doubtful whether he could have made real progress in the
+direction of economic legislation and the enforcement of the acts
+regulating railroads and industry, in view of his long-continued and
+close affiliation with business leaders of the Mark Hanna type and his
+deep obligation to them at the time of his financial embarrassments in
+1893.
+
+McKinley's cabinet was composed of men whose advanced age and
+conservative characteristics indicated that his advisers would commend
+themselves to the business world and would instinctively avoid all
+those radical proposals that were coming to be known as "Bryanism." The
+dean of the cabinet in age and experience as well as in reputation and
+ability was John Sherman, who was now almost seventy-four years of age
+and had been occupying a position of dignity and honor in the Senate.
+Two reasons have been given for his appointment to the post of
+Secretary of State. In the first place, important diplomatic affairs
+were on hand, in the settlement of which his long experience as a
+member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations would be of obvious
+advantage. The second reason was the ambition of Hanna to enter the
+Senate. Since Sherman and Hanna were both from Ohio, it was possible to
+call the former to the cabinet and rely upon the Governor of the state
+to appoint the latter to the Senate. The propriety of this course of
+action depended somewhat on the question of Sherman's physical
+condition. Rumor declared that he was suffering from mental decay, due
+to his age, but McKinley believed the rumor to be baseless, summoned
+him to the cabinet, and Hanna was subsequently appointed to the Senate.
+When Sherman took up the duties of his office it appeared that the
+rumor had been all too true, and a serious lapse of memory on his part
+in a diplomatic matter forced his immediate replacement by William R.
+Day. Somewhat more than a year later Day retired and John Hay assumed
+the position. Many critics have asserted that McKinley was aware of the
+precise condition of Sherman and that he made the choice despite this
+knowledge, but it now seems likely that he was guilty only of bad
+judgment and carelessness in failing to inform himself about Sherman's
+infirmities. Another error of judgment was made in the choice of
+Russell A. Alger as Secretary of War. Alger failed to convince popular
+opinion that he was an effective officer and he resigned in 1899. As in
+the case of Sherman, McKinley then somewhat retrieved his mistake by
+appointing a successor of undoubted ability, in the person of Elihu
+Root.[2] It thus came about that the political and economic theories
+which had been characteristic of the leaders of both parties during the
+seventies and eighties, but more particularly of the Republican party,
+were again in the ascendancy. The President and his cabinet were
+uniformly men who had grown up during the heyday of _laissez faire_,
+and Hanna, who would inevitably be regarded as the mouthpiece of the
+administration in the Senate, was the embodiment of that philosophy.
+
+McKinley's experience with the distribution of the offices emphasized
+the progress that had been made since civil service reform had been
+inaugurated. One of the steps which President Cleveland had taken
+during his last administration, it will be remembered, was to increase
+the number of positions under control of the Civil Service Commission.
+The immediate result, of course, was to increase the demand for places
+in the unclassified service. John Hay picturesquely described the
+situation in the State Department a few years later:
+
+    All other branches of the Civil Service are so rigidly provided
+    for that the foreign service is like the topmost rock which you
+    sometimes see in old pictures of the Deluge. The pressure for a
+    place in it is almost indescribable.
+
+Both in his inaugural address and in his message to Congress on
+December 6, 1897, McKinley expressed his approval of the prevailing
+system, but suggested the possibility of exempting some positions then
+in the classified service. President Cleveland had, indeed, admitted
+to the Civil Service Commission that a few modifications might be
+necessary. The Senate promptly ordered an investigation and discovered
+10,000 places which it believed could be withdrawn, but because of
+other events further action was delayed. In 1899 the President returned
+to the subject and promulgated an order authorizing the withdrawal of
+certain positions from competitive examination and the transfer of
+others from the Commission to the Secretary of War--a total of somewhat
+less than 5,000 changes.[3] It appeared, in view of the circumstances
+under which the change had occurred, that a retrograde step had been
+taken, and McKinley received the condemnation of the reformers.
+
+The first legislation undertaken by the administration was that
+relating to the tariff. The election of 1896, to be sure, had been
+fought out on the silver issue, but it was not deemed feasible to
+proceed at once to legislation on the subject, because of the strong
+silver contingent within the party. Several other considerations
+combined to draw attention away from the currency question and toward
+the tariff. The Wilson-Gorman Act of 1894 had been passed under
+circumstances that had caused the Democratic President himself to
+express his shame and disappointment; the period of industrial
+depression following the panic of 1893 had been attributed so widely to
+Democratic tariff legislation that a Republican tariff act could be
+hailed as a harbinger of prosperity; and the annual deficit which had
+continued since 1893 indicated a genuine need of greater revenue, if
+the current scale of expenditures was to be continued. The President
+and the party leaders in Congress were men who were prominently
+identified with the protective system, and it was not likely that the
+business interests which profited from protection, which believed in
+its beneficent operation, and which had contributed generously to the
+Republican war-chest would remain inactive in the presence of an
+opportunity to revise the tariff.
+
+Immediately after his succession to office, therefore, McKinley called
+a special session of Congress to legislate upon the chosen subject. His
+message urged an increase in revenue to be brought about by high import
+duties which, he suggested, should be so levied as to be advantageous
+to commerce, manufacturing, agriculture, mining, building and labor.
+The projected bill was already in hand. Republican success in the
+election had insured the return of Thomas B. Reed to the speaker's
+chair and Nelson Dingley to the Committee on Ways and Means. The latter
+was as devoted to the high-tariff cause as the Speaker and the
+President, and had laboriously constructed a bill which was distinctly
+protective. The legislative history of the Tariff Act of 1897--more
+commonly known as the Dingley act--was in several respects much like
+that of similar measures of earlier years. Its passage through the
+House was expedited by the masterful personality and vigorous tactics
+of the Speaker--a process which consumed less than a fortnight. In the
+Senate, bargain and delay ruled procedure; a few of the silver
+Republicans held the balance of power and demanded a _quid pro quo_ for
+their support; and the Secretary of the Wool Manufacturers' Association
+preserved a suggestively close connection with the Finance Committee
+which had charge of the bill. After amending the House draft in 872
+particulars, the Senate entrusted its interests to the usual conference
+committee, and there, as had happened before, the rates were in many
+cases raised above those desired by either the Senate or the House. The
+bill became law in July, 1897.
+
+The Dingley act added little to the settlement of the tariff problem.
+The ordinary consumer was as little able as before to present his
+demands effectively and at the time and place at which the rates were
+really determined. The requirements of the silver Republicans were met
+by the imposition of high duties on wool. For one reason or another,
+duties were restored or raised upon hides, silks and linens, although
+those on cotton goods were slightly lowered. The duty on sugar was
+retained at a point favorable to the trust. In brief, then, the Act of
+1897 was aggressively protectionist. An abortive section of the act
+empowered the President to conclude treaties providing for reductions,
+as great as twenty per cent., in return for commercial concessions from
+other countries. Such reciprocity arrangements, however, must be made
+within two years of the passage of the law and might not remain in
+force more than five years, and each treaty must be ratified by the
+Senate. The President was favorable to reciprocal adjustments and
+several were arranged but were uniformly rejected in the Senate.
+
+Business was prosperous after the enactment of the Dingley tariff and
+little agitation for a change was observable for a decade. Prosperity,
+being world wide, was doubtless not due in its entirety to the American
+tariff, yet the coincidence of protection and good times gave the
+Dingley act a pleasant reputation. For many years enthusiastic stump
+speakers placed the beneficence of Providence and the tariff of 1897 on
+an equality as causes of American well-being.
+
+The President's first message to Congress had extended congratulations
+upon the fact that peace and good will with all the nations of the
+earth continued unbroken. Nevertheless it was necessary for him to
+devote much attention to the relations between Spain and its most
+valuable American possession--the island of Cuba.
+
+American interest in Cuba was by no means of recent growth. The
+situation of the island--dominating the narrowest point of the waterway
+between the Atlantic seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico--insured the
+importance of Cuba as a strategic position. The traditional attitude of
+Spain toward her colony had been one of exploitation, a policy which
+was sure to be looked upon with suspicion by a nation which had itself
+revolted from oppression. Riots and rebellions in the island, having
+their origin in Spain's colonial policy, had long engaged American
+sympathy and attention. American statesmen--Jefferson, John Quincy
+Adams, Clay and Webster--had pondered upon the wisest and most
+advantageous disposition of Cuba. In 1859 the Senate Committee on
+Foreign Relations had even concluded that "The ultimate acquisition of
+Cuba may be considered a fixed purpose of the United States." From 1868
+to 1878 the "Ten Years' War" between Cuba and Spain had raised American
+feeling to a high pitch. The struggle was characterized by a barbarity
+that rivalled mediaeval warfare; islanders who escaped to the United
+States sent ships to Cuba laden with arms and men; American trade
+rights were interfered with and American citizens seized by the
+Spaniards and shot; the _Virginius_ was captured--a ship carrying the
+American flag--and many of her crew were executed. Indignation meetings
+were held, the navy was put in order and war was in sight. Cautious
+diplomatic negotiations delayed hostilities, however, and subsequently
+exhaustion caused the restoration of peace between Spain and her
+distracted colony.
+
+With the recurrence of insurrection in 1895, interest in the United
+States was renewed, and this time circumstances combined to bring about
+a climax in American relations with Spain. On both sides the contest
+between Spain and her colony was carried on with unutterable cruelty.
+The island leader, Maximo Gomez, conducted guerrilla warfare,
+devastating the country, destroying plantation buildings and forcing
+laborers to cease work, in order to exhaust the enemy or to bring about
+American intervention. Spanish procedure was even more barbaric. A
+"reconcentration" order, promulgated by Valeriano Weyler,
+Governor-general of the island and General-in-chief of the army,
+compelled the rural population to herd together in the garrisoned
+towns. Their buildings were then burned and their cattle driven away or
+killed; hygienic precautions were disregarded and the people themselves
+were insufficiently clothed and fed. The extermination of the
+inhabitants proceeded so rapidly as to promise complete devastation in
+a short time.
+
+President Cleveland had been deeply affected by the Cuban situation.
+His last annual message to Congress had noted the $30,000,000 to
+$50,000,000 of American capital invested in the island, the volume of
+trade amounting yearly to $100,000,000, the use of American soil by
+Cubans and Cuban sympathizers for raising funds and purchasing
+equipment, and the stream of claims for damages done to American
+property in Cuba. In spite of his well-known disinclination to share in
+the internal affairs of other peoples, he had voiced a suggestive
+warning that American patience could not be maintained indefinitely.
+
+The succession of McKinley seemed likely to result in a change in the
+attitude of America toward the Cuban problem. He was more responsive to
+public opinion than his predecessor had been, public opinion was more
+and more coming to favor intervention, and his party had committed
+itself in its platform to Cuban independence through American action.
+Moreover, two events early in 1898 greatly irritated the United States.
+
+On February 9 a New York newspaper published a letter written by Señor
+Enríque Dupuy de Lôme, Spanish minister to the United States, to a
+personal friend in Havana. It referred to President McKinley as a
+"would-be politician who tries to leave a door open behind himself
+while keeping on good terms with the jingoes of his party." It further
+revealed the intention of the Minister to carry on a propaganda among
+senators in the interest of a commercial treaty. On all sides it was
+seen that the usefulness of Señor de Lôme was at an end and his
+government immediately recalled him. On February 15 the whole world was
+shocked by the destruction of the United States battleship _Maine_ in
+Havana harbor, with the loss of 260 officers and men. News of the
+disaster was accompanied by the appeal of Captain Sigsby, commander of
+the vessel, that popular judgment of the causes of the disaster be
+suspended until a court of inquiry could investigate and report.
+Nevertheless on March 9, Congress placed $50,000,000 at the President's
+disposal for the purposes of national defence and the navy prepared for
+a conflict that seemed inevitable. Both the Spanish and American
+authorities conducted examinations. The American court reported that
+the ship had been destroyed by the explosion of a submarine mine, which
+had caused the partial explosion of two or more of her magazines. No
+evidence could be found which would fix the responsibility on any
+individual. The Spanish court came to the conclusion that the
+catastrophe was due solely to an explosion of the ship's magazines.
+American opinion naturally supported the findings of the American
+court, and feeling ran high; newspapers demanded war; "Remember the
+_Maine_" summarized much of popular discussion.[4]
+
+Under such circumstances, diplomatic negotiations looking toward peace
+were difficult, and resulted only in disagreements and delay.
+Accordingly on April 11 the President laid before Congress a succinct
+account of Cuban affairs and earnestly called for forcible
+intervention. The grounds for this action he found in the sufferings of
+the people of Cuba, the injuries to Americans and to American property
+and trade, and the menace to American peace which was entailed by
+continuous conflict at our very threshold.[5] The transfer of the Cuban
+question from the hands of the President to those of Congress was
+equivalent to a decision in favor of war. On April 19 the Senate and
+House resolved that the people of Cuba were and ought to be
+independent, demanded that Spain withdraw from the island and directed
+the President to use the force of the nation to achieve the results
+desired. The approval of the Executive on the following day completed
+the severance of peaceful relations with Spain. At daylight on April 22
+Admiral Sampson and his fleet were crossing the narrows between Florida
+and Cuba, on the way to establish a blockade of the greater part of the
+island. Within three days more, Commodore George Dewey, who was in
+command of a fleet at Hong-Kong, had been instructed to proceed at once
+to the Philippine Islands and capture or destroy the Spanish fleet
+there. On April 25 Congress formally declared war upon the kingdom of
+Spain.
+
+It was not by mere chance, of course, that Admiral Sampson and
+Commodore Dewey were prepared to act with such celerity. Authorities in
+the Navy Department had long felt that a collision with Spain was
+inevitable and had been preparing for such an eventuality. With as
+little publicity as possible the Department completed and commissioned
+ships that were already under construction; it hastened the repair of
+vessels which were in any way defective; it ordered target practice and
+fleet manoeuvres; and it prepared plans for the conduct of a naval war.
+Commanders of squadrons were instructed to keep in service men whose
+terms of enlistment were about to expire; supplies of ammunition were
+procured and shipped to points where they would be needed; the
+_Oregon_, which had been stationed on the Pacific coast, was ordered to
+return to Key West by way of the Straits of Magellan and so began a
+voyage whose closing days were watched with interest by a whole nation.
+A Northern Patrol Squadron was organized to guard New England; a Flying
+Squadron was assembled at Hampton Roads for service on the Atlantic
+coast or abroad; and a formidable array gathered at Key West under
+Rear-Admiral Sampson for duty in the West Indies. Foreign shipyards
+were scoured for vessels in process of building and several were
+purchased, completed and renamed for American service. Greater
+additions were made through the purchase of merchantmen and their
+transformation into auxiliary cruisers, gunboats and colliers. In these
+ways the attempt was made, with some success, to improvise a navy on
+the eve of war.
+
+The people of the country had scarcely become accustomed to the thought
+that war with Spain had actually come to pass when word was received in
+Washington of the exploit of Commodore Dewey in the Philippine Islands.
+Attention for the moment was focussed on the Far East, and the press
+dilated upon the first test of the new American Navy.
+
+The story of the test proved to have points of interest and importance.
+When Commodore Dewey received the orders already mentioned, on April
+25, he finished immediately the preparations for conflict which had
+been initiated and turned his flagship, the _Olympia_, in the direction
+of Manila. His available force consisted of four protected cruisers,
+two gunboats, a revenue cutter, a collier and a supply ship. The city
+of Manila is on Manila Bay, a body of water twenty miles or more wide,
+and is reached only through a narrow entrance. Dewey judged that the
+channel was too deep to be mined successfully except by trained experts
+and that both contact and electrical mines would deteriorate so rapidly
+in tropical waters as to be effective only for a short time. He
+therefore decided to steam through the channel at night, disregarding
+the mines, and to attack the Spanish fleet which lay within. The plans
+worked out even better than he had hoped. With all lights masked and
+the crews at the guns, the squadron moved silently through the passage
+with no other opposition than three shots from a single battery. Once
+within the Bay Dewey steamed slowly toward the city of Manila and then
+back to a fortified point, Cavite, where he found his quarry arranged
+in an irregular crescent and awaiting the conflict. Oblivious of the
+hasty and inaccurate fire from the batteries on shore, he deliberately
+moved to a position within two and a half miles of the Spanish ships
+and said to the Captain of the _Olympia_, "You may fire when you are
+ready, Gridley."
+
+[Illustration:
+The Philippines]
+
+Three times westward and twice eastward the American squadron ran
+slowly back and forth, using the port and starboard batteries in turn,
+and in a short time the shore batteries and the Spanish fleet were
+masses of ruins. Of the American forces, only eight were injured, and
+they only slightly, while 167 of the Spanish were killed and 214
+wounded. News of the victory was as unexpected as it was welcome in the
+United States. President McKinley appointed Dewey an acting
+Rear-Admiral and on all sides discussion began of the situation and
+possibilities of the Philippines.
+
+In the meantime, the position of the American squadron was far from
+secure. To be sure, all resistance from the batteries in and around
+Manila was quickly suppressed by a threat to destroy the city;
+nevertheless Admiral Dewey was in command of too slight a force to
+enable him to occupy both the town and its environs. He accordingly
+notified Washington that more troops were necessary if it were intended
+to seize and retain Manila, and expeditionary forces were despatched,
+the first of which arrived on June 30. Indeed it was high time that
+assistance be forthcoming, for new possibilities of conflict had
+appeared in the presence of a powerful force of German warships.
+
+As soon as the defeat of the Spanish squadron had been effected,
+Admiral Dewey established a blockade of Manila Bay and, according to
+custom, the war vessels of interested nations went thither to observe
+the effectiveness of the blockade and to care for the well-being of
+their nationals. Among the early arrivals were the British, the French
+and the Japanese, all of whom observed the formalities of the situation
+and reported to the American Admiral before venturing into the harbor.
+The Germans, however, omitted the proprieties until sharply reminded by
+a shot across the bow of the _Cormoran_. By mid-June five German
+men-of-war under command of Vice Admiral von Diedrichs were in the
+Bay--a force nearly if not quite the match of the American squadron.
+When the Germans continued their disregard of the regulations
+controlling the blockade, indicating a potential if not an actual
+hostility, it became necessary for Admiral Dewey to have done with the
+Teutonic peril at once. He sent a verbal message to von Diedrichs which
+effectually ended all controversy. Admiral Dewey has not disclosed the
+exact phraseology of the message, nor did he send a record of it to the
+Navy Department. A newspaper correspondent who was acting as one of the
+Admiral's aides asserted that the protest was against von Diedrich's
+disregard of the usual courtesies of naval intercourse and that it
+closed with the words, "if he wants a fight he can have it right now."
+The disclosure by Captain Edward Chichester, in command of the English
+force, that he had orders to comply with Admiral Dewey's restrictions
+and that his sympathies were with the Americans, together with the
+arrival of the expeditionary force, assured American supremacy and a
+peaceful blockade. On August 13 a joint movement of the naval forces
+and the infantry under General Wesley Merritt resulted in the speedy
+surrender of the city of Manila. The Americans were now in control of
+the capital of the Philippine Islands and would, perforce, face the
+question of the ultimate disposition of the archipelago in case of the
+eventual defeat of Spain. In the meanwhile, popular attention turned
+toward stirring events which were taking place in the Caribbean Sea.
+
+On April 28--a week after Admiral Sampson started for Cuba--the Spanish
+Admiral Cervera left the Cape Verde Islands. His force was a
+considerable one; his goal was unknown, although naturally believed to
+be some point in the Spanish West Indies. On the assumption that this
+hypothesis was a correct one, Sampson patrolled the northern coast of
+Cuba, extending his movement as far as Porto Rico, and scouts were
+placed out beyond Guadeloupe and Martinique. The entire nation
+anxiously awaited the outcome of the impending encounter.
+
+[Illustration:
+The Spanish-American War in the West Indies]
+
+On May 19 Cervera slipped into Santiago, a town on the eastern end of
+Cuba which had rail connection with Havana, the capital of the island.
+Commodore W.S. Schley who was in command of a squadron on the southern
+coast soon received information of the enemy's whereabouts and
+established a blockade of the city, while Sampson hastened to the scene
+and assumed command of operations. The American force now included four
+first-class battleships, one second-class battleship and two cruisers.
+They were arranged in semi-circular formation facing the harbor, and at
+night powerful search-lights were kept directed upon the channel which
+Admiral Cervera must take in case of an attempt to escape. The main
+part of Santiago Bay is between four and five miles long and is reached
+through a narrow entrance channel. Elevated positions at the mouth of
+the channel rendered the vigorous defence of the harbor a matter of
+some ease. Early in the progress of the blockade the Americans
+attempted to sink a collier across the entrance, but fortunately, as it
+turned out, this daring project failed, and Admiral Sampson settled
+down to await developments.
+
+It was apparent that the capture of Santiago, and the destruction of
+the fleet could be brought about only through a joint movement of the
+army and navy. Hitherto the war had been entirely on the sea.
+Nevertheless over 200,000 volunteers had been called for, in addition
+to somewhat over 50,000 regular troops and the "Rough Riders"--the last
+a regiment of volunteer cavalry which had been raised by Colonel
+Leonard Wood and Theodore Roosevelt and which was largely composed of
+cowboys, ranchmen, Indians and athletes from eastern colleges. The
+regulars, together with a few volunteers and the Rough Riders, were
+sent to Tampa, Florida, while most of the volunteers were trained at
+Chicamauga Park, in Georgia. It had been expected that the important
+military operations would take place around Havana and for that reason
+the officer commanding the army, General Nelson A. Miles, with most of
+the regular troops, were retained for the larger service. The command
+of the expedition to Santiago fell to General William E. Shafter.
+Sixteen thousand eight hundred and eighty-seven officers and men set
+sail from Tampa on June 14 and began to disembark eight days later at
+Daiquiri, sixteen miles to the east of Santiago.
+
+Advancing from this point General Lawton, commanding a division of
+infantry, moved parallel to the shore and seized Siboney. General
+Wheeler, a former Confederate who was now in command of the cavalry,
+met and defeated a Spanish force at Las Guasimas. Further advance met
+difficulties that were more serious. On the left of the American line
+was San Juan Hill, an eminence which commanded the country toward the
+east; on the right was El Caney, a fortified village held by a small
+force of Spaniards. The country between the two points was a jungle,
+the roads hardly better than trails, where troops frequently had to
+go in single file. The fight at El Caney was severe, the enemy being
+well-entrenched, well-armed and protected by wire entanglements and
+block houses, and General Lawton suffered a loss of more than 400
+killed and wounded before driving the Spaniards out of their position.
+San Juan Hill was still more stubbornly defended, and an American
+advance was impeded by the heat, the tropical growth and the uneven
+character of the country. Under these circumstances officers became
+separated from their men and victory was gained through the
+determination and resourcefulness of the individual. The Spaniards then
+fell back upon Santiago.
+
+[Illustration:
+Campaign about Santiago]
+
+The continued success of the Americans compelled the Spanish
+authorities to make an immediate decision in regard to the fleet. To
+remain in the harbor seemed to mean being encircled and starved; to go
+out through the narrow channel seemed to lead to sure destruction. Yet
+the latter venture appealed to the commander-in-chief of Cuba,
+Captain-General Blanco, as the more honorable one and on July 2 orders
+were sent to Admiral Cervera to make the attempt. Early next morning,
+while Admiral Sampson was away at a conference with General Shafter,
+lookouts on the American battleships descried the _Infanta Maria
+Teresa_ feeling her way out of the harbor, followed by the remainder
+of the Spanish fleet, three armored cruisers and two torpedo-boat
+destroyers. The Americans instantly closed in, directing their fire
+first against the _Teresa_ and later against the rest of the fleet as
+they tried to follow their leader out to safety. Once out of the harbor
+the entire Spanish fleet dashed headlong toward the west, parallel to
+the coast, while the Americans kept pace, pouring a gruelling fire from
+every available gun. The Spaniards returned the fire and thus "the
+action resolved itself into a series of magnificent duels between
+powerful ironclads." One by one the enemy's vessels were sunk or forced
+to run ashore--the _Cristobal Colon_ last, at two o'clock in the
+afternoon. The Spanish losses, besides the fleet, were 323 killed and
+151 wounded; the Americans lost one killed and one wounded. The city of
+Santiago, deprived of its fleet, found itself in a desperate plight and
+surrendered on July 16. Shortly afterwards General Miles led an
+expedition into Porto Rico, but operations were soon brought to a close
+because of the suspension of hostilities, and from a military point of
+view the importance of the campaign was negligible.
+
+The succession of overwhelming defeats drove home to Spain the futility
+of further conflict. The despatch of American troops to the Philippines
+and to Porto Rico, moreover, indicated that Spain would soon suffer
+other losses. Hence the Spanish government, acting through Jules
+Cambon, the French ambassador to the United States, sought terms for
+the settlement of the war. The President's reply of July 30 made the
+following stipulations: Spain to relinquish and evacuate Cuba and to
+cede Porto Rico and one of the Ladrone Islands; the United States to
+occupy the city and bay of Manila, pending the conclusion of peace and
+the determination of the final disposition of the Philippines. Spain
+wished to restrict negotiations to the Cuban question, but was forced
+to accept the conditions laid down by the victor. A preliminary
+agreement or protocol was therefore signed, which provided for a
+conference at Paris concerning peace terms.
+
+The uniform success of the American arms could not obscure the popular
+belief that the Department of War had been guilty of many shortcomings.
+It will doubtless be always a subject for dispute as to whether the
+major portion of the blame is to be laid at the door of the traditional
+American disinclination to be prepared for warfare, or upon Secretary
+Alger and his immediate advisors. That the conduct of the military
+affairs was inexpert, however, is admitted on all sides. The facilities
+for taking care of the troops at Tampa were inadequate. When transports
+reached Tampa to take the troops to Santiago, officers wildly scrambled
+to get their men on board. The Rough Riders, for example, made their
+way into a transport intended for two other regiments, one of regulars
+and the other of volunteers, with the result that the volunteers and
+half of the regulars were left on shore. The clothing supplied for the
+Cuban campaign was better suited to a cold climate than to summer in
+the tropics. The health of the troops during the Santiago campaign was
+such that the general officers expressed the opinion that the army must
+immediately be removed from Cuba or suffer severe and unnecessary
+losses from malarial fever. When the men were removed, however, they
+were taken to Montauk Point on Long Island, where the climate was too
+cool and bracing. Unsanitary conditions in the training camps within
+the borders of the United States were the cause of fatalities estimated
+at several times the number killed in battle. A controversy over the
+quality of the beef supplied to the troops led to an executive
+commission of investigation. Both unnecessary and unfortunate was the
+Sampson-Schley controversy, which originated in a difference of opinion
+about the proportion of credit which each of these officers should have
+for the success of Santiago and which was continued in charges that the
+latter had made serious mistakes in the conduct of his share of the
+operations. Subsequently a Court of Inquiry investigated the
+accusations and made a decision which did not completely satisfy either
+side.
+
+Despite these minor mistakes, however, the war increased the strength
+of the administration. The most lasting effects of the conflict on
+constitutional and political history demand detailed discussion at a
+later point, but the immediate results can be briefly stated.[6] The
+successful prosecution of a popular war, combined with widespread
+prosperity and the demoralization of the opposition party greatly
+heightened the prestige of the Republicans. McKinley appeared to have
+been in truth, the "advance agent of prosperity"; and his party
+obtained a dominating control of public policy.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+H. Croly, _Marcus A. Hanna_ (1912), and C.S. Olcott, _William McKinley_
+(2 vols., 1916), discuss the politics of the period, subject to the
+limitations already mentioned. W.D. Foulke, _Fighting the Spoilsman_
+(1919), describes the relation of the administration to the civil
+service; for the Dingley tariff, Stanwood, Tarbell and Taussig.
+
+The literature on the Spanish war is extensive. Most detailed and
+reliable is F.E. Chadwick, _Relations of the United States and Spain_;
+I, _Diplomacy_, II, III, _The Spanish War_ (1909, 1911). J.H. Latané,
+_America as a World Power_ (1907), has several good chapters; H.E.
+Flack, _Spanish-American Diplomatic Relations Preceding the War of
+1898_ (1906), and E.J. Benton, _International Law and Diplomacy of the
+Spanish-American War_ (1908), take up the diplomatic side. On naval
+preparations, J.D. Long, _New American Navy_ (2 vols., 1903), is by
+McKinley's Secretary of the Navy; see also E.S. Maclay, _History of
+the United States Navy_ (rev. ed., 3 vols., 1901-1902). Good
+autobiographical accounts are: C.E. Clark, _My Fifty Years in the Navy_
+(1917); George Dewey, _Autobiography_ (1913); Theodore Roosevelt,
+_Autobiography_; and W.S. Schley, _Forty-five Years under the Flag_
+(1914). See also A.T. Mahan, _Lessons of the War with Spain_ (1899).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Cf. Peck, 518.
+
+[2] Other members of the cabinet were: Lyman J. Gage, Ill., Secretary
+of the Treasury; Joseph McKenna, Calif., Attorney-General; J.A. Gary,
+Md., Postmaster-General; J.D. Long, Mass., Secretary of the Navy, C.N.
+Bliss, Secretary of the Interior; James Wilson, Ia., Secretary of
+Agriculture.
+
+[3] The National Civil Service Reform League estimated the changes at
+10,000.
+
+[4] In 1911 the wreck of the _Maine_ was raised and examined. The
+evidence found was such as to substantiate the findings of the American
+court of inquiry. _Scientific American_, January 27, 1912.
+
+[5] It has commonly been felt among certain classes in the United
+States since 1898 that the business interests whose property and trade
+were mentioned by President McKinley had an undue share in bringing
+about the declaration of war. While it can not be doubted that the
+President was swayed more by business interests than most of our
+executives since the Civil War have been, yet it is also true that the
+sufferings of the Cubans aroused genuine sympathy in the United States.
+The President himself was anxious to delay war as long as possible.
+
+[6] Below, Chap. XVIII.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+IMPERIALISM
+
+"The guns of Admiral Dewey did something more than destroy a Spanish
+fleet in the harbor of Manila. Their echo came back to us in a
+question new in the history of our government." The new problem was
+Imperialism--was it wise policy and was it constitutional to annex and
+govern territories outside the limits of continental North America? In
+colonial problems the United States had had no experience; and if the
+Philippines, Cuba or Porto Rico were annexed, it would be necessary
+to administer the affairs of peoples whose languages, racial
+characteristics and forms of government were utterly strange. Such
+objections arose in the minds of many Americans as the conference
+assembled at Paris on October 1 to settle the terms of peace.[1]
+
+The chief controversies between the Spanish and the American negotiators
+related to Cuba and the Philippines. The Spanish commissioners early
+proposed to transfer Cuba to the United States, the latter to turn it
+over to the Cuban people in due time. With the sovereignty of Cuba was
+to go the debt of the island. On the refusal of the Americans to accede
+to this, the Spanish commissioners urged the transfer of Cuba to the
+United States without any promise as to its future. Instructions from
+Washington both on possession and on debt, however, were explicit and
+in the end Spain had to relinquish all claim to Cuba and assume
+responsibility for its indebtedness. The proper disposition of the
+Philippines presented far greater difficulty. Not only was there a
+difference of opinion between the two groups of commissioners, but the
+American government was in doubt about the wisest course to pursue, and
+grave diversity of opinion existed among the people and in the peace
+commission itself. Moreover the capture of the city of Manila had taken
+place after the protocol had been signed and after hostilities had been
+ordered suspended, but before news of these facts had reached Admiral
+Dewey. The original instructions of President McKinley to the peace
+commissioners were to the effect that the outcome of the war had placed
+new duties and responsibilities on the United States, that the
+commercial opportunity which possession of the Philippines would present
+could not be overlooked and that the island of Luzon at least must be
+ceded. So little was known about the people and the possibilities of the
+islands that the American commission was compelled to go far afield to
+obtain information from writers and investigators in regard to questions
+of defence, the political capacity of the inhabitants, the danger that
+another nation might step in if the United States should evacuate,
+commercial prospects, and so on. President McKinley soon came to the
+opinion that the proper course was to take the entire archipelago. To
+give them back to Spain seemed "dishonorable"; to turn them over to our
+commercial rivals, France or Germany, seemed "bad business"; to leave
+them to themselves would be to leave them to "anarchy and misrule";
+hence there was nothing to do but to take all of them and attempt to
+spread American civilization among the Filipino people. The American
+commissioners therefore demanded the Philippines, but realizing the
+defect in their case, since the conquest of Manila had taken place after
+the conclusion of the protocol, agreed to pay Spain $20,000,000. The
+Spanish commissioners thereupon yielded to necessity and reluctantly
+agreed.
+
+As finally signed, the treaty of December 10, 1898, contained the
+following points: Spain agreed to relinquish Cuba, and the United
+States was to protect life and property during its occupancy of the
+island; Spain also ceded Porto Rico and the other Spanish West Indies,
+Guam in the Ladrones, and the Philippines on payment of $20,000,000;
+the United States agreed to return to Spain, at its own cost, all
+Spanish prisoners taken at the time of the capture of Manila; the
+civil and political rights of the inhabitants of the ceded territories
+were to be determined by Congress; and freedom of religion was
+guaranteed.
+
+The reference of the treaty to the Senate for ratification elicited
+many divergences of opinion, the ablest opposition being presented by
+members of the President's own party. In particular, the position
+taken by Senator Hoar, a rigid Republican and a close friend of
+President McKinley, made a strong impression. That there can be no
+just government without the consent of the governed, he asserted, was
+the central doctrine of the Declaration of Independence. Moreover, the
+acquisition of foreign lands, he believed, would lead us into
+competition with European powers for territory, and thus tempt us away
+from the international policy which had been laid down by the
+"fathers" and followed by the nation ever since. Most of the Democrats
+held similar views, but some of them heeded the advice of Bryan, who
+urged that the treaty be ratified in order to end the war, and that
+the ultimate disposition of the new possessions be decided in the next
+presidential campaign. The point of view which seems to have prevailed
+with most Republicans was that the United States, being a sovereign
+nation, possessed power to acquire territory and to determine its
+future status, and that as a matter of expediency it was better to
+take the Philippines than to risk the dangers which lay in leaving
+them alone. Shortly before the final vote was taken, an insurrection
+broke out in the Philippines against American control, which may have
+influenced some senators to accept the President's settlement. Even
+with this aid, however, ratification was brought about by the narrow
+margin of one vote more than the required two-thirds majority.[2]
+
+Within the field of politics, the Republicans increased the advantage
+which they had gained in 1896. The congressional and state elections
+of 1893 continued their control of the House and strengthened it in
+the Senate; the world-wide prosperity which has already been mentioned
+and in which the United States shared, was in striking contrast with
+the business depression of the recent Democratic administration;
+discoveries of gold deposits in the Klondike and the improvement of
+methods of extracting the metal from the ore greatly increased the
+currency supply and assisted in raising the level of prices, thereby
+giving greater prosperity to the western farmer and lessening his
+complaints. The gold standard act of March 14, 1900, pleased the
+financial interests, for it fixed the standard of value, set the
+amount of the gold reserve at $150,000,000, and specified adequate
+means by which the Secretary of the Treasury could maintain other
+forms of money on a parity with the precious metal. Within the
+Republican organization, the President's soothing personality and
+Hanna's meticulous attention to the details of the party machinery
+continued undiminished the momentum which had been gathered.
+Defections on the imperialism issue, while affecting important party
+leaders, were numerically unimportant. Among the financial and
+industrial classes, therefore, confidence in President McKinley and
+his advisors was thoroughgoing. There was a strong bond of interest,
+moreover, between territorial expansion and industrial expansion,
+between Imperialism and the expansion of foreign markets. The primacy
+of business was assured.
+
+The renomination of McKinley at the Republican Convention in
+Philadelphia, on June 19, 1900, was unanimous. The vice-presidency,
+contrary to tradition, occupied the center of interest. Several men of
+prominence were mentioned in this connection but the name which evoked
+most enthusiasm was that of Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt's career
+during the war with Spain had been a prominent factor in making him
+Governor of New York. As Governor he had shown energy and independence,
+especially in connection with measures for taxing street railway and
+other franchises, and had come into conflict with Senator Thomas C.
+Platt, the boss of the state. Senator Platt, therefore, desired to
+divert the vigorous Governor into the vice-presidency, an office which
+usually casts a "species of political oblivion" over its occupant.
+McKinley was opposed to the plan and so were Hanna and Roosevelt
+himself. The latter desired to put into effect further plans which he
+had made as Governor, and the attempt to shelve him aroused his
+fighting spirit. In the convention, however, sentiment in behalf of
+Roosevelt, especially from the West, was so strong as to over-rule
+both the administration and the wishes of the Governor. McKinley sent
+emphatic word that he was neither for nor against any man, but would
+accept the decision of the delegates. Hanna then withdrew his
+objections and Roosevelt was nominated without opposition.
+
+The Republican platform emphasized the prosperity which had resulted
+from the accession of the party to power; it pointed out the danger
+which would ensue if the opposition were allowed to conduct public
+affairs; and it dwelt upon the growth of the export trade, and the
+beneficence of the Dingley tariff. An antitrust plank deprecated
+combinations designed to create monopolies, and promised legislation
+to prevent such abuses. Imperialism was briefly dismissed: "No other
+course was possible than to destroy Spain's sovereignty throughout the
+West Indies and in the Philippine Islands. That course created our
+responsibility before the world ... to provide for the maintenance of
+law and order, and for the establishment of good government and for
+the performance of international obligations."
+
+The dissension which had existed within the Democratic party since the
+second administration of Cleveland was still the important fact about
+the organization. Having been out of power, the party could take only
+the negative position of hostile criticism; there had been no
+reorganization and clarification of purposes, and no new leader had
+appeared who combined the personal prestige of Bryan with those
+qualities of conservatism and solidity which the East demanded, so
+that from the beginning there was no doubt that Bryan would again be
+the candidate and that he would take the lead in framing the platform.
+The convention met in Kansas City, on July 4. The platform placed most
+emphasis upon three issues. The first, which was declared the
+"paramount" one, was imperialism. The reasons given for opposing
+territorial expansion were mainly those brought forward by Senator
+Hoar at the time when the peace treaty was under discussion.
+
+    We declare again that all governments instituted among men derive
+    their just powers from the consent of the governed; that any
+    government not based upon the consent of the governed is a tyranny;
+    and that to impose upon any people a government of force is to
+    substitute the methods of imperialism for those of a republic.
+
+The second issue, the evils of big business, received renewed
+attention, although an old complaint, because of the many industrial
+consolidations of the years immediately preceding. The "trusts" were
+condemned for appropriating the fruits of industry for the benefit of
+the few, and the Republican party was charged with fostering them in
+return for campaign subscriptions and political support. The Dingley
+act was denounced as a "trust-breeding" measure. The remedies proposed
+were severely definite in comparison with the vague plank which had
+been offered by the Republicans: they included publicity as to the
+affairs of corporations doing an interstate business; the prohibition
+of stock-watering and attempts at monopoly; and the use of all the
+constitutional powers of Congress over interstate commerce and the
+mails for the enactment of comprehensive and effective legislation.
+That the silver issue was mentioned was due to the insistence of Bryan,
+who believed that the stand which had been taken by the party in 1896
+was a right one. Notwithstanding the objections of many influential
+leaders, therefore, a free silver plank was inserted, although in brief
+terms and in an inconspicuous place.
+
+As a political contest, the campaign of 1900 lacked life in comparison
+with that of 1896. Interest in anti-imperialism was difficult to
+arouse, and waned visibly as the weeks wore on. Prosperity and the
+increased money supply sapped the strength of earlier discontent with
+the currency situation, so that the choice presented to the voters
+simmered down to imperialism and Bryan. A bit of vigor was infused into
+the campaign through the energetic speaking tours of Roosevelt and the
+Democratic leader. Hanna, as Chairman of the Republican National
+Committee, organized everything with his usual skill, and raised, his
+biographer tells us, $2,500,000 from the important business men of the
+country--one-fifth of it from two companies. The result of the election
+was the choice of McKinley, whose plurality over Bryan exceeded 860,000
+in a total vote of less than 14,000,000; Bryan received less support
+than had been accorded him in 1896.
+
+While imperialism as a political issue was being discussed and decided,
+the history of American control in Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines
+was rapidly being written. Economic conditions in the first of these
+islands at the time of the American occupation were little short of
+appalling. The streets, houses and public institutions were filthy and
+in disrepair; anarchy ruled, for lack of any stable and recognized
+government; and the people were half-clothed, homeless and starving. At
+noon on January 1, 1899, the Spanish flag was hauled down in Havana,
+the American flag was hoisted in its place, and representatives of the
+former government relinquished all rights to the sovereignty and public
+property of the island. General John R. Brooke, and later General
+Leonard Wood controlled affairs as military governors.
+
+The first task was to feed the hungry, and care for the sick and dying.
+The customs service was revived under command of Colonel Tasker H.
+Bliss and began to supply needed revenue. The penal institutions were
+investigated--noisome holes in which were crowded wretched prisoners,
+many of whom had been incarcerated for no ascertainable reason.
+Education was reorganized, equipment provided, teachers found, and
+schools repaired or rebuilt. Most remarkable, was the work of
+sanitation. Heaps of rubbish were cleared away; houses washed and
+disinfected; sewers were opened and streets cleaned. Scientific
+investigation disclosed the fact that the mosquito disseminated the
+yellow fever and steps were taken to prevent the breeding of these
+pests. So successful were the efforts that in a few years the fever had
+become a thing of the past.
+
+It was seen that the economic rehabilitation of Cuba must come about
+mainly through the production of sugar, and since the United States was
+the chief purchaser of the product, the tariff schedule was of vital
+importance. In 1901 Congress was urged to reduce the tariff on imports
+from Cuba, but the opposition was formidable. The American Beet Sugar
+Association complained that their industry, which had been recently
+established, would be ruined by allowing reductions to Cuban growers;
+the cane-sugar planters of Louisiana were allied with them; and the
+friends of protection feared the effect of any break in the tariff
+wall. On the other hand, the American Sugar Refining Company, popularly
+called the "Sugar Trust," merely refined raw sugar and desired an
+increase in the supply. Lobbyists of all descriptions poured into
+Washington to influence committees and individuals, and General Leonard
+Wood, then the Governor of Cuba, even expended Cuban funds in the
+spread of literature favorable to a reciprocal reduction of duties. In
+the meantime, a reciprocity treaty was made and submitted to the
+Senate, where it hung fire for somewhat more than a year, and was
+finally ratified on December 16, 1903. It provided for the admission of
+Cuban products into the United States at a reduction of twenty per
+cent., and a reciprocal reduction on American goods entering Cuba of
+twenty-five to forty per cent.
+
+The establishment of a policy in regard to permanent relations between
+the United States and Cuba was brought about in 1901-1902. When
+Congress had demanded the withdrawal of Spain from the island in 1898,
+its action had been accompanied by the Teller Resolution, disclaiming
+any intention of keeping Cuba and asserting a determination to leave
+the control of the island with its people. After the close of the war
+President McKinley and his closest advisors in Congress had determined
+that the pledge should be kept, and public sentiment had been in
+agreement with them. As soon, therefore, as American control was an
+established fact, plans were formulated for relinquishing Cuba to the
+people of the island. A constitutional convention was held, and a form
+of government, modelled on that of the United States, was framed and
+adopted on February 21, 1901.
+
+While the Cuban convention was deliberating, it became apparent that
+the constitution would not include any statement of a policy in regard
+to future relations with the United States. The American Senate,
+therefore, under the leadership of Senator O.H. Platt, passed the
+so-called "Platt Amendment." Its several provisions were as follows:
+the Cuban government shall never enter into agreements with other
+powers which tend to impair the independence of the island; it shall
+not contract public debts of such size that the ordinary revenues would
+be inadequate to pay interest charges and provide for a sinking fund;
+it shall permit the intervention of the United States when needed to
+preserve Cuban independence and the maintenance of an adequate
+government; and it shall sell or lease necessary coaling stations to
+the United States. When satisfied that the purpose of the Amendment was
+not to enable the United States to meddle in affairs in Cuba, but
+merely to secure Cuban independence and set forth a definite
+understanding between the two nations, the convention incorporated it
+in the final constitution. On May 20, 1902, the control of Cuba was
+formally relinquished to the people of the island, with the good wishes
+of the people of the United States. Only once since that time has the
+United States intervened. During the summer of 1906, an insurrection
+against the Cuban government took place during which the president of
+the Republic requested American assistance. A small army was
+despatched, which remained until March, 1909, when quiet was restored
+and an orderly election was held.
+
+The task of the United States in Porto Rico was far simpler than in
+Cuba. The island was small; the people homogeneous, predominantly
+white, and well-disposed toward American occupation; and only slight
+damage had been done by the troops during the war because of the
+cessation of hostilities at the outset of the Porto Rican expedition.
+The development of a system of education, therefore, the improvement of
+roads and the betterment of health conditions through vaccination and
+the control of yellow fever presented a problem which was relatively
+simple.
+
+On October 18, 1898, United States officials assumed control of the
+island, and until May 1, 1900, the government was in the hands of the
+War Department. On the latter date a civil government was established
+under the "Foraker Act," an organic law or constitution passed by
+Congress on April 12, 1900. Under the provisions of the Act a governor
+was to be appointed by the President of the United States, to be the
+chief executive officer of the island. The people of Porto Rico were
+allowed a voice in the government through the power to elect the lower
+house of the legislature; but control by the United States was assured
+by giving the President authority to choose the members of the upper
+house, and by giving both the governor and Congress a veto on
+legislation passed by the island legislature. In the course of time the
+Porto Ricans desired larger self-government. This was granted by the
+act of March 2, 1917, which made the islanders citizens of the United
+States and gave them power to elect both houses of the legislature.[3]
+
+The first difficulty met by the United States in the Philippines was an
+inheritance from Spanish rule. In 1896 the Filipinos, led by Aguinaldo,
+had risen against the government in order to secure more liberal
+treatment and to eliminate the influence of the Catholic friars from
+politics. The "embers of dissatisfaction" were still aglow when the
+American war intervened. Relations between the revolutionists and the
+United States forces became strained when the former were not allowed
+to cooperate with the Americans against the Spanish, and in February,
+1899, open warfare followed. Not until July, 1902, was quiet restored,
+and during the process enough cruelties were practiced by American
+soldiers to make the anti-imperialists doubly fearful of military
+control.[4]
+
+McKinley and his Secretary of War--at this time Elihu Root--desired to
+supplant military government with civil rule as quickly as possible and
+to this end the President appointed the first Philippine Commission on
+January 20, 1899, with Jacob G. Schurman, of Cornell University, as
+Chairman. It was instructed to investigate the situation in the islands
+and to recommend any action that seemed wise. The unsettled condition
+of affairs seriously hampered the work of the Commission but it
+gathered a fund of information which it later published. A second
+Commission was sent out in 1900, with Judge William H. Taft at the
+head. The instructions given to the Commission by President McKinley
+embodied an enlightened colonial policy, the core of which was that the
+government being established was "designed not for our satisfaction, or
+for the expression of our theoretical views, but for the happiness,
+peace, and prosperity of the people of the Philippine Islands." The
+Commission wielded such large powers that gradually the area controlled
+by the civil government increased at the expense of the military
+authorities, and by 1902 only the wild Moros were under military
+control.
+
+By this time a definite form of government could be planned for, built
+upon the labors of the second Commission. The Philippine Act of July 1,
+1902, provided for a governor appointed by the President, with the
+advice of the Senate, executive departments, and a legislature, the
+lower house of which was elected by the people. From the beginning the
+Filipinos, like the Porto Ricans, have desired a greater range of
+self-government, and in 1916 long steps were taken in the direction
+desired by them. The Jones act of that year materially increased the
+powers of the Philippine government and gave the Filipinos power to
+elect the upper as well as the lower house of the legislature. The
+passage of the law met with enthusiastic approval in the islands.
+
+The purpose of American rule in the Philippines has been to fit the
+people for self-government, although opinions have differed as to how
+soon the final outcome could be brought about. An early and bothersome
+problem was found in the friars' lands, which consisted of about
+425,000 acres, for the most part in the vicinity of Manila. The
+possession of so great an area, together with the religious power and
+the considerable political authority which the friars exercised under
+Spanish rule, gave the Church a domination which might threaten trouble
+after the American occupation. The solution of the problem was found in
+the purchase of the lands for about $7,000,000 by the United States.
+Efforts have been made to introduce a complete system of
+education--physical and industrial, as well as academic--with such
+success that when the Jones bill was being discussed in Congress in
+1916 it was asserted that every member of the Philippine legislature at
+that time was a college graduate. In 1917 the Filipino student body
+numbered 647,256, with 11,822 teachers. Political education has also
+been a part of the American idea. Elementary self-government was
+gradually introduced, starting in the more civilized local
+municipalities and provinces and confining the suffrage to the educated
+people, the official classes and property owners. The preservation of
+order has been more and more entrusted to a Philippine constabulary;
+civil service officers and school teachers have been increasingly
+chosen from the Filipinos; and the courts have been partly manned with
+native judges. Work in sanitation has followed the lines marked out in
+Cuba and Porto Rico. First and last over 10,000,000 vaccinations were
+performed before 1914; small-pox has been controlled; attention has
+been paid to the building of highways and railroads, water supply, the
+disposal of sewage and allied problems. The precise time, if ever, when
+independence should be granted to the Philippines is the one great
+question remaining.
+
+The first attempt to revise the customs laws in the Philippines was
+made by the Commission during the governorship of William H. Taft.
+These schedules were revised in Washington in such a way as to
+discriminate against Philippine interests, but they had remained in
+force only a short time when Congress passed the act of March 8, 1902,
+allowing goods grown or produced in the Philippines to enter the United
+States under a twenty-five per cent. reduction. In 1909, the tariff
+makers were induced to relent to the extent of allowing the free
+importation of goods grown, produced or manufactured in the
+Philippines, except that only a specified annual amount of Philippine
+sugar and tobacco might be brought in. In 1913 the wall was entirely
+removed on all trade between the United States and the Philippines in
+articles made or grown in either of the two countries.
+
+While Congress and the President were concerning themselves with the
+practical problems of military control, sanitation and the like, the
+Supreme Court was laboriously considering the less tangible but equally
+perplexing question of the constitutionality of the several acts which
+the legislative and executive departments had committed. The power of
+Congress to acquire territory and the right of the executive to control
+new territory under the war power had long been conceded. Admittedly,
+however, government under the war power was temporary and transitional.
+In earlier times such acquisitions as those effected by the Louisiana
+purchase and the annexation of Texas had been consummated with the
+distinct understanding that these regions should immediately or
+eventually become territories or states in the Union. The status of
+Porto Rico and the Philippines was novel. "The civil rights and
+political status of the native inhabitants of the territories hereby
+ceded to the United States," ran the words of the treaty of peace
+closing the war with Spain, "shall be determined by the Congress." Did
+this mean that Congress might govern the new acquisitions independently
+of the Constitution? Could it abridge freedom of speech, and permit
+cruel and unusual punishments, or establish slavery? Could Congress
+permanently govern these lands without giving their citizens the rights
+of citizens of the United States, and with no intention of ever making
+them territories or states? On the other hand, if Congress must act
+within the limits prescribed by the Constitution, would the wild Moros
+of the Philippines be the beneficiaries of the amendment preserving the
+right of trial by jury? In the popular language of the day, did the
+Constitution follow the flag?
+
+It was not long before the Supreme Court was called upon in the
+"Insular Cases" to express itself upon these constitutional questions.
+The first case was De Lima _v._ Bidwell. It was a suit to recover
+duties paid on goods sent from Porto Rico to the United States during
+the interval between the cession of the island and the passage of the
+Foraker Act. The duties had been paid under the Dingley law, which
+levied customs of specified amounts upon all goods imported "from
+foreign countries." Was Porto Rico a "foreign" country? The majority of
+the nine members of the Court thought that it was not foreign, that
+there was scarcely a "shred of authority" for the view that a "district
+ceded to and in the possession of the United States remains for any
+purpose a foreign country." Since Porto Rico was not a foreign country,
+the duties were wrongfully collected and must be returned. The
+remaining four justices dissented. One of them delivered a dissenting
+opinion in which he held that Porto Rico occupied middle ground between
+that of a foreign country and domestic territory. As such its status
+could be determined by Congress only and therefore its products were
+subject to duties levied by the Dingley act.
+
+In Downes _v._ Bidwell the Court was compelled to determine the
+constitutionality of the part of the Foraker Act which provided for a
+tariff between Porto Rico and the United States equal to fifteen per
+cent. of that levied by the Dingley act. Again the Court divided five
+to four. Mr. Justice Brown delivered the majority opinion. It was to
+the effect that the Constitution applied only to States; that Congress
+possessed unlimited power over the political relations of the
+territories; that Porto Rico was a "territory appurtenant to and
+belonging to the United States"; and that the part of the Constitution
+which says that duties shall be uniform throughout the United States
+did not apply to Porto Rico unless Congress so willed. Hence the
+customs clause of the Foraker Act was valid. Four of the majority,
+however, who agreed with Mr. Justice Brown in his conclusion that the
+tariff clause of the Foraker Act was constitutional did so for reasons
+which they asserted to be "different from, if not in conflict with,
+those expressed" by him.
+
+From the point of view of constitutional law, the decisions were
+unsatisfactory, because of the balanced division of opinion. Yet to
+have declared all the provisions of the Constitution in force in all
+the acquisitions would have been embarrassing. Logic and the
+Constitution went to the winds, while the executive and legislative
+departments administered the territories on the convenient and flexible
+theory that certain constitutional provisions must be heeded and that
+others need not.
+
+While the colonial policy of the United States was being developed, the
+possession of the Philippines added interest in the United States to an
+unusual international situation in China which immediately involved
+several European nations and eventually affected America. The
+Chinese-Japanese War, which came to a close in 1895, had uncovered to
+the world the weakness of China as a military power and had weakened
+the hold of the reigning monarch upon the people of the Empire.
+Thereupon the leading commercial nations of Europe began to seize
+portions of China in order to extend their trade relations in the Far
+East. Russia first attempted to obtain a seaport, but retired when an
+uproar of protest arose from the remainder of Europe. Not long
+afterwards, two German missionaries in the province of Shantung were
+murdered. The outrage formed a sufficient pretext for aggressive
+action, as a result of which China leased Kiaochau to Germany for
+ninety-nine years, including in the grant railway and mining privileges
+and an indemnity; Russia then renewed her attempt and succeeded in
+leasing Port Arthur and Talienwan for twenty-five years. Great Britain
+followed with the acquisition of rights in Weihaiwei similar to those
+of Russia in Port Arthur; Japan found its share in the province of
+Fukien, and France in Kwangchaouwan. In each case, moreover, the
+leasing power designated a large area around its holdings as a "sphere
+of influence," in which its economic and political mastery was
+complete. In this way, thirteen of the eighteen provinces of China,
+including the most desirable harbors, waterways and mines, were
+partially controlled by the powers.
+
+American foreign affairs had been, since October 1, 1898, in the
+skilful hands of John Hay, who was possessed of an intimate knowledge
+of conditions in Europe. Hay perceived the danger to American
+commercial interests in China, and accordingly in September, 1899, he
+addressed a circular note to the powers requesting each of them to give
+formal assurances that in its sphere of influence: (1) it would not
+interfere with any treaty port or vested interest; (2) it would agree
+that the Chinese tariff should apply equally to all goods shipped to
+ports in the spheres, and be collected by the Chinese officials; and
+(3) it would charge no higher harbor and railroad rates for citizens of
+other nations than for its own. The powers having agreed more or less
+directly, Hay informed them by a note of March 20, 1900, that all had
+acceded to his propositions and that the United States considered their
+assent as "final and definitive." There could be, of course, no
+effectual guaranty that the powers would fully observe this "Open-Door"
+policy, but the economic penetration of China, which would soon result
+in complete political possession, was at least retarded for the moment.
+
+Domestic affairs in China, meanwhile, had been seething under the
+surface. An ill-starred reform movement, initiated by the Emperor, had
+failed, the government was discredited, and the Empress Dowager seized
+the throne for herself. All China interpreted the event to presage a
+return to the old order of things--a general anti-foreign movement.
+Economic distresses, bad crops, a disastrous flood and hatred of
+foreign missionaries, combined with a deep resentment at the European
+partition of their country, caused the Chinese to break out in a score
+of scattered attacks on the hated aliens. The culmination was the Boxer
+Rebellion. The Boxers was a society which had long existed in China for
+various religious, patriotic and other purposes. It took up the cry
+"Drive out the foreigners and uphold the dynasty." Government officials
+by their disinclination to quell the Boxer uprising, showed that their
+sympathies were with the rioters.
+
+The climax of the outbreak came in and around Pekin, the capital of
+China. The railroad from the city to the coast was seized, telegraphic
+connection cut off, and the representatives of the foreign powers were
+compelled to fortify themselves within the city. On June 19, 1900, all
+foreigners were ordered to leave within twenty-four hours, and the
+German minister was shot when he attempted to visit the proper officer
+in order to protest. The Chinese army poured out to surround the
+quarter of the city where the legations were situated and cut them off
+from the rest of the world. All foreigners fled to the British
+legation, where they constructed bomb proof cellars, raised barricades
+and planted artillery.[5] The powers, including the United States,
+combined to send a punitive expedition to Pekin, while the legationers
+settled down to a state of siege, determined to hold out as long as
+possible. At last on August 14, when the surviving foreigners were
+reduced to eating horse flesh and when scores had been killed or
+wounded, the relief column reached the capital. It was high time. The
+foreign quarters and much of the business portion, the banks, and the
+theatres had been burned, and the entire city threatened with
+destruction.
+
+By the time that the uprisings in Pekin and elsewhere had been
+suppressed, it was evident that the powers would have a stern
+accounting with China. Hay had already openly announced the policy of
+the United States in his note of July 3, 1900; it was that the United
+States would seek a solution which should bring about permanent safety
+and peace to China, preserve the territorial entity of the country,
+protect the rights of friendly powers and insure an equal opportunity
+for all nations in the commerce of China. Hay continued through the
+negotiations to urge joint action on the part of the powers, and
+procured from them a statement disclaiming any purpose to acquire any
+part of China. At length in December, 1900, the demands upon China were
+formulated, to which that unhappy nation was compelled to accede. The
+most important were, punishment for the guilty rioters, safeguards for
+the future, indemnities for losses and the improvement of commercial
+relations. The financial indemnity finally placed upon China was
+$333,000,000, of which $24,000,000 was for the United States. The
+latter sum proved to be more than sufficient to satisfy all claims and
+China was relieved from the payment of about $11,000,000. As a mark of
+appreciation for this act, the Chinese government determined to use the
+fund in sending students to the United States for education.
+
+While the problems concerning China and the colonial possessions of the
+United States were reaching a settlement, on September 6, 1901,
+President McKinley attended the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo,
+where he was shot by a young fanatic. He died eight days later and
+Vice-President Roosevelt succeeded him.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The framing, contents and ratification of the treaty of 1898 are well
+described in Chadwick, Latané and Olcott. The treaty itself is
+conveniently found in William MacDonald, _Documentary Source Book of
+American History_ (new ed., 1916).
+
+On imperialism: L.A. Coolidge, _An Old-Fashioned Senator, O.H. Plat_
+(1910); G.F. Hoar, _Autobiography of Seventy Years_, contains a strong
+argument against imperialism; A.C. Coolidge, _United States as a World
+Power_ (1916).
+
+The best accounts of the election of 1900 are in Stanwood, Croly and
+Latané.
+
+The island possessions have given rise to a considerable body of
+special volumes of a high order. Especially useful are: (Cuba), Elihu
+Hoot, _Military and Colonial Policy of the United States_ (1916), by
+McKinley's Secretary of War; L.A. Coolidge, _O.H. Platt_ (1910); A.G.
+Robinson, _Cuba and the Intervention_ (1905); C.E. Magoon, _Republic
+ of Cuba_ (1908), by the provisional governor during the second
+intervention. (Porto Rico), W.F. Willoughby, _Territories and
+Dependencies of the United States_ (1905), by a former treasurer of
+Porto Rico; L.S. Rowe, _United States and Porto Rico_ (1904). The most
+complete work on the Philippines is D.C. Worcester, _Philippines: Past
+and Present_ (2 vols., 1914), by a member of the Commission; the
+valuable report of Commissioner Taft is in _Report of the Philippine
+Commission_, 1907, part 3, printed also as _Senate Document 200_, 60th
+Congress, 1st session, vol. 7, (Serial Number 5240).
+
+The legal and constitutional aspects of imperialism are best followed
+in the _Harvard Law Review_, vols. XII, XIII; W.W. Willoughby,
+_Constitutional Law of the United States_ (2 vols., 1910); C.F.
+Randolph, _The Law and Policy of Annexation_ (1901); the "insular
+cases" are in _United States Reports_, vol. 182, pp. 1, 244.
+
+The most complete account of affairs in China is P.H. Clements, _The
+Boxer Rebellion_ (1915); J.B. Moore, _Digest_, vol. V (1906), is
+useful, as always; J.W. Foster, _American Diplomacy in the Orient_
+(1903), is clear and concise; W.R. Thayer, _John Hay_ (2 vols., 1915),
+is disappointing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The American commissioners were W.R. Day, Secretary of State;
+Whitelaw Reid, editor of the New York _Tribune_; and Senators C.K.
+Davis, W.P. Frye and George Gray. Senator Hoar remonstrated with
+McKinley for placing senators on such commissions as this, on the
+ground that the independence of the Senate was thereby lessened when
+the question of ratifying the treaty came before that body. He declared
+that McKinley admitted that the practice was wrong. Cf. _Autobiography_,
+II, 46-51.
+
+[2] Of the President's party, T.B. Reed, the powerful Speaker of the
+House, retired from public life for personal reasons and because of his
+dissent from the imperialist policy of his party. McCall, _Reed_,
+237-8.
+
+[3] Under the provisions of the Foraker Act only fifteen per cent. of
+the usual duties were to be paid on goods passing between the island
+and the United States, and since July 25, 1901, complete free trade has
+existed.
+
+[4] The Philippine group is about 7,000 miles southwest of San
+Francisco; the chief island, Luzon, is almost exactly the size of Ohio,
+40,000 sq. miles; the largest city, Manila, contained over 250,000
+people at the time of the American occupation.
+
+[5] It was on the occasion of despatching troops to avenge the death of
+Von Ketteler, the German minister, that the Emperor gave instructions
+to "give no quarter and to (act) so like Huns that for a thousand years
+to come no Chinese would dare to look a German in the face."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+THE BEGINNING OF A NEW CENTURY
+
+Most of the tendencies which characterized the growth of population,
+the expansion of the West, the concentration of the people in cities,
+the development of manufacturing and agriculture, and the extension of
+the railway system, from 1870 to 1890, were equally significant during
+the two decades following the latter year. Nevertheless there were
+important differences of detail in the tendencies of the later period;
+and about the year 1900 in particular there occurred changes that were
+far-reaching.
+
+[Illustration:
+The chief foreign elements in the population of the United States, 1910]
+
+The rate of growth of population slowed up slightly after 1890, being
+twenty-one per cent. per decade, as contrasted with twenty-five per
+cent. from 1870 to 1890. The increases were distributed over a larger
+area during the later two decades, and aside from the industrial
+states, those which showed the greatest growth were Oklahoma, Texas and
+California. Immigration continued to be large, and concentrated in the
+north, especially in the cities. In New York city, for instance, forty
+per cent. of the inhabitants in 1910 were foreign born, and
+thirty-eight per cent. more were of foreign, or mixed foreign and
+native parentage. The chief European contributors to the population of
+America in 1910 in the order of their importance were Germany,
+Austria-Hungary, Russia, Ireland, Italy and England. Moreover the
+foreign elements had frequently become concentrated in especial states:
+the Germans in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois; the Russians in New
+York, North Dakota and Connecticut; the Austrians in Pennsylvania and
+New Jersey; and the Irish in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York.
+The immigration of Canadians, which had been of importance before 1900,
+appreciably slowed down after that year; and instead there was a
+distinct movement in the opposite direction, especially from Minnesota,
+North Dakota and Washington. The emigration was caused mainly by the
+desire to take up fertile lands which had been widely advertised by the
+Canadian government. The migration from the eastern states toward the
+West continued as in earlier years. It was noticeable, however, that
+whereas previous migration had been almost wholly on east and west
+lines, there was in later years a greater tendency to seek favorable
+openings wherever they were found. Oklahoma, for example, in 1910
+contained 71,000 natives of Illinois, 101,000 Kansans and 162,000
+Missourians. The trend of population toward the cities was so rapid
+between 1890 and 1910 as to suggest the likelihood that by 1920 half
+the people of the country would be living in communities of 2,500
+persons or more. Of the twenty-three towns that more than doubled in
+numbers during the two decades after 1890, seventeen were in the South
+and on the Pacific Coast, indicating that the tendency toward urban
+life was no longer confined to the North and East.
+
+Manufacturing increased its importance as the greatest economic
+activity in the Northeast, and was moving westward so rapidly that
+Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois found their interests becoming
+increasingly like those of the eastern states. Parts of the South,
+also, developed considerable industrial interests. The manufacture of
+cotton goods, for example, increased with such rapidity that three of
+the first five states in the value of their product in 1909 were
+southern states--North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Since 1889
+the production of lumber has taken a prominent place. Louisiana doubled
+its activity from 1889 to 1899 and had tripled this record by 1909.
+Almost the entire South from Virginia to Louisiana produced large
+amounts during the twenty years under consideration. The iron and steel
+industry in Alabama, and the production of turpentine, resin and
+fertilizers were other important southern interests. Throughout the
+country at large the number of wage earners engaged in manufacturing
+grew somewhat more rapidly than the population, being about twenty-five
+per cent. per decade from 1890 to 1910.
+
+The center of agriculture continued to be in the Middle West, in which
+was to be found nearly fifty-three per cent. of the improved farm lands
+and fifty-eight per cent. of the value of all farm property. It was in
+this part of the country that the greatest increases in the amount of
+improved land took place, and particularly in the prairie country west
+of the Mississippi. By 1890 the Plains had lost their earlier unique
+and picturesque characteristics as a cattle country, and had given way
+to the homesteader. Hence the greatest expansion in agriculture took
+place in the tier of states from North Dakota to Texas. It appeared,
+therefore, that manufacturing was driving agriculture farther and
+farther to the west: New England cultivated less farm land in 1910 than
+in 1850; the improved area in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania
+declined after 1880; Ohio tilled fewer acres in 1910 than in 1900, and
+the gradual replacement of agriculture by manufacturing was observable
+in Indiana and Illinois. Oklahoma and Texas, on the other hand,
+together opened to cultivation between 1890 and 1910 nearly 24,000,000
+acres, an expanse almost equivalent to the combined areas of New
+Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Maryland.
+
+By 1890 it was clear that the future of the Far West lay in
+agriculture, rather than in the mining of the precious metals. Between
+that date and 1910, the amount of improved farm land in the section
+increased sixty-five per cent. In the states of Washington, New Mexico,
+Colorado, Idaho and Montana, large areas were placed under cultivation.
+In Washington the amount of improved farm land increased about 350 per
+cent. The growing of fruits and nuts was brought to a high state of
+excellence in the coast states. The timber industry developed after
+1880 and particularly after 1900. About the close of the nineteenth
+century the great lumber companies began to seek sources of supply to
+take the place of those around the Great Lakes. They turned to the
+South and the Far West. The methods which were used for getting control
+of the land, and the recklessness with which the supplies of timber
+were cut off became of importance as causes of the conservation
+movement. The main handicap in the way of the development of trade
+between the Far West and the East was the great distances involved.
+Hence arose the interest of the Coast in transcontinental railway rates
+and the project for a canal across the isthmus of Panama.
+
+An economic fact of no little importance was a change in the downward
+tendency of the price level after 1896. It will be remembered that the
+constant fall in prices from 1873 to 1896 had brought distress to the
+farmers of the West and had been one of the causes of the Populist
+revolt. After 1896 the process was reversed. Between that year and 1913
+the quantity of gold in circulation considerably increased, as has been
+seen; bank deposits subject to check trebled in volume, and the use of
+checks became more common; altogether it was estimated by Professor
+Irving Fisher that the quantity of money in circulation increased
+two-fold. Prices were fifty per cent. higher in 1913 than in the
+earlier year, and accordingly the complaints of the farmer were less
+frequently heard. The wage earner in the factories, however, was
+differently affected. The price which he had to pay for the necessities
+of life increased faster than his wages, so that his standard of living
+was going down. Inasmuch as the number of wage earners in the factories
+was rapidly increasing, it seemed inevitable that the problem of rising
+prices after 1896 would constitute as great a problem as the problem of
+falling prices had done before that year.
+
+[Illustration:
+The Cost of Food, 1900-1912]
+
+In industrial enterprise the close of the nineteenth century and the
+opening of the twentieth were characterized by a mad rush toward
+consolidation. To a milder degree the process had, of course, been
+under way for many years, during which the Standard Oil Company and
+other trusts were the subject of much study and legislation. In the
+course of time some of these concerns made such great profits that
+their leaders sought attractive openings for the investment of their
+surplus. They began to appear on the boards of directors of railways,
+banks, electric lighting companies and other industrial organizations.
+Before 1900 two powerful groups had definitely formed. The Standard or
+Rockefeller group was obtaining large interests in such railroads as
+the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western,
+and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul. It was reaching out to the gas
+and electric companies in New York, had an alliance with the National
+City Bank and others, and was in touch with great life insurance
+companies such as the Equitable and the Mutual of New York. Such
+connections enabled them to determine the policies and direct the
+investments of these important concerns. The Morgans extended their
+influence over the Philadelphia and Reading, the New York, Lake Erie
+and Western, the Lehigh Valley and others. Morgan himself also entered
+the industrial field as organizer of the Federal Steel Company and the
+National Tube Company.
+
+The mania for organizing large corporations came to a climax about
+1900. The census taken in that year noted ninety-two that had been
+formed between January 1, 1899, and June 30, 1900. Early in 1904 the
+editor of Moody's _Manual of Corporation Securities_ noted the
+existence of 440 large industrial and transportation combinations whose
+capitalization as measured by the par value of their stocks and bonds
+was nearly $20,500,000,000. The securities--stocks and bonds--of the
+new companies were eagerly taken up by the investing public. Prosperity
+was wide-spread and the financial strength behind the organizations
+seemed unlimited. Speculation became common. A few individuals amassed
+wealth through the shrewd purchase and sale of stocks, and countless
+others sought unsuccessfully to imitate them. Where sales of 400,000
+shares on the stock exchange had formerly been looked upon as a good
+day's business, the record jumped to a million, then two, and even
+three.[1]
+
+A threatened competitive struggle among certain steel manufacturers in
+1901 led to the formation of the United States Steel Corporation, the
+most famous consolidation of the period. It was, strictly speaking, a
+"holding corporation" which did not manufacture at all, but merely held
+the securities and directed the policies of the group of companies of
+which it was composed. It integrated all the elements of the
+industry--ore deposits, coal mines, limestone, a thousand miles of
+railroads, ore vessels on the Great Lakes, furnaces, steel works,
+rolling mills and other related interests. The value of the tangible
+property which was thus brought under the control of a single group of
+men was estimated by the United States Commissioner of Corporations at
+about $700,000,000. The company issued securities, however, to somewhat
+over twice this amount. In other words, about $700,000,000 of the
+capitalization was "water," that is, securities issued in excess of the
+value of the tangible properties owned. The prices paid to those who
+controlled the constituent companies were such as to make them
+multi-millionaires over night, and the commission given to the
+financiers who organized the Corporation was unparalleled in size,
+amounting to $62,500,000.
+
+The appreciation of the value of the ore deposits controlled by the
+Steel Corporation later replaced some of the water in its securities,
+but in many cases no such process came about. Investors therefore
+discovered that the paper which they had purchased did not represent
+real property, but merely the hope of a company that its profits would
+be large enough to provide returns upon all its securities. One hundred
+of the leading industrial stocks shrank in value $1,750,000,000 within
+eighteen months. In the case of the Steel Corporation it was noticeable
+that its supremacy depended to a large extent on the possession of
+resources of ore on land much of which had originally belonged to the
+public, a fact which, the Commissioner of Corporations remarked, made
+the affairs of the company a matter of public interest.
+
+The growth and consolidation which characterized the history of
+industry were also taking place in the railway system, although
+somewhat more slowly. It has already been noted that the length of the
+railroads had reached 160,000 miles by 1890. For the next two decades
+the rate of construction diminished slightly, yet the total in 1914 was
+252,231 miles, and the par value of all railroad securities was
+estimated at $20,500,000,000. Nearly four and a half million persons, a
+railroad president estimated in 1915, were at that time interested in
+the industry as employees, as workmen in shops making railroad
+supplies, or through the ownership of stocks and bonds.
+
+The management of the roads is, of course, continually changing;
+alliances are made and broken; groups form and dissolve. About the time
+that the United States Steel Corporation was being organized, however,
+about ninety-five per cent. of the important lines were in the control
+of six groups of influential persons, which were dominated by fourteen
+individuals. Each group had obtained the upper hand in the roads of one
+or more sections. The Morgan-Hill group, for example, held the Chicago,
+Burlington and Quincy, the Northern Pacific, the Great Northern, the
+Southern, the Atlantic Coast Line, the Erie and others, amounting to
+47,206 miles. E.H. Harriman, chairman of the board of directors of the
+Union Pacific, succeeded in obtaining control of so many lines that by
+1901 the Interstate Commerce Commission asserted that the consummation
+of plans which he then had in mind would subject nearly one-half the
+territory of the United States to the power of a single will. Before
+his death in 1909 he had obtained practical control of a system of
+roads running from coast to coast and passing through the most
+important cities of the country and had planned to continue
+indefinitely the process of acquiring new lines.
+
+[Illustration:
+Morgan-Hill railroads as listed shortly after 1900]
+
+The concentration of the banking interests of the country went hand in
+hand with consolidation in industry and railway control. The
+unprecedented operations which have just been mentioned demanded
+unprecedented amounts of capital and credit, and the concentration of
+these necessities occurred in New York City. The Standard Oil group and
+the Morgan group dominated the banking interests to such an extent that
+it was doubtful whether any great business enterprise demanding large
+capital could be started without the aid of one or the other of them.
+Some years later a congressional investigation was started, to discover
+whether the control of a few men over the financial affairs of the
+nation amounted to a "money trust," and at that time it was found that
+the members of four allied financial institutions in New York City held
+341 directorships in banks, insurance companies, railroads, steamship
+companies and trading and public utility corporations, having aggregate
+resources of $22,245,000,000.
+
+The financial power thus placed in the hands of a small number of men
+was the cause of much legislation passed by the states and by Congress
+in connection with the railroads and trusts. Opinions varied widely in
+regard to the effects of concentration. On the one hand it was argued
+that the men of greatest ability and vision naturally came to the top;
+that industry received the necessary stabilizing influence; that
+production and demand were compelled to harmonize; that scientific
+research directed toward the discovery of new processes and products,
+and the better utilization of old ones could be successfully carried on
+only by concerns with large resources; and that efficiency and economy
+resulted from large-scale operation. On the other hand it was pointed
+out that a small number of persons who were responsible to nobody could
+dominate the fortunes of hundreds of thousands of wage earners,
+manipulate production, make or break a region or a rival, bring about
+financial crises and, in a controversy or for private gain, use a great
+industry or a railroad as a weapon and wreck it regardless of the
+welfare of the public at large.
+
+Among the intellectual forces underlying American history after 1890, a
+prominent place should be given to the expansion of the public library,
+the growth of public education and the development of the press. Many
+libraries, of course, had been established long before the Civil
+War--the Library of Congress, for example, having been founded in
+1800--but the great growth of the public library supported by taxation
+and open to all citizens alike occurred after 1865. Between that year
+and 1900 no fewer than thirty-seven states passed laws enabling the
+towns within their borders to levy taxes for the support of public
+libraries; private bequests amounted to fabulous sums, the outstanding
+example of which were the gifts of Andrew Carnegie, amounting to
+$62,500,000 between 1881 and 1915. By 1914 there were over 2,000
+libraries containing at least 5,000 volumes, and forty that contained
+more than 200,000 each.
+
+The significant features in the growth of education between 1865 and
+1890 had been the improvement of the public grammar school, the
+establishment of high schools and the foundation of the great state
+universities. After 1890 the public high schools were greatly improved,
+business and vocational courses were added, and the enrollment at the
+colleges and universities received large additions. Such universities
+as that in Wisconsin exerted an unusual influence on intellectual and
+political currents in individual states.
+
+A large proportion of the political, social and economic changes and
+reforms that have taken place in the United States since 1890 have done
+so because public opinion was educated, quietly influenced or noisily
+bestirred by the press. Governors and presidents appealed to their
+constituents through the newspaper and the periodical. Political
+campaigns have become increasingly matters of publicity; candidates for
+office have their press bureaus; corporations, abandoning their
+traditional policy of silence, explain their practices; and railroads
+defend their policies by means of advertisements in the newspapers.
+Newspaper correspondents go out through the country months before
+candidates for the presidency are nominated, and discover and publish
+sentiment favorable to the individual whom the particular organ desires
+to see placed in office. In 1918 the circulation of the daily
+newspapers amounted to approximately 28,000,000 copies for each issue.
+In the North, the Middle West, and on the Pacific Coast the number
+published was sufficient to provide every family with one copy. The
+South and the Rocky Mountain region were less well supplied. The great
+metropolitan newspapers circulate widely, not only in the immediate
+vicinity of the publisher's office, but over a wide area outside. At
+least one of them in 1918 approached half a million copies daily,
+another exceeded 800,000, and a third issued nearly three-fourths of a
+million on Sunday. William R. Hearst established a chain of newspapers
+which gave him an audience of over a million readers every day. Several
+of the weekly and monthly magazines circulated in hundreds of thousands
+of copies; and one weekly periodical which presented newspaper opinion
+of all shades of political partisanship had a circulation of 750,000
+copies for every issue.
+
+[Illustration:
+Daily Newspaper Circulation, 1918]
+
+The rise of the "muck-rake"[2] magazines was typical of the ten years
+at the opening of the twentieth century. These periodicals printed
+articles which portrayed a side of American life not commonly discussed
+in the newspapers. One of the earliest serials of this type was Miss
+Ida M. Tarbell's History of the Standard Oil Company, published in
+_McClure's Magazine_ in 1902-1903. Instead of the ordinary eulogy of
+the size and success of the Company, Miss Tarbell presented many of its
+unfair practices. At the same time and in the same publication Lincoln
+Steffens was exposing the seamy side of municipal affairs in "The Shame
+of the Cities." Between 1901 and 1906 one of the muck-rake periodicals
+increased its sales threefold, another four and another seven.
+
+Cooperation among newspapers in the gathering of information is no
+novelty in the United States, but the greatest strides have been taken
+since 1890. By 1915 the Associated Press had leased 50,000 miles of
+telegraph wires forming a net all over the country; it had agents in
+every important news center; it exchanged services with three European
+press associations; and it had its own representatives not only in
+London, Paris, and Berlin, but in Fez, Madeira, Colombo, Tsingtau and
+Sydney. News from Europe reached New York in less than an hour and was
+promptly sent to 900 newspapers, whence it was copied in thousands of
+daily and weekly publications. As in the case of other enterprises the
+publication of newspapers showed a tendency towards consolidation. The
+establishment of a new periodical became a million-dollar venture, and
+it remains to be seen whether the tendency toward centralization will
+result in the publication only of such news or such phases of the news
+as meet the approval of the relatively small number of persons that can
+launch a million-dollar organization.
+
+It will be remembered that _laissez faire_ was the prevailing theory in
+regard to the proper relation between government and industry during
+the twenty-five years after the close of the Civil War, except in so
+far as industrial organizations desired protective tariffs. In brief
+the upholders of this creed contended that legislation should concern
+itself as little as possible with the regulation of trade, that it
+should restrict itself to protecting commerce from interference and
+that business men should be permitted to work out their own problems
+with the least possible reference to such artificial forces as were
+supplied by legal enactments.[3] It would be inaccurate to say that the
+theory of _laissez faire_ had completely given way by the end of the
+half century after the Civil War. Nor would it be wholly correct to say
+that any other theory has yet demonstrated its permanent reliability,
+Nevertheless the distinctive philosophy upon which later legislation
+has been built is the theory of public interest. The theory needs
+definition in some detail, because it forms the philosophy which
+underlies most of the political developments and much of the
+legislation of the early twentieth century.
+
+As the men of the eighties and nineties contemplated the vast amounts
+of wealth created during those decades they saw it concentrated to a
+great extent in the hands of the few. The few believed that the public
+good was best cared for in this way, but an increasing majority of the
+people looked upon the tendency with greater and greater alarm. They
+complained that the railroads discriminated in favor of the powerful
+few; that corporations were achieving monopoly; and that the government
+itself often assisted the process by framing tariff schedules primarily
+for the interest of the manufacturers. When the reaction against this
+situation started, it was of course found that the seats of power were
+already occupied by the adherents of _laissez faire_,--the party
+committees, the legislatures, the executive offices and the courts.
+There ensued, therefore, a long struggle for power and for a new theory
+of government. The land-marks of the controversy were to be found in
+interstate commerce acts, anti-trust laws, income taxes, bureaus of
+labor and factory legislation.
+
+The proponent of _laissez faire_ would allow the few to accumulate
+large fortunes which they might share with the many through
+benefactions, gifts to education, libraries, and other public
+enterprises; the adherent of public interest would inquire why the many
+are poor, and attempt so to change economic conditions as to reduce the
+number of the poor to a minimum. Instead of framing laws so that wealth
+and power would get into the hands of a small number of individuals, in
+the expectation that prosperity would filter down to the many, the
+advocate of public interest would aim his legislation directly at what
+he considers the needs of the less powerful classes. He would interfere
+with the railroads, for example, to compel them to charge uniform
+rates, prevent corporations from electing public officers by means of
+large contributions to campaign funds, force industry even at some cost
+to protect employees through safety devices, and would hold the great
+forests on the public lands for the direct good of the whole people.
+The transfer of emphasis from _laissez faire_ to public interest was
+based upon a steady growth in the value placed upon the worth of the
+individual man, and upon a shift from legislating for the few to
+legislating directly for the multitude. The change was greater than can
+be indicated by citing any one law or group of laws. It was "a new
+intellectual perspective through which we view all moral issues
+affecting society."[4]
+
+Underlying many of the difficulties in the way of replacing _laissez
+faire_ with a new theory, was the attitude of the courts toward certain
+parts of the Fourteenth Amendment. It will be remembered that a portion
+of section one of the Amendment forbids the states to "deprive any
+person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." It
+will also be remembered that the majority of the Supreme Court in early
+decisions interpreting the Amendment had expressed the belief that its
+purpose was the protection of the negro. By 1890, however, the Court
+had come to hold that the word "person" as used in the first section
+included corporations, and thus had given the language of the Amendment
+a greatly widened application. Of 528 decisions given by the Court on
+the Amendment between 1890 and 1910, only nineteen concerned the negro
+race, while 289 affected corporations. In the decision of the case
+Lochner _v._ New York, a state law regulating hours of labor in
+bakeries was declared to conflict with the Amendment, because the right
+of the laborer to work as many hours as he pleased was part of the
+"liberty" which was protected by the Amendment. Laws regulating
+railroad rates through commissions were held to deprive corporations of
+property without due process. Until recently changed, the statutes did
+not allow appeal to the Supreme Court in cases where state courts
+declared state laws in conflict with the United States Constitution,
+and the Fourteenth Amendment therefore acted as a protective bulwark in
+state as well as nation. In brief, then, the legal position of the big
+industrial organizations was almost impregnable because of the
+fortuitous circumstance that the words of a part of the Constitution
+might be held to mean something which probably did not enter the minds
+of the Congress or the state legislatures which placed the words in the
+document.
+
+The people of the United States have usually avoided hostile criticism
+of the Constitution and the decisions of the Supreme Court, and they
+have reflected this feeling in their acquiescence in the unexpected
+turn given to the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. The members of
+the Court, however, have frequently expressed disquietude. Dissenting
+opinions opposing the view which the Court has taken, have been common.
+Mr. Justice Harlan declared that the scope of the Amendment was being
+enlarged far beyond its original purpose; Mr. Justice Holmes asserted
+that the word "liberty" was being "perverted" and that the Constitution
+was not intended to embody _laissez faire_ or any other economic
+theory.[5]
+
+The most prominent pioneers in replacing the old by the new theory were
+William J. Bryan, Robert M. La Follette and Theodore Roosevelt. Bryan's
+leadership in 1896 has already been mentioned. With courage and
+sincerity he attempted to solve the social and economic problems of his
+day, but his youth, his inexperience, his radicalism, and the fact that
+he did not choose issues that were immediately practicable made it
+impossible for him to command the confidence of the majority. Unable
+himself to scale the heights of reform, he nevertheless pointed them
+out to others. With a voice that has been likened to an organ with a
+hundred stops, with persistence, energy and good nature he spread far
+and wide a new conception of social obligation. He insisted that the
+social and economic discontent of the South and West were real, and
+that they could not be laughed out of court or frightened into silence.
+
+La Follette's constructive pioneer work was done for the most part in
+Wisconsin. During the ascendency of the _laissez faire_ theory, the
+state was largely controlled by the lumber, railroad and other
+interests, using the Republican party as their political agency; and a
+small but powerful group controlled the election of state and federal
+officials, the press and state legislation. Between 1885 and 1891 La
+Follette, who was himself a Republican, was a representative in the
+federal House. In the latter year he came into collision with Senator
+Sawyer, a wealthy lumber merchant who was the leader of the dominant
+party in the state. For years the state treasurers had been lending the
+state's money to favored banks without interest. Senator Sawyer had
+acted as bondsman for the treasurers and was sued by the
+attorney-general of the state for back interest. La Follette threw
+himself into this controversy on the side of the state; and being
+unable to obtain a hearing through the usual medium of the press, he
+and his supporters went directly to the people, speaking from town to
+town before interested audiences; and subsequently the state won.
+
+In the Sawyer controversy were visible all the elements of the later
+creed and methods of La Follette. He always remained with the
+Republican party, preferring to attempt change from within; and he
+always opposed the interests and found his strength in direct appeals
+to the people of his state. Out of those years came the "Wisconsin
+idea,"--a program which included the taxation of railroads and
+corporations, primaries in which the people could nominate their own
+candidates for office, the prohibiting of the acceptance of railroad
+passes by public officials, and the conservation of the forests and
+water power of the state. The conflict between _laissez faire_ and
+public interest in Wisconsin was long and bitter, but it led to a
+series of triumphs for La Follette, who was elected governor in 1900,
+1902 and 1904, and chosen to the federal Senate in 1905. In the
+meanwhile there was a widespread demand throughout the West for
+legislation along the lines marked out by Wisconsin.
+
+Party lines are so drawn in the United States that it is difficult for
+like-minded men of different parties to cooperate in furthering a
+program. The three pioneers were men whose capacities and personal
+qualities differed greatly, but in their economic and political
+philosophy they were nearer to one another than to the rank and file of
+their own parties. Bryan in 1902 refused to take part in the Democratic
+campaign in Wisconsin because he favored La Follette's program, and in
+1905 he even aided the latter in his fight for railroad regulation; in
+1912 Bryan found Roosevelt leading a revolt in the Republican party on
+a program to much of which he could give unqualified assent; and of La
+Follette, Roosevelt said in the same year: "Thanks to the movement for
+genuinely democratic popular government which Senator La Follette led
+to overwhelming victory in Wisconsin, that state has become literally a
+laboratory for wise experimental legislation aiming to secure the
+social and political betterment of the people as a whole."
+
+Roosevelt's own share in the history of the early twentieth century was
+of such magnitude as to require a more extended account.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The literature is voluminous and not easy to evaluate. On population
+changes and immigration, the best source is the _Abstract of the
+Thirteenth (1910) Census_ (1913), with the _Atlas_ accompanying it
+(1914); _Reports of the Immigration Commission, appointed under the
+Congressional Act of Feb. 20, 1907_ (42 vols., 1911), is exhaustive; F.
+A. Ogg, _National Progress_ (1918), has a good chapter; consult Joseph
+Schafer, _A History of the Pacific Northwest_ (rev. ed., 1918), for
+Washington and Oregon.
+
+The consolidation in industry, railroads and finance may be followed
+in: A.D. Noyes, _Forty Years of American Finance_ (1909); John Moody,
+_The Truth about the Trusts_ (1904); _Report of the Commissioner of
+Corporations on the Steel Industry_ (3 parts, 1911), on the United
+States Steel Corporation; Anna P. Youngman, _Economic Causes of Great
+Fortunes_ (1909); C.R. Van Hise, _Concentration and Control a Solution
+of the Trust Problem in the United States_ (rev. ed., 1914); E.R.
+Johnson and T.W. Van Metre, _Principles of Railroad Transportation_
+(1916); John Moody, _The Railroad Builders_ (1919); John Moody, _The
+Masters of Capital_ (1919); and _Report of the Committee Appointed
+Pursuant to House Resolutions 429 and 504 to Investigate the
+Concentration of Control of Money and Credit_, (Pujo Committee) 1913.
+
+There is no satisfactory study of the social and political effects of
+the great increase in the circulation of newspapers and periodicals.
+Suggestive articles are: _World's Work_ (Oct., 1916), "Stalking for
+Nine Million Votes"; _Arena_ (July, 1909), "The Making of Public
+Opinion"; _Atlantic Monthly_ (Mar., 1910), "Suppression of Important
+News." Less superficial articles are those of Walter Lippmann in the
+_Atlantic Monthly_ (Nov., Dec., 1919). The statistics are available in
+N.W. Ayer, _American Newspaper Annual and Directory_.
+
+The emergence of the theory of public interest is best seen in the
+_Autobiography_ of R.M. La Follette (4th ed., 1920); consult also
+Theodore Roosevelt, _Autobiography_, and C.G. Washburn, _Theodore
+Roosevelt; the Logic of his Career_ (1916). A profound article is W.J.
+Tucker, "The Progress of the Social Conscience," in _Atlantic Monthly_
+(Sept., 1915).
+
+On the Fourteenth Amendment, consult the volumes already mentioned
+under Chap. IV.
+
+There are no thorough estimates of Bryan and La Follette. On the
+former: _Atlantic Monthly_ (Sept., 1912), and _Nineteenth Century_
+(July, 1915); H. Croly, _Promise of American Life_ (1914), is critical.
+W.J. Bryan, _First Battle_ (1897), is essential. On La Follette, his
+own narrative as given in the _Autobiography_ is best, but should be
+read with care as it was written in the heat of partisan controversy.
+See also F.C. Howe, _Wisconsin an Experiment in Democracy_ (1912),
+friendly to La Follette.
+
+Frank Norris, _The Octopus, and The Pit_; Winston Churchill, _Coniston_
+and _Mr. Crewe's Career_; and Upton Sinclair, _The Jungle_, are
+illustrative fiction.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The shrinkage of the value of these securities caused the "rich
+men's panic" of 1903. Consult Noyes, _Forty Years_, 308-311.
+
+[2] The word originated in 1906 with President Roosevelt, who likened
+certain sensational journalists to the man with the Muck-Rake in
+Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress. Annual Register_, 1906, 442.
+
+[3] Cf. pp. 94-96 above.
+
+[4] I have drawn largely at this point upon Dr. W.J. Tucker's article
+"The Progress of the Social Conscience" in the _Atlantic Monthly_,
+Sept., 1915, 289-303. The clearest idea of the transition from _laissez
+faire_ to public interest is gained by reading the biography of M.A.
+Hanna by Croly, and La Follette's and Roosevelt's autobiographies.
+
+[5] Usually cases involving the Fourteenth Amendment have also involved
+other parts of the Constitution. The main reliance, however, in such
+cases has been the Amendment mentioned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+THEODORE ROOSEVELT
+
+Seldom, in times of peace, is the personality of a single individual
+so important as that of Theodore Roosevelt during the early years of
+the twentieth century. At the time of his accession to the presidency,
+he lacked a month of being forty-three years old, but the range of his
+experience in politics had been far beyond his age. In his early
+twenties, soon after leaving Harvard, he had entered the Assembly of
+the state of New York. President Harrison had made him Civil Service
+Commissioner in 1889, and he had been successively President of the
+Board of Police Commissioners of New York City, Assistant Secretary of
+the Navy, an important figure in the war with Spain, and Governor of
+New York. He had been known as a young man of promise--energetic,
+independent and progressive--and in addition to his political
+activities he had found time to write books on historical subjects,
+see something of life on a western ranch and develop a somewhat
+defective physique into an engine of physical power.
+
+Brimming with energy, nimble of mind, impetuous, sure of himself, quick
+to strike, a fearless foe, frank, resourceful, audacious, honest,
+versatile--Roosevelt possessed the qualities which would challenge the
+admiration of the typical American. One who frequently saw him at work
+described thus the way in which he prepared a message to be sent to the
+Senate:
+
+    He storms up and down the room, dictating in a loud and oratorical
+    tone, often stopping, recasting a sentence, striking out and
+    filling in, hospitable to every suggestion, not in the least
+    disturbed by interruption, holding on stoutly to his purpose,
+    and producing finally, out of these most unpromising conditions,
+    a clear and logical statement, which he could not improve with
+    solitude and leisure at his command.
+
+The breadth of his interests, the democratic character of his
+friendships--for he was equally at home with blue-stocking, politician,
+cowboy and artisan--his complete loyalty to his friends and his
+disregard of conventionalities gave him a grip upon popular favor that
+had not been duplicated since the days of Andrew Jackson, unless by
+Lincoln. The effectiveness of so compelling a personality was in no way
+diminished by Roosevelt's possession of what a journalist would call
+"news sense." He was made for publicity; he had an instinct for the
+dramatic. His speeches were removed from mediocrity by his evident
+sincerity, his abounding interest in every occasion at which he was
+called upon to talk and the phrases that were half victories which he
+coined almost at will. "Mollycoddle," "muckraking," "the square deal,"
+"the big stick" became familiar idioms in the vernacular of politics
+and the street. The political leadership of Roosevelt rested mainly
+upon his personal prestige and upon his attributes as a reformer. With
+unerring prescience he chose those political issues which would make
+a wide appeal and which could be pressed quickly to a successful
+conclusion. His complete integrity saved him from mere opportunism; his
+ruggedly practical commonsense saved him from that combination of high
+purpose and slight accomplishment which has characterized many other
+reformers.
+
+No estimate of the deficiencies in Roosevelt's personality and
+leadership would be agreed upon at the present time. In some cases--as
+in the realm of international relations--only the future can decide
+whether he was a prophet or a chauvinist; in all cases, opinions have
+differed widely, for Roosevelt could scarcely explore a river, describe
+a natural phenomenon or urge a political innovation without thereby
+arousing a controversy in which his friends and his opponents would
+participate with equal intensity. His identification of himself with
+his purposes was as complete as that of Andrew Jackson; opposition to
+his proposals was reckoned as opposition to him as an individual. Like
+many leaders of the fighting type, he was frequently weak when judging
+the motives of those who disagreed with him. One of his admirers
+declared that his greatest political defect was an impatience of any
+interval between an expressed desire for an act and the accomplishment
+of the deed itself--an inability to stand through years of defeat for
+the future success of an ideal. A keener and equally sympathetic critic
+dubbed him the "sportsman" in politics--honest, hard-hitting, but
+playing the issue which had an immediate political effect.
+
+At the outset of his administration Roosevelt was apparently an
+adherent of the prevailing Republican creed--protective tariff, gold
+standard, imperialism, _laissez faire_ and the rest. His first official
+utterance after becoming President was an indication that he would
+continue unbroken the policies of his predecessor, and to this end he
+insisted that the cabinet should remain intact.[1] His foreign policy
+was aggressive; his interest in the military and naval establishments
+real and constant. Roosevelt was more venturesome than McKinley, and
+more ready to experiment with new ideas. He took up the duties of his
+position with an unaffected zest and enthusiasm; he looked upon the
+presidential office as an exhilarating adventure in national and even
+international affairs. As time went on, therefore, it became more and
+more evident that he was prepared to play a big role on a great stage.
+Moreover, few doubts concerning the constitutional powers of the
+executive position seem ever to have assailed him. Whatever may have
+been his theory at the outset of his presidency, he came eventually to
+believe that the executive power was limited only by the specific
+restrictions and prohibitions appearing in the Constitution, or imposed
+by Congress in laws which it had constitutional authority to pass. The
+scope which this theory presented for the exercise of his energetic
+originality is evident when contrasted with the theory of his
+predecessors, who had, in times of peace, held to the belief that the
+executive possessed only the powers specifically designated by the
+Constitution.
+
+Not until some future time, when the events of the early twentieth
+century are better understood, will it be possible to judge accurately
+the value of President Roosevelt's regime in its relation to the
+control of railroads and corporations. There can be no doubt, however,
+that one of the most serious problems that faced the American people
+during that time was the position which the government ought to occupy
+toward the business interests of the nation. Not only were the
+railroads and the great corporations the center of the economic life
+of the people, but their social and political effects were momentous.
+
+Neither the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 nor the Sherman Anti-trust
+law of 1890, it will be remembered, had accomplished what had been
+expected of them. The Interstate Commerce law had met with grave
+obstacles in the courts; the Sherman act had been seldom invoked by the
+federal executive, and in the most prominent case, United States _v._
+E.C. Knight Co., the government had failed to obtain the decision it
+desired. Government regulation seemed like a broken reed.[2] A few
+cases, however, had indicated the possibility that strength might be
+discovered in the law. In United States _v._ the Trans-Missouri Freight
+Association, the Supreme Court had declared that the Anti-trust act
+applied to railroads and that it forbade agreements among them to
+maintain rates; two years later, in 1899, the Court pronounced illegal
+a combination of pipe manufacturers in the Middle West, on the ground
+that its result was to restrain interstate commerce.
+
+Roosevelt, like Bryan and La Follette, had been groping his way to an
+understanding of the importance of the new problem. During his term as
+Governor of New York he had clashed with the older political leaders
+when he supported an act looking to the heavier taxation of railway
+franchises. The first recommendations in his message to Congress on
+December 3, 1901, concerned the subject of the relation of government
+and industry. The accumulation of wealth in recent years in the United
+States, he asserted, had been due to natural causes, and much of the
+antagonism aroused thereby was without warrant. Nevertheless grave
+evils had attended the process: overcapitalization was one; untruthful
+representations concerning the value of the properties in which
+business asked the public to invest was another. Such evils should be
+attacked; with extreme care, to be sure, but also with resolution.
+Combination and concentration, he thought, should be supervised and,
+within reasonable limits, controlled. The remedies which the President
+suggested were simple: in the interest of the public the government
+should have the right to inspect the workings of organizations engaged
+in interstate commerce; because of the lack of uniformity in corporation
+legislation within the states, the federal government should so extend
+its power as to include supervision of corporations; a Department of
+Commerce and Industries should be established, whose head should be a
+cabinet officer; the Interstate Commerce law should be amended; railway
+rates should be just, and should be the same to all shippers alike, and
+the government should be the agent to provide a remedy to this end.
+
+The enthusiastic reception accorded the message by the press indicated
+that one or another of its numerous recommendations met with approval.
+The effect on Congress, however, of the portion dealing with interstate
+commerce was represented by a cartoon in the New York _World_. Uncle Sam
+was there portrayed stowing away for later attention a bundle of
+manuscript labelled "President's Message 1901. 30,000 words," while he
+smilingly remarked "When I git time!" But Roosevelt was not content to
+let the matter drop, and in the following summer he took the unusual
+step of carrying his message directly to the people. In the New England
+states first, and later in the West, he declared his creed on the
+federal regulation of industry. The effectiveness of the campaign was
+increased by the moderation of the President, by his increasing
+popularity and by the many telling phrases, with which he enforced his
+main thesis. The Sherman act looked less like a broken reed when the
+chief executive of the nation declared: "As far as the anti-trust laws
+go they will be enforced ... and when (a) suit is undertaken it will not
+be compromised except upon the basis that the Government wins." Here and
+there objection was raised that the program was not sufficiently
+definite; now and then a critic hazarded a conjecture that Roosevelt had
+not consulted the leaders of his party; but in the main he succeeded in
+obtaining a sympathetic hearing. At this juncture the coal strike of
+1902 gave him one of those fortunate opportunities which were commonly
+referred to as a part of "Roosevelt's luck." With no uncertain hand he
+seized the opportunity which chance presented.
+
+Before 1899, there had been no organization of the anthracite miners
+with sufficient strength to force any changes in the conditions under
+which the men performed their work. During that year the United Mine
+Workers of America began to send organizers into the Pennsylvania
+region. In 1900 the men struck, but an agreement was reached with the
+operators and work was resumed. The settlement, however, was not
+satisfactory to either side, and in 1902 the workers asked for a
+conference. The presidents of the coal companies and the coal-carrying
+railroads replied that they were always ready to meet their own
+employees but would have no dealings with a general labor organization.
+Smaller causes of unrest were the demand for more pay, shorter hours,
+and payment for coal by weight instead of by the car, but the
+fundamental issue was the recognition of the union--the workmen
+insisting on collective bargaining, the operators refusing it. The men
+were helpless except as a union; the roads were sure of keeping the
+upper hand if they dealt with the men individually or in small groups.
+When attempts at conference failed, the miners struck and from May 12
+until October 23 nearly 147,000 of them remained idle. The total loss
+to miners and operators was nearly $100,000,000.
+
+Since the Pennsylvania fields were almost the sole source of supply
+for anthracite coal, discomfort was soon felt in the North and West,
+and as the cooler weather came on, suffering became acute and public
+feeling bordered on panic. A winter without hard coal could hardly be
+contemplated without grave misgivings. Popular opinion, meanwhile,
+went increasingly to the side of the miners. The refusal of the
+operators to confer, and the propriety of the conduct of the workmen
+made a wide impression that was favorable to the union. Moreover,
+George F. Baer, President of the Philadelphia and Reading Company,
+spoke of himself and his associates in a letter to a correspondent as
+those "Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the
+control of the property interests of the country." The remark was
+widely quoted and generally looked upon as evidence of a selfish and
+uncompromising individualism.[3] The strike having now become a matter
+of national importance, President Roosevelt requested the operators
+and representatives of the miners to meet him in Washington, October
+3. At this conference the spokesman of the railroads refused mediation,
+while the leader of the United Mine Workers, John Mitchell, proposed
+arbitration and pledged the workers to accept it.
+
+After the refusal of the operators to accept the President's
+conciliatory offer, he decided to apply pressure. He obtained the
+consent of Grover Cleveland to act as chairman of a commission of
+investigation and determined to seize the mines by military force, if
+necessary, operate them as a receiver and await the report of his
+commission. In some way, which can not now be indicated with certainty,
+the operators were influenced to accept mediation, and the President
+appointed a commission with Judge George Gray as chairman.[4] The
+miners immediately returned to work, coal began again to flow to the
+North, and public rejoicing was extreme. The President's Commission at
+once repaired to Pennsylvania, heard 558 witnesses, visited the mines,
+and inspected machinery and the homes of the miners. It concluded that
+neither side was completely in the right, and therefore made an award
+that satisfied some of the complaints of both parties. In the history
+of the relation between the federal government and the business
+interests of the nation, the anthracite strike of 1902 is of marked
+significance. The operators had given evidence of a failure to
+understand that their business so concerned the nation that the
+interest of the public in it must be heeded. The successful outcome
+enhanced the prestige of the government and of the President, and an
+example of the need of greater control over corporations received wide
+publicity at the precise moment when the general subject was uppermost
+in the popular mind.
+
+The first legislative evidence of the result of the agitation for the
+more effective regulation of industry was an act approved on February
+11, 1903, by which any suit brought in a Circuit Court by the United
+States government under the Sherman Anti-trust act or the Interstate
+Commerce law, could be given precedence over other cases at the desire
+of the Attorney-General. Three days later a law was passed which
+established a Department of Commerce and Labor, whose chief was to be a
+cabinet officer. Included in the Department was a Bureau of Corporations
+headed by a Commissioner, who was authorized to investigate the
+organization and conduct of the business of corporations. Within another
+five days the Elkins Act had been passed--a law designed to eliminate
+rebating. Despite the Interstate Commerce act, the practice of rebating
+had continued. Agreement was general that railroad men who, in other
+respects, were perfectly scrupulous, commonly violated the law in order
+to get business in competition with their rivals. Among the railroad men
+who had violated the law but who deprecated the necessity of so doing,
+was Paul Morton, president of the Santa Fé system. Morton volunteered to
+assist Roosevelt in stamping out the evil, and the Elkins law was
+designed to aid in this process. It forbade any variation from published
+rates, made both a corporation and its agents punishable for offenses
+against the law, prohibited the receiving of rebates as well as giving
+them, and made the penalty for failure to observe the provisions of the
+Act a fine of one thousand to twenty thousand dollars. Furthermore,
+during February, 1903, Congress appropriated $500,000 to be expended
+under the direction of the Attorney-General for the better enforcement
+of the anti-trust and interstate commerce laws.
+
+In 1903, likewise, was initiated an important judicial proceeding in the
+direction of the enforcement of the Sherman law. The Great Northern
+Railway Company and the Northern Pacific Railway Company operated
+parallel competing lines of road extending from the region of Lake
+Superior to the Pacific Coast. An attempted consolidation of the two had
+been declared illegal under the statutes of the state of Minnesota. On
+November 13, 1901, under the leadership of two of the foremost railway
+magnates of the nation, J.J. Hill and J.P. Morgan, there had been
+organized the Northern Securities Company, to purchase and control at
+least a majority of the shares of the capital stock of the two lines of
+railway. In this way the two roads would be operated as one, their
+earnings pooled, competition between the two eliminated and a virtual
+consolidation effected. On the advice of the Attorney-General, Philander
+C. Knox, President Roosevelt directed that proceedings be instituted
+against the holding company--an act that seemed almost useless in view
+of the decision of the Supreme Court in the Knight Case. But the
+decision in the Northern Securities Case, handed down in 1904, was a
+surprise. By a vote of five to four the Court declared the company a
+combination in restraint of trade, and therefore illegal under the
+Sherman act, and enjoined any attempt on its part to control the affairs
+of either of the two railways.
+
+Nineteen hundred and four, the year of the presidential election, found
+Roosevelt in a strong position. His success in handling the coal strike
+and his energetic preparations for the crusade against trust evils had
+struck a responsive chord in the popular mind. Late in 1903 he had
+announced to Congress that frauds had been discovered in the post
+office and land office, and urged the appropriation of funds for the
+prosecution of the offenders. The result was a house-cleaning which
+involved the conviction of many officials, including two United States
+senators. Roosevelt's popularity became greater than ever.
+
+It was to be expected, however, that some opposition would appear to the
+nomination of Roosevelt for a continuation of his term of office, and it
+was around the forceful Mark Hanna that the opposition began gradually
+to center. Hanna had attained remarkable influence as a senator, was
+highly trusted by the business interests and was popular among southern
+Republicans. But his death in February, 1904, effectively ended any
+opposition to Roosevelt, since it was then too late to focus attention
+upon any other competitor. The Republican nominating convention,
+therefore, which met in Chicago on June 21, lacked any semblance of a
+contest, and the President was renominated without opposition. The
+platform was of the traditional sort. The history of the party was
+approved; its achievements in giving prosperity to the country and
+peaceful government to the island possessions were recounted; the
+protective tariff, the gold standard, an isthmian canal, the improvement
+of the army and navy, the continuation of civil service reform and a
+vigorous foreign policy,--on all these the party utterance was that of
+other days. Surprisingly little was said upon the subject of the
+regulation of corporations. The few steps already taken were approved,
+but as to the future, the platform was almost colorless:
+
+    Combinations of capital and of labor are the results of the
+    economic movement of the age, but neither must be permitted to
+    infringe upon the rights and interests of the people. Such
+    combinations, when lawfully formed for lawful purposes, are
+    alike entitled to the protection of the laws, but both are
+    subject to the laws, and neither can be permitted to break them.
+
+The Democratic convention met in St. Louis on July 6, and the
+excitement which marked its proceedings compensated for the lack of
+interest at the Republican meeting. As drawn up by a sub-committee of
+the Committee on Resolutions, the platform was, in many of its planks,
+a distinct return to the programs of the days before 1896. It urged a
+reduction of the tariff, generous pensions and civil service reform,
+together with the enforcement of the anti-trust laws and the popular
+election of senators. In the main, it was devoted to a condemnation
+of the existing Republican administration, which it denounced as
+"spasmodic, erratic, sensational, spectacular and arbitrary." It also
+contained a paragraph declaring that the question of the money standard
+had ceased to be an issue, on the ground that recent discoveries of
+gold had enormously increased the supply of currency in the country.
+Bryan did not approve. With characteristic energy he threw himself into
+an all-night fight in the Committee in behalf of a silver plank. His
+defeat indicated that the convention was in the hands of his opponents
+and the platform as adopted contained no reference to the currency.
+
+The delegates had, in fact, come to the meeting with the distinct
+purpose of returning to the "safe and sane" democracy of Grover
+Cleveland. To that end, the platform was to drop the silver issue and
+Bryan was to be replaced by a more conservative leader. The radical
+forces centered their strength upon William R. Hearst, but they were in
+a distinct minority, and in the end, the Cleveland wing succeeded in
+nominating Judge Alton B. Parker of New York. As soon as he was
+notified of his nomination, Judge Parker telegraphed to the convention
+that he regarded the gold standard as irrevocably established and that
+he must decline to be the party candidate if his attitude on the
+currency was unsatisfactory to the delegates. Thereupon the convention
+replied that the platform was silent on the question of a monetary
+standard because it was not regarded as a campaign issue. Parker was
+satisfied with the reply, and the last word was written upon a question
+that had disturbed politics for many years.
+
+The succeeding campaign was unusually listless. Parker did not inspire
+enthusiasm, although a man of undoubted integrity and ability, and the
+personality of Roosevelt was the controlling force. Only at the close
+of the canvass did a passing interest appear in some charges made by
+Parker. He called attention to the fact that Secretary Cortelyou of the
+Department of Commerce and Labor had been charged with the duty of
+examining the acts of corporations and had then resigned to become
+chairman of the National Republican Committee. Parker insinuated that
+Cortelyou was using information about corporate misdoing, which he had
+discovered, in order to force large contributions from the business
+interests. He also declared that the Republican campaign was being
+financed by the corporations. Roosevelt did not answer the charges
+until three days before the election, and then he asserted that the
+statements made by Parker were "unqualifiedly and atrociously false."
+Later investigations have shown that in general Parker was correct in
+his complaint as to the activities of the corporations, although he
+would have found difficulty in proving his charges in detail. The same
+investigations, however, indicated that some of the Democratic campaign
+fund had come from similar sources.
+
+[Illustration:
+Election of 1904 by Counties]
+
+The election resulted in the choice of President Roosevelt, whose
+popular vote was 7,600,000 to Parker's 5,000,000. In the more populous
+sections of the country, which were normally Republican, the party vote
+scarcely exceeded that of 1900, but in the Far West, the increases were
+notable. Beyond the Mississippi River, except in the southern states,
+hardly a county gave a majority for Parker, showing that the region
+which had gone to Bryan in 1896 was substantially solid for Roosevelt.
+Indeed, the policies to which Roosevelt was committed bore a greater
+resemblance to the principles of Bryan than to the _laissez faire_
+philosophy to which many important Republican leaders adhered. Despite
+their dissent, however, his victory in the election was so overwhelming
+that he could carry out his program with the irresistible pressure of
+public opinion behind him.
+
+During the campaign year, the Commissioner of Corporations was busy
+investigating the activities of the so-called "beef-trust," and a suit
+against the combination was pressed to a successful conclusion in
+January, 1905. In its decision in the case (Swift & Company _v._ United
+States), the Supreme Court dwelt at some length on the charges made
+against the Company. A dominant proportion--six-tenths--of the dealers
+in fresh meat in the United States were alleged to have agreed not to
+bid against one another in the live-stock markets; to restrict the
+output of meat in order to raise prices; to keep a black-list; and to
+get illegal rates from the railroads to the exclusion of competitors.
+To the objection of the members of the trust that the charges against
+them were general and did not set forth any specific facts, the Court
+retorted that the scheme alleged was so vast as to present a new
+problem in pleading. The decision was against the combination, which
+was ordered to dissolve. The publicity given to the case and to the
+methods of the meat packers assisted in the passage of legislation
+requiring government inspection of meats.
+
+An unexpected phase of the Sherman act appeared in 1908, in the case
+Loewe _v._ Lawlor. The American Federation of Labor, acting through its
+official organ, had declared a boycott against D.E. Loewe, a hat
+manufacturer of Danbury, Connecticut. The Court decided that a
+combination of labor organizations designed to boycott a dealer's goods
+was a combination in restraint of trade and that the manufacturer might
+maintain an action against the Hatters' Union for damages.[5]
+
+In the meantime, another prominent trust had played into the hands of
+the administration. The American Sugar Refining Company imported large
+amounts of raw sugar, on which it paid tariff duties. In November,
+1907, it was discovered that the Company had tampered with the scales
+on which the incoming sugar was weighed, in such a manner as to defraud
+the government. In the resulting legal actions, over $4,000,000 were
+recovered from the Company, criminal prosecutions were carried on
+against the officials and employees, and several of them were
+convicted. The close relation between the railroads and the great
+corporations was indicated when the Standard Oil Company of Indiana was
+brought into court on the charge of receiving rebates on petroleum
+shipped over the Chicago and Alton Railroad. The decision by Judge K.M.
+Landis was that the Company was guilty on 1,462 separate counts and
+must pay a fine of $29,240,000. On appeal to a higher court the case
+was dismissed, partly on a question concerning the meaning of the law.
+
+The efforts of Roosevelt in the direction of control of the railroads
+resembled his activities in relation to industrial combinations. A
+variety of circumstances had combined to arouse a popular demand for
+the reinforcement of existing legislation: the discovery of grave
+abuses in connection with the transportation of petroleum; the
+continuance of favoritism and rebating, together with increasing public
+knowledge of their existence; the rise in freight rates; and the
+consolidation of the railroads into a few large systems, with the
+accompanying concentration of power in the hands of a small number of
+persons. In his public speeches and in his messages to Congress in 1904
+and 1905, President Roosevelt made himself the spokesman of the popular
+will. In particular--and it was here that the conflict was destined to
+rage--the President called for the transfer to the Interstate Commerce
+Commission of the power to determine the rates which the roads should
+be allowed to charge. The project was not a new one, having already
+taken shape in previous years, but at no time was Congress prepared to
+pass definite legislation. The reaction of the railroads to the rising
+demand was energetic. A costly propaganda was entered upon designed to
+prove to the public that the roads should be let alone. A powerful
+lobby worked insistently upon Congress, first to prevent action and
+later, when action was seen to be inevitable, to weaken the legislation
+wherever possible. The railroad's campaign of popular education,
+however, helped to convince the popular mind that new laws were needed,
+and came coincidently with the disclosures of corporate mismanagement
+and wrong-doing. The outcome was the Hepburn Act of June 29, 1906.
+
+Its major provisions were five in number. It enlarged the scope of the
+Interstate Commerce Act so as to include control of express and
+sleeping car companies, pipe lines, switches, spur tracks and
+terminals. Free passes, which had hitherto been productive of much
+favoritism and the source of political corruption, were strictly
+forbidden, except to a few specified classes. The "commodity clause"
+forbade railroads to carry goods, other than timber, in which they had
+an interest, except such as they were going to use themselves. This
+provision was designed mainly to check the activities of those
+companies which owned both coal mines and railroads, and which used
+their advantageous position to crush independent operators. Its force,
+however, was largely nullified by subsequent decisions of the courts.
+The Hepburn law also enabled the Commission to prescribe the methods of
+book-keeping which the roads must follow, to call for monthly or
+special reports and to employ examiners who should have access to the
+books of the carriers. The roads were even denied the right to keep any
+records except those approved by the Commission. These drastic features
+of the law were due in part to the practices of certain roads which hid
+away corrupt expenditures in their accounts in such a manner that
+detection was almost impossible. Most important, however, among the
+provisions of the Act was that in relation to rate-making, which not
+only empowered the Commission to hear complaints that rates were unjust
+or unreasonable, but even enabled it to determine what would be a just
+and reasonable charge in the case, and to order the carrier complained
+of to adhere to the new rate. The rate-making section of the Hepburn
+Act immediately resulted in a large increase in the number of
+complaints entered by shippers against the carriers. Previously, few
+cases had been taken to the Commission--only 878 in eighteen
+years--because relief was seldom obtained and then only at great cost
+in time and money. Under the new law more than 1500 cases were entered
+within two and a half years, and several thousand others were
+informally settled out of court.
+
+The example of the federal government in adopting restrictive railway
+legislation was followed by the states, on a nation-wide scale. Hours
+of labor were regulated, liability for accidents defined, railroad
+commissions given larger powers, and freight and passenger rates
+determined. The result was a tangle of local regulations, many of which
+were designed to embarrass the roads and others of which were passed
+with slight knowledge of the practical questions involved.
+
+Aside from his connection with the anti-trust campaign and the movement
+for railroad regulation, Roosevelt's most significant activities during
+his second administration related to conservation. As early as 1880 the
+Superintendent of the Census had called attention to the exhaustion of
+the best public lands. The truth of his assertion had been exemplified
+in the rush of settlers to Oklahoma when the former Indian Territory
+was opened to settlement on April 22, 1889. At noon on that day the
+blast of a cavalry bugle was the signal that any settler might enter
+and stake out his claim. On foot, on fleet horses, in primitive wagons,
+an excited, jostling mob rushed toward those lands that seemed most
+desirable. Trains were crowded to the roofs; tools, furniture, and
+portable houses were carried in from Texas, Nebraska and Kansas. By
+nightfall a stretch of waving prairie became Gruthrie, with a
+population of 10,000 persons; by the evening of the first day Oklahoma
+possessed a population of 50,000; twenty years later it had over a
+million and a half, contained flourishing cities, many public
+enterprises, and a beautiful state university.
+
+The fact that desirable land was becoming so rare called attention to
+the waste and dishonesty in connection with our public land system. In
+his annual report for 1884 the Secretary of the Interior had complained
+that large amounts of land had been acquired under fictitious names or
+by persons employed for the purpose. Their holdings were then passed
+over to speculators who retained huge areas for a rising market.
+Railroads had kept lands granted to them, without fulfilling the
+conditions of the grants. Titled Englishmen and English land companies
+had gained control of tracts of unbelievable size, one of them being
+estimated at 3,000,000 acres. The history of the disposal of the public
+land had almost been duplicated in the history of the forest-bearing
+public domain, except that measures had earlier been taken to conserve
+the remnant of the once magnificent supply of standing timber. An act
+of 1891 had enabled the president to set apart as public reservations
+any lands bearing forests. All the presidents, from Harrison down, had
+availed themselves of their power, and had established great numbers of
+reservations, most of them in states west of the Mississippi.[6]
+
+A few far-sighted individuals had long urged caution in the disposal of
+the public resources. Some beginnings in fact had already been made in
+the Division of Forestry in the Department of Agriculture, where
+Clifford Pinchot was actively interested in forest preservation. In
+1901 and later his functions had been expanded, and the forestry
+service had taken up protection against fire, the sale of timber, and
+reforestation. In 1907 President Roosevelt appointed a commission to
+study the inland waterways, which after careful investigation
+recommended a convention for the discussion of conservation problems.
+Thereupon the President invited the governors of the states to
+Washington for a conference, at which conservation questions were
+thoroughly discussed. The resulting recommendations composed a
+complete, although general plan of reform: the natural resources of the
+country to be used for the prosperity of the American people;
+reclamation of arid lands; conservation of forests, minerals and
+water-power; the protection of the sources of the rivers; and
+cooperation between Congress and the states in developing a
+conservation program. A National Conservation Commission was later
+appointed which coordinated the work of organizing the movement, and
+made an exhaustive inventory of the nation's natural resources.
+
+The conservation movement also called attention to the possibilities of
+the arid region between the western parts of Kansas, Nebraska and the
+Dakotas, and the eastern border of California. Within this vast area
+were large tracts of land that would be fertile if sufficiently
+supplied with water. The most important legislation in a series of acts
+designed to meet this need was the Reclamation Act of 1902. Under its
+provisions the federal government set aside the proceeds of the sale of
+public land in sixteen states and territories as a fund for irrigation
+work. With the resources thus obtained, water powers were developed,
+reservoirs built and large tracts supplied with water. Private
+companies and western states also carried out numerous projects. The
+Department of Agriculture after its establishment in 1889 also
+conducted many undertakings which, in effect, were conservation
+enterprises. It helped educate the American farmer in scientific
+methods, sought new crops in every corner of the globe, discovered and
+circulated means of combating diseases and insects, studied soils,
+distributed seeds and gathered statistics. In the arid and semi-arid
+regions the discovery of dry farming was of great value. This consists
+of planting the seed deep and keeping a mulch of dust on the surface by
+frequent cultivation, in order to retard the evaporation of the
+moisture in the ground underneath.[7]
+
+Nothing can be more apparent than the complete change of position which
+was brought about during the eight years after the death of President
+McKinley. At the end of that period, both the industrial corporations
+and the railways were on the defensive, and the public had secured the
+whip hand. Industry, especially the railroads, was tamed and
+hobbled--some thought, crippled. Many factors contributed to the
+revolution. President Roosevelt was its most active agent, to be
+sure,--its "gigantic advertiser" and popularizer. But it could hardly
+have taken place--at least at the time and in the way it did--without
+the great upheaval of 1896, without the publicity which the "muck-rake"
+magazines and daily newspapers were able to offer, without the
+industrial consolidations of 1898 and later, and without the refusal of
+industry and the railways to obey earlier and less drastic laws, and
+their skilled and insistent attempts to find loop-holes in legislation.
+
+From the standpoint of politics, the effect of the Roosevelt
+administrations was notable. As has been seen, the Republican party had
+become largely the party of the business and commercial classes,
+conservative and unyielding to the new demands of the late nineteenth
+century. Its leadership had been sharply challenged by the forces of
+unrest in 1896. On an issue other than a monetary one, the success of
+Bryan would have been possible. The failure of the attempt to get
+control of the federal government in the interest of the Populist
+program was only a temporary defeat, for the revival of unrest,
+although checked by the war with Spain, was sure soon to reappear. In
+President Roosevelt, the forces of discontent, especially in the Middle
+and Far West, saw their hoped-for champion, and their support of him
+was instant and complete. The dominant leadership and much of the rank
+and file of the Republican party had become liberal. The situation was
+anomalous, however, for no great political party can experience a
+thorough-going change of philosophy in a few years. Only the future,
+therefore, could tell whether the newer and more liberal element would
+continue to control the party, or whether a reaction against its
+leadership would take place.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+It is too early to expect a biography of Roosevelt which is informed
+and critical, as well as sympathetic. The keenest judgment is to be
+found in _Atlantic Monthly_ (CIX, 577), "Mr. Roosevelt." The following
+are also available: L.F. Abbott, _Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt_
+(1919); F.E. Leupp, _The Man Roosevelt_ (1904); W.R. Thayer, _Theodore
+Roosevelt_ (1919); C.G. Washburn, _Theodore Roosevelt; the Logic of His
+Career_ (1916). Roosevelt can be partly understood through a critical
+reading of his writings, especially his _Addresses and Presidential
+Messages_ (1904), and his _Autobiography_ (1913).
+
+On the coal strike consult the _Autobiography_, and _Senate Reports_,
+58th Congress, special session, Document No. 6 (Serial Number 4556),
+the report of the President's Commission. The election of 1904 is
+discussed in Latané, Croly and Stanwood: see also C.M. Pepper, _The
+Life and Times of Henry Gassaway Davis_ (1920). The new railroad acts
+are well discussed in W.Z. Ripley, _Railroads: Rates and Regulations_
+(1912), and by F.H. Dixon in _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, XXI, 22.
+
+The literature of conservation is very large. An excellent single
+chapter is in Katherine Coman, _Industrial History of the United
+States_ (rev. ed., 1910); C.R. Van Hise, _The Conservation of Natural
+Resources in the United States_ (1913), is a standard work; R.P. Teele,
+_Irrigation in the United States_ (1915), is detailed; for documents
+concerning the conference of governors, _House of Representatives
+Document_ No. 1425, 60th Congress, 2nd session (Serial Number 5538).
+
+The anti-trust campaign is best followed in Theodore Roosevelt,
+_Addresses and Presidential Messages_, and in the _Autobiography_. The
+Northern Securities decision is in _United States Reports_, vol. 193,
+p. 197.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] In view of the later activities of President Roosevelt, there is
+point in the remark of a satirist that Roosevelt did carry out the
+policies of McKinley--and bury them. _Atlantic Monthly_, CIX, 164.
+
+[2] Above, p. 257.
+
+[3] It was later denied that Baer made the statement, but a
+photographic copy of the letter was printed in Lloyd, _Henry D. Lloyd_,
+II, 190. See also Mitchell, _Organized Labor_, 384; Peck, _Twenty
+Years_, 693-6.
+
+[4] Rumor says that Roosevelt sent Elihu Root to the eminent financial
+magnate, J.P. Morgan, with information of his intent to appoint the
+Cleveland Commission, and that Morgan applied the pressure to the coal
+operators.
+
+[5] In 1917, fourteen years after Loewe's first suit, he recovered
+damages from the Union.
+
+[6] In 1918, 151 national forests aggregated 176,000,000 acres.
+Secretary of the Interior, _Annual Report_, 1918, 61.
+
+[7] The territory of Alaska contains immense stores of natural resources
+which are being conserved with more wisdom than characterized the
+disposal of our continental supplies. The area of the territory,
+586,400 square miles, constitutes a, kingdom. It has uncounted wealth in
+fish, furs, timber, coal and precious metals. At present the federal
+government is building a railroad which will tap some of the resources
+of the region. _Enc. Brit._, "Alaska."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+POLITICS, 1908-1912
+
+By 1908, the year of the presidential election, an influential portion
+of the Republican members of Congress, particularly in the Senate, were
+bitterly opposed to President Roosevelt. His attitude on the trusts and
+the railroads was offensive to many, and on several occasions he had
+gained the upper hand over Congress by means which were coming to be
+known as "big-stick" methods. The so-called "constructive recess" of
+1903 was an example.
+
+Under the provisions of the Constitution, the president appoints many
+officials with the advice and consent of the Senate, when it is in
+session, and fills vacancies that happen during a recess by granting
+commissions which expire at the end of the next session. On December 2,
+1903, at noon, one session of Congress came to an end and another began.
+Precisely at 12 o'clock, according to the official statement, the
+President issued new commissions to W.D. Crum, a negro, to be collector
+of the port of Charleston, and also to 168 army officers, of whom the
+President's close friend Brigadier-General Leonard Wood was one. General
+Wood was to be promoted to a major-generalship and the remaining
+promotions were dependent upon his advance. The President's theory was
+that a "constructive recess" intervened between the two sessions, during
+which he could make recess appointments. Although the Senate was hostile
+to both Crum and Wood, it reluctantly succumbed to Roosevelt's wishes
+rather than withhold promotion from the 167 officers to whom it had no
+objection.
+
+In 1908, Senator Tillman, an outspoken Democratic critic of the
+President, declared that senators vigorously denounced Roosevelt's
+radical ideas in private but that in public they opposed merely by
+inaction. Party loyalty was sufficient to keep these Republicans, in
+most cases, from open and continued rebellion. Hardly less hostile to
+the President were many of the business men of the country, who objected
+to his economic policies, but the only alternative to Roosevelt was
+Bryan, who, as one of the earliest proponents of radical legislation,
+was even more offensive. On the other hand, a large majority of the rank
+and file of the party, especially in the North and West, upheld the
+President with unfeigned enthusiasm and made his position in the party
+so strong that he could practically name his successor. Several
+candidates had more or less local support for the nomination--Senator
+Knox, of Pennsylvania, Governor Hughes, of New York, Speaker Cannon, of
+Illinois, Vice-President Fairbanks, of Indiana, Senator La Follette, of
+Wisconsin and Senator Foraker, of Ohio. The President's prestige and
+energy, however, were frankly behind the candidacy of his Secretary of
+War, William H. Taft.
+
+The Republican convention of 1908 met in Chicago on June 16. Early in
+the proceedings the mention of Roosevelt's name brought an outburst of
+enthusiasm which indicated the possibility that he might be nominated
+for a third term, despite his expressed refusal to allow such a move to
+be made. In the platform the achievements of the retiring administration
+were recounted in glowing terms; tariff reform was promised; and a
+postal savings bank, the strengthening of the Interstate Commerce law
+and the Sherman Anti-trust act, the more accurate definition of the
+rules of procedure in the issuance of injunctions, good roads,
+conservation, pensions and the encouragement of shipping, received the
+stamp of party approval. Planks pledging the party to legislation
+requiring the publicity of campaign expenditures, the valuation of the
+physical property of railroads and the popular election of senators were
+uniformly rejected. The closing paragraph declared that the "trend of
+Democracy is toward Socialism, while the Republican party stands for
+wise and regulated individualism." The contest over the nomination was
+extremely brief, as Taft received 702 out of 979 votes on the first
+ballot. James S. Sherman of New York was nominated for the
+vice-presidency.
+
+The Democrats, meanwhile, were in a quandary. A considerable fraction of
+the party desired the nomination of somebody other than Bryan, whose
+defeats in 1896 and 1900 had cast doubts upon the wisdom of a third
+trial. Nevertheless the failure of Parker in 1904 had been so
+overwhelming that the nomination of a conservative seemed undesirable
+and, moreover, no candidate appeared whose achievements or promise could
+overcome the prestige of Bryan. The national convention was held in
+Denver, July 7-10, and Bryan dominated all its activities. The platform
+welcomed the Republican promise to reform the tariff, but doubted its
+sincerity; promised changes in the Interstate Commerce law, a more
+elastic currency, improvements in the law of injunctions, generous
+pensions, good roads and the conservation of the national resources. In
+the main, however, the platform was an emphatic condemnation of the
+Republican party as the party of "privileges and private monopoly." It
+declared that the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives
+exercised such absolute domination as to stop the enactment of measures
+desired by the majority. It demanded the termination of the "partnership
+which has existed between corporations of the country and the Republican
+party," by which the business interests contributed great sums of money
+in elections in return for an unmolested opportunity to "encroach upon
+the rights of the people." It promised the enactment of laws preventing
+corporation contributions to campaign funds and providing for the
+publication before election of all contributions by individuals.
+Detailed and definite planks in relation to trusts indicated that the
+framers of the platform possessed at least the courage of their
+convictions. Three laws were promised: one preventing the duplication of
+directors among competing corporations; another establishing a license
+system which would place under federal authority those corporations
+engaged in interstate commerce which controlled as much as twenty-five
+per cent. of the product in which they dealt, and which should likewise
+protect the public from watered stock and prohibit any single
+corporation from controlling over fifty per cent. of the total amount of
+any commodity consumed in the United States; and, third, a law forcing
+corporations to sell to purchasers in all sections of the country on the
+same terms, after making due allowance for transportation costs.
+
+As soon as the platform was out of the way, the convention turned to the
+nomination of the candidate. Only George Gray, of Delaware, and John A.
+Johnson, of Minnesota, contested the leadership of Bryan, but their
+support was so slight that he was chosen on the first ballot. John W.
+Kern, of Indiana, was nominated for the vice-presidency.
+
+Of the smaller parties which shared in the election of 1908, the
+People's party and the Socialists should be mentioned. The Populists
+adopted a program of economic reforms many parts of which had been
+prominent in their platforms of 1892 and 1896. Both the Republicans and
+the Democrats, however, had adopted so many of these earlier demands
+that the Populists rapidly lost strength and disappeared after 1908. The
+Socialists likewise advocated economic reforms, together with government
+ownership of the railroads, and of such industries as were organized on
+a national scale. The candidate nominated was Eugene V. Debs, a labor
+leader who had gained prominence at the time of the Pullman strike.[1]
+
+The only novelty in the campaign was Bryan's stand in regard to campaign
+funds. By calling upon his supporters for large numbers of small
+individual contributions, he drew attention to the fact that the
+corporations were helping generously to meet Taft's election expenses.
+At their leader's direction the Democratic committee announced that it
+would receive no contributions whatever from corporations, that it would
+accept no offering over $10,000 and that it would publish a list of
+contributors before the close of the campaign.
+
+The result of the election was the triumph of Taft and his party. The
+Republican popular vote was 7,700,000; the Democratic, 6,500,000; the
+Socialist, 420,890. The election also gave the Republicans control of
+Congress, which was to be constituted as follows during 1909-1911:
+Senate, Democrats, 32, Republicans, 61; House of Representatives,
+Democrats, 172, Republicans, 219.
+
+Few men in our history have had a wider judicial and administrative
+experience before coming to the presidency than that of William H. Taft.
+He was born in 1857 in Ohio, graduated from Yale University with high
+rank in the class of 1878 and later entered upon the study of law. A
+judicial temperament early manifested itself and Taft became
+successively judge of the Superior Court in Cincinnati and of a United
+States Circuit Court. From the latter post he was called to serve upon
+the Philippine Commission, was later Governor of the Philippines and
+Secretary of War in Roosevelt's cabinet. During the period of his
+connection with the Philippines and his membership in the Cabinet he
+visited Cuba, Panama, Porto Rico, Japan and the Papal Court at Rome in
+connection with matters of federal importance.
+
+Personally Taft is kindly, unaffected, democratic, full of good humor,
+courageous. As a public officer he was slow and judicial, rather than
+quick and executive like his predecessor. Although in sympathy with the
+reforms instituted by Roosevelt, Taft was less the reformer and more
+conscious of considerations of constitutionality. Roosevelt thought of
+the domain of the executive as including all acts not _specifically
+forbidden_ by the Constitution or by the laws of the nation; Taft
+thought of it as including only those which were _specifically granted_
+by the Constitution and laws. The one was voluble, a dynamo of energy,
+quick to seize and act upon any innovation that gave promise of being
+both useful and successful; the other thought and acted more slowly and
+was less sensitive to the feasibility of change. One possessed well-nigh
+all the attributes necessary for intense popularity; the other inspired
+admiration among a smaller group. Roosevelt had a peculiarly keen
+perception of the currents of public opinion, enjoyed publicity and knew
+how to achieve it; Taft was less quick at discovering the popular thing
+and less adept at those tricks of the trade that heightened the
+popularity of his predecessor.
+
+Despite the patent differences of temperament and philosophy between
+Taft and Roosevelt, both expected that the new administration would be
+an extension of the old one. Roosevelt indicated this in his frank
+preference for Taft as his successor; Taft indicated it in his thorough
+acceptance of the policies of the preceding seven years and in his
+intention, expressed at the time of his inauguration, to maintain and
+further the reforms already initiated. His first act, however, the
+appointment of his official advisors, caused some surprise among the
+friends of his predecessor who expected that he would retain most if not
+all of the Roosevelt cabinet. When he did not do so, it seemed as if the
+attempt to further the Roosevelt policies would lack continuity.[2]
+
+The immediate problem that faced the new executive was the revision of
+the tariff. The task was one which has frequently resulted in political
+disaster, but the platform left no choice to the President:
+
+    The Republican party declares unequivocally for a revision of the
+    tariff by a special session of Congress immediately following the
+    inauguration of the next President.... In all tariff legislation the
+    true principle of protection is best maintained by the imposition
+    of such duties as will equal the difference between the cost of
+    production at home and abroad, together with a reasonable profit to
+    American industries.
+
+The precise meaning of this declaration will perhaps always remain a
+matter of dispute, although it is certain that the public in general
+understood it to mean a distinct lowering of the tariff wall, and Taft
+committed himself to downward revision in his inaugural address.
+Moreover, whether it was intended by the framers to commit the party
+to downward revision or not, the method of defining the amount of
+protection to be granted was both novel and unsatisfactory, as
+Professor Taussig has pointed out. How could the costs of production
+at home or abroad be determined? To what extent would the principle
+announced in the platform be carried? Almost any commodity can be
+produced almost anywhere if the producer is guaranteed the cost of
+production, together with a reasonable profit. The wise revision of
+the tariff is difficult enough under any circumstances; under so vague
+a theory as was proposed in 1908, the chances of success became
+remote.
+
+The drafting of the tariff bill proceeded in the usual manner. The
+Ways and Means Committee of the House, the chairman of which was
+Sereno Payne, held preliminary public "hearings," which were open to
+any who desired to offer testimony or make requests. Naturally,
+however, the great body of the consuming public was little
+represented; most of those who appeared were manufacturers, importers
+and other interested parties. The bill drawn up by the Committee and
+passed by the House revised existing duties, on the whole, in the
+downward direction. The Senate Finance Committee, however, under the
+leadership of Nelson W. Aldrich, an experienced and able proponent of
+a high protective tariff, made 847 amendments, many of them important
+and generally in the direction of higher rates. The Senate, like the
+House, contained several Republicans, usually called "insurgents," who
+were inclined to break away from certain of the party doctrines.
+Senators Bristow, Cummins, Dolliver and La Follette were among them.
+This contingent had hoped for a genuine downward revision, and when
+they saw that the bill was not in accord with their expectations, they
+prepared to demand a thorough debate. Each of the insurgents made an
+especial study of some particular portion of the proposed measure so
+as to be well prepared to urge reductions. Their efforts were
+unavailing, however, and the bill passed--the insurgents voting with
+the great majority of the Democrats in the negative. The bill then
+went to a conference committee. Up to this point, the President had
+taken little share in the formation of the bill. Yet as leader of the
+party he had pledged himself to a downward revision and the result
+seemed likely not to be in the promised direction. He therefore
+exerted pressure on the conference committee and succeeded apparently
+in getting some reductions, chiefly the abolition of the duty on
+hides. The bill was then passed by both houses and signed by the
+President on August 5, 1909.
+
+The question whether the Payne-Aldrich act redeemed the pledge
+embodied in the platform of 1908 will doubtless remain a debatable
+question. On the one hand, a prominent Republican member of the
+Committee on Ways and Means and of the Conference Committee, declared
+that the act represented the greatest reduction that had been made in
+the tariff at any single time since the first revenue law was signed
+by George Washington. Roosevelt also defended the act. Experts outside
+of Congress sharply differed. Professor Taussig analyzed the act in
+all its aspects and concluded that no essential change had been made
+in our tariff system. "It still left an extremely high scheme of
+rates, and still showed an extremely intolerant attitude on foreign
+trade." General public opinion was most affected by the fact that
+duties on cotton goods were raised, and those on woolen goods left at
+the high rates levied under the Dingley act. It also appeared that
+many silent influences had been at work--the duty on cheap cotton
+gloves, for example, being doubled through the efforts of an
+interested individual who procured the assistance of a New England
+senator.[3]
+
+Not long after the passage of the act President Taft defended it in a
+speech at Winona, Minnesota, as the best tariff bill that the
+Republican party had ever passed. In regard to the woolen schedule he
+frankly said:
+
+    Mr. Payne in the House, and Mr. Aldrich, in the Senate, although
+    both favored reduction in the schedule, found that in the Republican
+    party the interests of the wool growers of the Far West and the
+    interests of the woolen manufacturers in the East and in other
+    States, reflected through their representatives in Congress, were
+    sufficiently strong to defeat any attempt to change the woolen
+    tariff and that, had it been attempted, it would have beaten the
+    bill reported from either committee.... It is the one important
+    defect in the present Payne tariff.
+
+The response of the press and the insurgent Republicans to the passage
+of the bill and to the Winona speech were ominous for the future of the
+party. Although not unanimous, condemnation was common in the West,
+even in Republican papers. Particular objection was made to the high
+estimate which the President placed upon the act and to his defence of
+Senator Aldrich, who had come to be looked upon as the forefront of the
+"special interests"; and western state Republican platforms in 1910
+declared that the act had not been in accord with the plank of 1908.[4]
+
+Coincidently with the disagreement over the Payne-Aldrich act, there
+raged the unhappy Pinchot-Ballinger controversy. One of the last acts
+of President Roosevelt had been to withdraw from sale large tracts of
+public land which contained valuable water-power. The purpose and the
+effect of the order was to prevent these natural resources from falling
+into private hands and particularly into the hands of syndicates or
+corporations who would develop them mainly for individual interests.
+President Taft's Secretary of the Interior, Richard A. Ballinger, took
+the attitude that the withdrawals were without statutory justification
+and he therefore revoked the order for withdrawals immediately after
+coming into office. Upon further investigation, however, he re-withdrew
+a part of the land, although somewhat doubtful of his power to do so.
+
+During the summer of 1909, Gifford Pinchot, the Chief Forester,
+addressed an irrigation Congress in Spokane and asserted that the
+water-power sites were being absorbed by a trust. Much interest was
+aroused by the charge, which was looked upon as an attack on the
+Secretary of the Interior and his policy. Within a short time the idea
+became widespread, through the press, that Ballinger was associated
+with interests which were desirous of seizing the public resources and
+that this fact lay back of his partial reversal of the policy of his
+predecessor. This impression was deepened by the charges of L.R.
+Glavis, an employee of the Department of the Interior, concerning the
+claims of a certain Clarence Cunningham, representing a group of
+investors, to some exceedingly valuable coal lands in Alaska. Glavis
+asserted that the Cunningham claims were fraudulent, that many of the
+Cunningham group were personal friends of Ballinger and that the latter
+had acted as attorney for them before becoming Secretary of the
+Interior. President Taft, with the backing of an opinion from
+Attorney-General Wickersham, upheld Ballinger and dismissed Glavis. The
+press again took the matter up and the controversy was carried into
+Congress, where an investigation was ordered. About the same time
+Pinchot was removed for insubordination, and additional heat entered
+into the disagreement. The majority of the congressional committee of
+investigation later made a report exonerating Ballinger, but his
+position had become intolerable and he resigned in March, 1911. The
+result of the quarrel was to weaken the President, for the idea became
+common that his administration had been friendly with interests that
+wished to seize the public lands.
+
+Republican complaint in regard to the tariff and the Pinchot-Ballinger
+controversy were surface indications of a division in the party into
+conservative or "old-guard," and progressive or insurgent groups. The
+same line of demarcation appeared in a quarrel over the power of the
+Speaker of the House of Representatives, Joseph G. Cannon. Cannon had
+served in the lower branch of Congress almost continuously for
+twenty-seven years, and in 1910 was filling the position of speaker for
+the fourth consecutive time. Much of his official influence rested on
+two powers: he appointed the committees of the House and their
+chairmen, a power which enabled him to punish opponents, reward friends
+and determine the character of legislation; and he was the chairman and
+dominant power of the Committee on Rules which determined the procedure
+under existing practice and made special orders whenever particular
+circumstances seemed to require them. It was widely believed that
+Cannon, like Aldrich in the Senate, effectually controlled the passage
+of legislation, with slender regard to the wishes or needs of the
+people. "Cannonism" and "Aldrichism" were considered synonymous. For
+several years an influential part of the Republican and Independent, as
+well as the Democratic press had attacked Speaker Cannon as the enemy
+of progressive legislation. Many of them laid much of the blame for the
+character of the Payne-Aldrich act at his door. _The Outlook_ decried
+"government by oligarchy"; _The Nation_ declared that he belonged to
+another political age; Bryan queried what Cannon was selling and how
+much he got; Gompers, the head of the American Federation of Labor,
+pointed him out as the enemy of all reforms.
+
+The outcry against the Speaker in the House itself, reinforced by the
+gathering opposition outside, found effective voice in a coalition of
+the Democrats and the insurgent Republicans. In mid-March, 1910, an
+insurgent presented a resolution designed to replace the old Committee
+on Rules by a larger body which should be elected by the House, and on
+which the speaker would have no place. The friends of Cannon rallied to
+his defence; other business fell into the background; and debate became
+sharp and personal. One continuous session lasted twenty-six hours,
+parliamentary fencing mingling with horse-play while each side
+attempted to get a tactical advantage over the other.[5] Eventually
+about forty insurgent Republicans joined with the Democrats to pass the
+resolution. The result of the change was to compel the speaker to be a
+presiding officer rather than the determining factor in the passage of
+legislation. About the time that Cannon's domination in the House was
+being broken, the announcement that Senator Nelson W. Aldrich and his
+staunchly conservative associate, Eugene Hale, of Maine, were about to
+retire indicated a similar change in the Senate. These men had served
+for long periods in Congress and were looked upon as the ablest and
+most influential of the "reactionary" element in the upper house.
+
+Coincidently with the partial disintegration of the conservative wing
+of the Republican party in Congress, there was passed a large volume of
+legislation of the type desired by the insurgents. The public land laws
+were improved; acts requiring the use of safety appliances on railroads
+were strengthened; a Bureau of Mines was established to study the
+welfare of the miners; a postal savings bank system was erected; and an
+Economy and Efficiency Commission appointed to examine the several
+administrative departments so as to discover wasteful methods of doing
+business. Of especial importance was the Mann-Elkins Act of June 18,
+1910, which further extended the powers of the Interstate Commerce
+Commission. Experience had brought out serious defects in the
+rate-fixing procedure set up by the Hepburn Act. By that law, to be
+sure, a shipper could complain that the roads were charging him an
+unreasonable rate and the Commission might, in course of time, uphold
+him and order relief; but in the meantime the shipper, especially if he
+were a small one, might be crushed out of existence through the large
+rates, and the consuming public would have paid increased prices for
+commodities with no possibility of a remuneration to them, even if the
+Commission decided that the rates levied were unreasonably high. The
+Mann-Elkins law, therefore, provided that the Commission might suspend
+any proposed change in rates for a period not greater than ten months,
+and decide during that time whether it was reasonable and should go
+into effect or not. In this way the burden of proving the justice of a
+suggested change was placed upon the railroads.[6]
+
+An act of June 25, 1910, which was amended a year later, required the
+publication of the names of persons contributing to the federal
+campaign funds of the political parties, and the amounts contributed,
+as well as a detailed account of the expenditures of the committees and
+the purposes for which the expenses were incurred. President Taft also
+urged the passage of an income tax amendment to the federal
+Constitution and indicated that he was in favor of an amendment
+providing for the popular election of senators. Amendments for both
+these purposes passed Congress; but they were not ratified and put into
+effect until 1913.
+
+In June, 1910, Roosevelt returned from Africa whither he had gone for a
+hunting trip, after the inauguration of President Taft. Both elements
+in the Republican party were anxious for his sympathy and support.
+Roosevelt himself seems to have desired to remain outside the arena, at
+least for a time, but for many reasons permanent separation from
+politics was impossible. He became a candidate for the position of
+temporary chairman of the New York Republican State Convention against
+Vice-President James S. Sherman. The contest in the convention brought
+out opposition to him on the part of the old-guard, and his triumph
+left that wing of the party dissatisfied and disunited. During the
+summer and autumn of 1910 he made extensive political tours. At
+Ossawatomie, Kansas, he developed the platform of the "New
+Nationalism," which included more thorough control of corporations, and
+progressive legislation in regard to income taxes, conservation, the
+laboring classes, primary elections at which the people could nominate
+candidates for office, and the recall of elective officials before the
+close of their terms. He urged such vigorous use of the powers of the
+federal government that there should be no "neutral ground" between
+state and nation, to serve as a refuge for law-breakers. Critics
+pointed out that these proposals had been urged by the insurgents and
+the followers of Bryan, and there could be no doubt where the
+sympathies of Roosevelt lay in the factional dispute within the
+Republican party.
+
+While conditions within the organization were such as were indicated by
+the hostile criticism of the Payne-Aldrich act, by the Pinchot-Ballinger
+controversy, the overturn of Speaker Cannon and the disintegration of
+the Aldrich-Hale group, the congressional election of 1910 took place.
+Signs of impending change had already become evident. Insurgent
+Republicans were carrying the party primaries; and the Democrats, who
+were plainly confident, emphasized strongly the tariff act, Cannonism
+and the high cost of living as reasons for the removal of the
+Republicans. The result was a greater upheaval than even the Democrats
+had prophesied. In nine states the Republicans were ousted from
+legislatures that would elect United States senators; the new Senate
+would contain forty-one Democrats and fifty-one Republicans--too narrow
+a Republican majority in view of the strength of the insurgents. In the
+choice of members of the lower branch of Congress there was a still
+greater revolution; the new House would contain 228 Democrats, 161
+Republicans and one Socialist, while Cannon would be retired from the
+speakership. In eastern as well as western states, Democratic governors
+were elected in surprising numbers. Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
+New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Oregon were among them. Of particular
+importance, as later events showed, was the success in New Jersey of
+Woodrow Wilson, former president of Princeton University.
+
+Not long after the election of 1910 the President sent to Congress a
+special message urging the adoption of a reciprocal trade agreement
+with Canada. The arrangement provided for freedom of trade in many raw
+materials and food products, and for substantial reductions on some
+manufactured articles. He believed that the project would benefit both
+countries economically and improve the already friendly relations
+existing between them, and he set his heart upon its adoption.
+Opposition appeared at once: the farmers' organizations protested
+vigorously at the reduction of the tariff on agricultural products; the
+high protectionists were fearful of an entering wedge which might lead
+to further tariff reductions; and the paper and wood pulp interests
+also objected. Although the agreement eventually passed both houses of
+Congress by large majorities, the opposition was composed chiefly of
+Republicans. Objection to the arrangement in Canada turned out to be
+stronger than had been anticipated. The fear that commercial
+reciprocity might make the Dominion somewhat dependent on the United
+States seems to have caused a manifestation of national pride, and Sir
+Wilfred Laurier, who had led the forces in favor of the agreement, was
+driven out of power and reciprocity defeated. The result for the
+administration was failure and further division in the party.
+
+Democratic control of the House during the second half of Taft's term
+effectually prevented the passage of any considerable amount of
+legislation. A parcel-post law, however, was passed, a Children's
+Bureau was established for the study of the welfare of children, and a
+Department of Labor provided for, whose secretary was to be a member of
+the cabinet. Aided by the insurgents, the Democrats attempted a small
+amount of tariff legislation. Although a general revision of the entire
+tariff structure would be a long and laborious task, specific schedules
+could be revised which would indicate what might be expected in case of
+Democratic success in 1912. The sugar, steel, woolen, chemical and
+cotton schedules were taken up in accord with this plan and bills were
+passed which were uniformly vetoed by the President.
+
+In his attitude toward the regulation of big business, President Taft
+was in harmony with his predecessor and was in thorough sympathy,
+therefore, with suits brought under the Sherman law against the
+Standard Oil Company, and the American Tobacco Company. In May, 1911,
+the Supreme Court decided that both of these companies had been guilty
+of combining to restrain and to monopolize trade, and ordered a
+dissolution of the conspiring elements into separate, competing units.
+The Court also undertook to answer some of the knotty questions that
+had arisen in relation to section 1 of the act, which declares illegal
+"every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or
+conspiracy, in restraint of trade." Did the prohibition against every
+contract or combination mean precisely _every_ contract, whether
+important or not? Or did it refer merely to large and unreasonable
+restraints? The phraseology of the statute seems to prohibit restraints
+of all kinds, and the previous decisions of the Court had been in line
+with this view. When, then, the decisions in these two cases erected
+the "rule of reason" and declared that only those restraints were
+forbidden that were unreasonable, the attention of some opponents of
+the trusts was focussed on the _obiter dictum_, rather than upon the
+decisions themselves. In taking this position, they had the support of
+Mr. Justice Harlan who agreed to the decision but condemned the _obiter
+dictum_, asserted that the exact words of the law forbade _every_
+contract, and deprecated what he believed to be the amendment of
+statutes by the courts. The dissolution of the companies into competing
+units, however, had no apparent effect that was of benefit to the
+public. In fact, immediate increases in the value of Standard Oil
+stocks indicated that the decision was of slight consequence.
+
+In the meantime the widening of the breach in the Republican party was
+indicated by the formation of the National Progressive Republican
+League on January 21, 1911. Its most prominent leaders were Senators
+Bourne, Bristow and La Follette; and leading progressives in different
+states were invited to join--among them ex-President Roosevelt. It was
+the hope that if the latter joined the League, the step might help to
+place him in more open opposition to the Taft administration. The
+purpose of the organization was the passage of progressive economic and
+political legislation, especially acts providing for the election of
+senators by vote of the people, direct primaries for the nomination of
+elective officers, direct election of delegates to national
+conventions, the initiative, referendum and recall in the states, and a
+thorough-going corrupt practices act.
+
+Early in 1912 the factions in the Republican party began to consider
+the question of a leader for the coming presidential campaign, some of
+the progressive element looking to La Follette as the natural
+candidate, and others to Roosevelt when it was seen that he would not
+support Taft for a renomination. On February 21, Roosevelt addressed a
+constitutional convention in Columbus, Ohio, and expressed a political
+creed that closely resembled the program of the National Progressive
+Republican League. In the meantime the demand for Roosevelt as a
+candidate had been incessant on the part of numerous Republicans of
+insurgent sympathies, who realized how many more progressive principles
+he had accepted than Taft. Finally on February 24 he replied to an
+appeal from a group of his supporters, including seven state governors,
+that he would accept a nomination. Thereupon most of the progressives
+transferred their allegiance from La Follette to the ex-President.
+President Taft's fighting spirit had become aroused, in the meanwhile,
+and he had declared that only death would keep him out of the fight.
+
+The call had already been issued for the Republican Nominating
+Convention to be held in Chicago, in June, and the contest began for
+the control of the 1,078 delegates who would compose its membership.
+The supporters of Taft, being in possession of the party machinery,
+were able to dictate the choice of many of these delegates, especially
+from the South, by means that had been usual in politics for many
+years. The friends of Roosevelt, in order to overcome this handicap,
+began to demand presidential preference primaries, in which the people
+might make known their wishes, and in which his personal popularity
+would make him a strong contender. During the pre-convention campaign,
+twelve states held primaries and the others held the usual party
+conventions. At first Taft did not actively enter the contest, but the
+efforts of Roosevelt were so successful and his charges against the
+President so numerous that he felt compelled to take the stump. The
+country was then treated to the spectacle of a President and an
+ex-President touring the country and acrimoniously attacking each
+other. The progressives, Taft asserted, were "political emotionalists"
+and "neurotics"; Roosevelt, he complained, had promised not to accept
+another nomination, had broken his agreement, and had not given a fair
+account of the policies which the administration had been following.
+Roosevelt charged Taft with being a reactionary, a friend of the
+"bosses" and with using the patronage in order to secure a
+renomination. And he grated on the sensibilities of the nation by
+referring to his influence in getting Taft elected in 1908 and
+remarking, "it is a bad trait to bite the hand that feeds you." The
+result of the presidential preference primaries in the few states that
+held them was overwhelmingly in favor of Roosevelt; in the states where
+conventions chose the delegates, Taft obtained a majority; in the case
+of over 200 delegates, there were disputes as to whether Taft or
+Roosevelt men were fairly chosen. These contests, as usual, were
+decided by the National Republican Committee, with the right of appeal
+to the Convention itself. The Committee decided nearly all the contests
+in favor of Taft's friends, and since all the delegates thus chosen
+would sit in the Convention and vote on one another's cases, the
+decision seemed likely to be final.
+
+The scene of action then shifted to Chicago where the Convention
+assembled on June 18. Aroused by the action of the Committee in the
+contests, Roosevelt went thither to care for his interests.[7] The
+election of a temporary chairman resulted in the choice of Elihu Root,
+who was favorable to Taft. The Roosevelt delegates, declaring that the
+contests had been unfairly decided, enlivened the roll-call by shouts
+of "robbers," "thieves"; and when Root thanked the Convention for the
+confidence which it reposed in him, his words were greeted with groans.
+Upon the failure of an attempt to revise the decision of the National
+Committee in the cases of the contested delegates, Roosevelt announced
+that he was "through." One of his supporters read to the Convention a
+statement from him charging that the Committee, under the direction of
+Taft, had stolen eighty or ninety delegates, making the gathering no
+longer in any proper sense a Republican convention. Thereafter most of
+the Roosevelt delegates refused to share either in the nomination of
+the candidate or in the adoption of a platform. The choice of Taft as
+the candidate was then made without difficulty.
+
+The platform contained the usual planks concerning the party's past,
+the protective tariff and the civil service; and it reflected something
+of the rising interest in economic and political reforms in its
+advocacy of laws limiting the hours of labor for women and children,
+workmen's compensation acts, reforms in legal procedure, a simpler
+process than impeachment for the removal of judges, additions to the
+anti-trust law, the revision of the currency system, publicity of
+campaign contributions and a parcel-post.
+
+As the Republican convention was drawing its labors to a close, the
+dissatisfied adherents of Roosevelt met and invited him to become the
+candidate of a new organization. Upon his acceptance, a call was issued
+for a convention of the Progressive Party, to be held in Chicago on
+August 5. The discord among the Republicans was viewed with undisguised
+content by the Democratic leaders, for it seemed likely to open to them
+the doorway to power. Yet the same difference between liberals and
+conservatives that had been the outstanding feature of the Republican
+convention was evident among the Democrats, and nobody could be sure
+that a schism would not take place.
+
+There was no lack of aspirants for the presidential nomination. J.B.
+("Champ") Clark, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Governor
+Judson Harmon, of Ohio, O.W. Underwood, Chairman of the House Committee
+on Ways and Means, and Governor Woodrow Wilson, of New Jersey, all had
+earnest supporters. In contests in the state conventions and primaries,
+Speaker Clark was most successful, although not enough delegates were
+pledged to him to secure the nomination.
+
+The convention met in Baltimore on June 25, and for the most part
+centered about the activities of Bryan. On the third day he presented a
+resolution declaring the convention opposed to the nomination of any
+candidate who was under obligations to J.P. Morgan, T.F. Ryan, August
+Belmont, or any of the "privilege-hunting and favor-seeking class." An
+uproar ensued, but the resolution was overwhelmingly adopted. Balloting
+for the candidate then began. Speaker Clark had a majority, but was far
+from having the two-thirds majority which Democratic conventions
+require; Governor Wilson was more than a hundred votes behind him.
+While the fourteenth ballot was being taken, Bryan created a new
+sensation by announcing that he should transfer his vote from Clark to
+Wilson, on the ground that the New York delegates were in the hands of
+Charles F. Murphy, the leader of Tammany Hall, and that Murphy was for
+the Speaker. The relative positions of the two leading candidates
+remained unchanged, however, for five ballots more. Then the tide began
+to turn. At the thirtieth, Governor Wilson led for the first time, and
+on the forty-sixth Clark's support broke and Wilson was nominated.
+
+The platform resembled that of 1908. It called for immediate downward
+revision of the tariff, the strengthening of the anti-trust laws,
+presidential preference primaries, prohibition of corporation
+contributions to campaign funds, a single term for the president and
+the revision of the banking and currency laws.
+
+The organization of the Progressive party, in the meantime, was rapidly
+proceeding, and on August 5 the national convention was held. It was an
+unusual political gathering both in its personnel--for women delegates
+shared in its deliberations--and in the emotional fervor which
+dominated its sessions. At the Democratic convention the delegates had
+awakened the echoes with the familiar song "Hail! Hail! The gang's all
+here"; the Progressives expressed their convictions in "Onward,
+Christian Soldiers." Roosevelt's speech was called his "confession of
+faith"; his charge that both of the old parties were boss-ridden and
+privilege-controlled epitomized the prevailing sentiment among his
+hearers. Without a contest Roosevelt was nominated for the presidency
+and Hiram Johnson of California for the vice-presidency.
+
+The platform adopted was distinctly a reform document. It advocated
+such political innovations as direct primaries, the direct election of
+senators, the initiative, referendum and recall, a more expeditious
+method of amending the Constitution, women's suffrage, and the
+limitation of campaign expenditures. A detailed program of social and
+economic legislation included laws for the prevention of accidents, the
+prohibition of child labor, a "living wage," the eight-hour day, a
+Department of Labor, the conservation of the nation's resources, and
+the development of the agricultural interests. The third portion of the
+platform dealt with "the unholy alliance between corrupt business and
+corrupt politics." It declared the test of corporate efficiency to be
+the ability "to serve the public"; it demanded the "strong national
+regulation of interstate corporations," a federal industrial commission
+comparable to the Interstate Commerce Commission and the protection of
+the people from concerns offering worthless investments under highly
+colored and specious appearances.
+
+The results of the election indicated how complete the division
+in the Republican party had been. In the electoral college Wilson
+received 435 votes to Roosevelt's 88 and Taft's 8. Yet Wilson's
+popular vote--6,300,000--fell far short of the combined Roosevelt-Taft
+vote--7,500,000--and was less than that of Bryan in 1896, 1900, and
+1908.[8] The fact that the combined Roosevelt-Taft vote was less than
+that received by Taft in 1908 seems to indicate that many Republicans
+refused to vote. The control of Congress, in both houses, went to the
+Democrats, even such a popular leader as Speaker Cannon failing of
+reelection. In twenty-one of the thirty-five states where governors
+were chosen, the Democrats were triumphant. Whether, then, the schism
+in the Republican party was responsible for the success of the
+opposition, or whether the electorate was determined upon a change
+regardless of conditions in the party which had hitherto controlled
+popular favor, the fact was that the overturn was complete. And
+circumstances that could not have been foreseen and that affected the
+entire world were destined to make the political revolution profoundly
+significant.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+In the main, periodical literature written with more or less partisan
+bias must be relied upon.
+
+For the election of 1908, F.A. Ogg, _National Progress_ (1918), and the
+better newspapers and periodicals. W.H. Taft may be studied in his
+_Presidential Addresses and State Papers_ (1910), _Present Day
+Problems_ (1908), and _Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers_ (1916).
+
+On the Payne-Aldrich tariff: S.W. McCall in _Atlantic Monthly_, vol.
+CIV, p. 562; G.M. Fisk in _Political Science Quarterly_, XXV, p. 35;
+H.P. Willis in _Journal of Political Economy_, XVII, pp. 1, 589, XVIII,
+1; in addition to Tarbell and Taussig.
+
+The documents in the Pinchot-Ballinger controversy are in _Senate
+Documents_, 61st Congress, 2nd session, vol. 44 (Serial Number 5643),
+and 3rd session, vol. 34 (Serial Numbers 5892-5903).
+
+For other incidents: C.R. Atkinson, _Committee on Rules and the
+Overthrow of Speaker Cannon_ (1911); Canadian reciprocity in _Senate
+Documents_, 61st Congress, 3rd session, vol. 84 (Serial Number 5942);
+Appleton's _American Year Book_ (1911). The decisions in the Standard
+Oil and American Tobacco cases are in _United States Reports_, vol.
+221, pp. 1, 106; a good discussion will be found in W.H. Taft,
+_Anti-Trust Act and the Supreme Court_ (1914). For the rise of the
+insurgent movement and the election of 1912, F.E. Haynes, _Third Party
+Movements_ (1916); R.M. La Follette, _Autobiography_; B.P. De Witt,
+_Progressive Movement_ (1915); W.J. Bryan, _Tale of Two Conventions_
+(1912); besides Ogg, Beard and Stanwood.
+
+The _American Year Book_ (1910-), becomes serviceable in connection
+with major political events. Its articles are usually non-partisan and
+may be relied upon to bring continuing tendencies and practices up to
+date.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Above, p. 322.
+
+[2] The cabinet was composed of: P.C. Knox, Pa., Secretary of State; P.
+MacVeagh, III., Secretary of the Treasury; J.M. Dickinson, Tenn.,
+Secretary of War; G.W. Wiekersham, N.Y., Attorney-General; F.H.
+Hitchcock, Mass., Postmaster-General; G.L. Meyer, Mass., Secretary of
+the Navy; R.A. Ballinger, Wash., Secretary of the Interior; J. Wilson,
+Ia., Secretary of Agriculture; C. Nagel, Mo., Secretary of Commerce and
+Labor. Meyer and Wilson had been in Roosevelt's cabinet.
+
+[3] Other features of the act were the establishment of a Court for the
+settlement of tariff disputes, provisions for a tariff commission and a
+tax on corporation incomes.
+
+[4] Mr. Dooley, who was well known as a humorous character created by
+F.P. Dunne, made merry with the claim that the tariff had been reduced,
+by reading to his friend Mr. Hennessy the "necessities of life" which
+had been placed on the free-list and which included curling stones,
+teeth, sea-moss, newspapers, nuts, nux vomica, Pulu, canary bird seed,
+divy divy and other commodities.
+
+[5] A sample of the jocosity that partially relieved the tension is the
+following portion of the _Congressional Record_ for March 18:
+
+    The Speaker _pro tempore_: The House will be in order. Gentlemen
+    will understand the impropriety of singing on the floor, even though
+    the House is not at this moment transacting any business. The House
+    is not in recess.
+
+    Chorus. "There'll be a hot time in the old town to-night."
+
+    The Speaker _pro tempore_. That was last night, not to-night.
+    (Laughter.) The House will be in order.
+
+    Mr. Shackleford. Mr. Speaker, I make the point of order that the
+    tap-tapping of the Chair's gavel interferes with the music.
+    (Laughter.)
+
+Cf. Atkinson, _Committee on Rules_, 115.
+
+[6] A Commerce Court was also provided, so as to expedite the decision
+of appeals from orders of the Commission. Its career was brief, for
+Congress was not well-disposed toward the project, and the Court was
+abolished in 1913.
+
+[7] When Roosevelt arrived in Chicago, he remarked that he felt like a
+"bull moose," an expression which later gave his party its popular
+name.
+
+[8] Roosevelt, 4,000,000; Taft, 3,500,000.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL TENDENCIES SINCE 1896
+
+During the four decades between the opening of the Civil War and the
+close of the nineteenth century, the United States became in many
+respects an economic unit. The passage of the Interstate Commerce Act
+in 1887, for instance, was an early recognition of the fact that the
+transportation problem of the nation transcended state bounds; the
+Sherman Anti-trust law of 1890 arose from the realization that
+commercial and industrial unity were rapidly coming to pass; the
+American Federation of Labor brought workmen from all states and many
+trades into a single organization. The election of 1896 and the amazing
+consolidation of business enterprises at the close of the century were
+further proofs that the day had passed when any section of the United
+States could live an isolated economic life without relation to other
+parts of the country. Instead of remaining a federation of diverse
+economic sections, we became increasingly homogeneous. Much of the
+economic and political legislation enacted after 1896, and many of the
+practices and standards which were adopted by leaders in economic and
+political life were an outgrowth of the new conditions.
+
+It will be remembered that the eighties and early nineties had been
+years of labor unrest. Costly and bitter strikes on the part of the
+workmen, and resolute and powerful resistance on the part of the
+employers were the commonplaces of the history of labor. The
+culmination was the Pullman strike of 1894.[1] Its cost in money and
+suffering was appalling; it placed the federal military power in the
+hands of the employers; and although it was a failure as far as the
+strikers were concerned, yet an impartial investigation after the
+struggle was over established the justice of much of which the men had
+complained. If discriminating justice were to be measured out to both
+sides, instead of victory to the side of the strongest battalions, and
+if intolerable waste and discomfort were to be avoided, some remedies
+for industrial unrest must be discovered which would replace strikes
+and violence. Happily, signs were not wanting that such a change was
+slowly taking place.
+
+A combination of influences tended to place the labor problem on a new
+footing after 1896. One of the most important of these forces was the
+American Federation of Labor which greatly increased its size and
+activities, especially about the opening of the new century, growing
+from 950,000 members in 1901 to 4,302,148 in April, 1920. Its
+president, Samuel Gompers, is an able, resourceful leader, who has
+remained in control from 1882 to the present (1920), with the single
+exception of the year 1895, so that the organization has had the
+benefit of experienced leadership and continuity of purpose. Although a
+radical, socialistic element broke away in 1905 and formed the
+Industrial Workers of the World, yet the defection was not immediately
+serious and in general schisms have been avoided. Several other labor
+organizations, although unconnected with the Federation exerted a
+strong influence; in particular the brotherhoods of railway employees,
+by frequent threats to strike and thereby tie up the transportation
+system, aided in bringing the demands of labor to public notice.
+
+Moreover, after 1896 and especially after the coal strike of 1902 there
+was an increasing recognition on the part of the public that a labor
+problem existed and that it must be solved in some way other than by
+force of arms. Physicians and scientific experts called attention to
+the lack of proper care for the health of workmen in dangerous
+industries; the movement for the preservation of the forests and
+mineral supplies emphasized the need of efforts for the conservation of
+human lives; social reformers, economists, writers and educators upheld
+the needs and rights of the neglected classes; and the press and the
+muck-rake periodicals found it profitable to expose extreme abuses.
+Distress that had hitherto been unnoticed or disregarded became
+important, and remedies were demanded. Change was in the air, and not
+alone in America, for England and France were experiencing the same
+problems, and attempting to devise new expedients to solve them. After
+the beginning of the new century, also, the employing class came to a
+better realization of the existence of the labor problem and sought
+solutions in ways that must be mentioned later.[2] There was a more
+widespread acceptance of the principle of trade agreements, whereby the
+employer and the men determined the conditions of labor by means of
+direct negotiations.
+
+Although it had been the policy of the American Federation of Labor to
+keep out of politics, it was almost inevitable that the policy should
+receive some modifications. Organizations of employers were influential
+at Washington, and had long been so. Accordingly in 1908 the Democratic
+platform was endorsed on account of its labor planks, and again in 1910
+and 1912. By the latter year all parties were earnestly striving to
+capture the labor vote, and in particular the Democratic and
+Progressive platforms embodied most of what the wage earner had been
+demanding for the previous generation.
+
+The major demands in the labor program of earlier years--higher wages,
+shorter hours, settled conditions of employment, and the like--were not
+altered after 1896, but a few striking advances were made. The attempt
+to legislate concerning hours of employment, for example, had been
+continually obstructed by the clauses in the Fifth and Fourteenth
+Amendments forbidding any legislation depriving the individual of
+"life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." The courts
+had usually interpreted these phrases as prohibiting laws restricting
+hours of labor, on the ground that the liberty of the workman to
+contract freely regarding his own working hours was thereby infringed.
+A Massachusetts law of 1874, nevertheless, which limited a day's work
+for women and children to ten hours, had followed the long-continued
+assertion that regulatory legislation could be based on the "police
+power"--a somewhat indefinite authority which was gradually conceded by
+the courts to the states and the federal government, and under which it
+was possible to pass legislation concerning the conservation of the
+health and morals of the people without violating the Constitution. Not
+until 1908, however, was the constitutionality of such legislation
+finally settled by the Supreme Court, in upholding an Oregon ten-hour
+law. "As healthy mothers are essential to vigorous offspring," the
+decision asserted, "the physical well-being of women becomes an object
+of public interest and care in order to preserve the strength and vigor
+of the race." In other words, the Court was prepared to approve
+limitations on the freedom of contract in order to further the public
+interest. The Massachusetts law was imitated far and wide, so that at
+the present time an almost negligible number of states have failed to
+restrict the length of the working day for women.
+
+Recently, also, substantial progress has been made in restricting
+working hours for children. As long ago as 1866 Massachusetts had
+restricted the employment of children, but neither this law nor similar
+laws passed by other states had been fully enforced. Greater progress
+has been made since 1903, when Illinois, followed by the majority of
+the important industrial states, established the eight-hour standard
+for children under sixteen. Impressed with the need of federal
+legislation to coerce backward states, the reformers took their case to
+Congress where a federal act was passed in 1916. On account of
+constitutional limitations, the measure was framed so as to forbid
+shipment, on interstate railways, of the products of factories
+employing children under fourteen years of age. It was estimated that
+150,000 out of nearly 2,000,000 working children might be affected by
+the act. Its fate, however, was that of many another piece of economic
+legislation; by a vote of five to four, the Supreme Court declared the
+law unconstitutional on the ground that it was not an attempt to
+regulate commerce, but an attempt to regulate the conditions of
+manufacture. Early in 1919 the effort to regulate child labor was
+renewed through the imposition of a tax of ten per cent. on the net
+profits of factories employing children under fourteen years of age.
+The constitutionality of the law has not yet been tested (1920).
+
+It will be noted that all the foregoing legislative attempts to reduce
+the working day affected women and children only; in general, little
+attempt has been made to limit the working day for men. Nevertheless,
+large numbers of cities, more than half the states, and the federal
+government provide for an eight-hour day on public work; and western
+states have followed the lead of Utah in passing eight-hour laws for
+miners. Hours of labor for railway employees have also been the subject
+of study and legislation. Cases had not been unknown where employees
+were kept at their posts for thirty, fifty and even one hundred hours;
+frequently such workmen fell asleep and disastrous accidents occurred.
+In 1907 this situation was met by a congressional act limiting the
+hours of railway engineers to sixteen and providing that periods of
+work must be followed by specified rest periods. Train-despatchers,
+telegraphers, and others were similarly protected. A majority of the
+states imitated these federal statutes. In a few cases, state laws have
+been passed which were intended to limit working hours in other
+especial industries. The most famous of these was one in New York,
+which restricted the working day in bakeries to ten hours. In the
+decision Lochner _v._ New York, the Supreme Court declared the law
+unconstitutional.[3]
+
+The early twentieth century also saw progress on the subject of
+compensation for industrial accidents. As far back as 1884 Germany had
+enacted a law which put the blame for all accidents on the employers,
+except when the victim was wilfully negligent; in 1897 England had
+passed the British Workmen's Compensation Act which virtually made the
+employer the insurer of his workmen against all accidents. The theory
+underlying these laws was that accidents were like wear and tear and
+should be made a charge on the industry, like the depreciation of
+buildings and machinery. The United States, however, lagged behind all
+other industrial nations, despite the astonishing number of accidents
+which yearly occurred. In 1908, for example, it was estimated that two
+million men were injured, of whom 200,000 were permanently disabled,
+and 30,000 died--a larger number than the federal killed, wounded and
+missing in the Gettysburg campaign. Under previous practice in this
+country compensation for industrial accidents had been awarded in
+accord with common law principles, under which the employer was not
+responsible for an employee who was injured through the negligence of a
+fellow servant. Any workman who entered hazardous employment was
+assumed under the common law to know the dangers and be ready to run
+the risks, and no compensation could be recovered unless it could be
+shown that the master had been negligent and the employee had not also
+been negligent. It came widely to be thought that the common law did
+not justly apply to the complex industrial system of modern times. It
+did not seem equitable, for example, that the fellow servant doctrine
+should hold in case of a railway employee killed through the negligence
+of a train despatcher many miles away, whom he did not know and had
+never even seen.
+
+The first workmen's compensation act in the United States was passed in
+Maryland in 1902. Its scope was narrow and it came to nothing as it was
+declared unconstitutional. In course of time, however, legislation was
+framed in such language as to pass muster before the courts, and
+moreover judicial decisions changed, as time went on, in the direction
+desired by popular opinion. Beginning in 1911 there was an avalanche of
+liability and compensation laws and by 1920 forty-two states, together
+with Porto Rico, Alaska and Hawaii had passed acts that placed the
+burden more or less completely on the employer, and provided schemes of
+compensation. The federal government also took action. At the
+suggestion of President Roosevelt an act was passed in 1908 making
+interstate railroads responsible for injuries to employees and
+expressly doing away with former common law practices.[4] At the same
+time a similar liability was placed upon the United States for
+accidents occurring to certain classes of government employees and a
+plan of compensation was established. In 1916 another act brought all
+civil servants under the system.
+
+Several other types of social legislation have made considerable
+progress in Europe, but have found little or no foot-hold in this
+country, such as minimum wage laws, health insurance, old age and
+widows' pensions, and unemployment insurance. The minimum wage law,
+establishing a level below which wages must not go, has been adopted by
+Massachusetts and a few other states in a restricted form. The
+unemployment problem has hardly been touched, although the federal
+Department of Labor since its establishment in 1913 has gathered and
+made public information in regard to opportunities for work.
+
+Recent years have likewise seen a vast number of laws which together
+have made a new era in American industrial life, although separately no
+one of them was revolutionary. For example, matches containing white
+phosphorous were subjected to a prohibitive tax because of the harmful
+effect of the phosphorous on workmen in match factories; greater care
+was exercised in guarding dangerous machines, elevator wells and the
+like; fire protection, harmful or poisonous fumes and dust, ventilation
+and safety devices in mines, safety appliances on railway trains,
+together with numberless other accompaniments of modern industry were
+the subject of state legislation. Almost as important as legislative
+enactments were the changes in working conditions voluntarily made by
+the most progressive corporations. One who compares a factory built
+within twenty-five years of the close of the Civil War with a building
+erected since 1900 discovers revolutionary changes. Later buildings are
+constructed with much more care for ventilation, light and convenience;
+in some cases even the temperature of the work-rooms is a matter for
+painstaking attention; "welfare" work is now a commonplace, with rest
+rooms, lunch rooms, recreation fields and factory social activities.
+Factory or store committees that confer with higher officers in
+relation to hours and the needs and desires of the employees are by no
+means uncommon, and some of the large corporations even provide pension
+systems for their employees.
+
+On the other hand, laws and statute books did not always guarantee
+performance. Laws were continually avoided both by the employers and
+the employees; workmen transgressed rules laid down for their welfare;
+the passage and execution of many laws were hampered to the last degree
+by short-sighted employers; the courts invalidated much legislation on
+the ground of unconstitutionality; and progress was frequently confined
+to leading states or corporations and was by no means universal. It
+nevertheless is true that the tendencies in social and economic
+legislation since 1896 have been widely different from those prevalent
+before that year.
+
+In several cases the influence of the labor element in federal
+legislation has been decisive. The use of the injunction, it will be
+remembered, was one of the grievances most frequently mentioned at the
+time of the Pullman strike. In the campaign of 1908 both parties strove
+to attract the labor vote by proposals of reform, but not until 1914
+was the issuance of injunctions forbidden "unless necessary to prevent
+irreparable injury to prosperity ... for which injury there is no
+adequate remedy at law." At the same time the labor unions were
+exempted from the operation of the anti-trust laws.[5] The influence of
+the labor organizations was also a factor in the agitation for the
+restriction of immigration which continued from 1897 to 1917. In the
+former year a bill was passed which contained a literacy test--that is,
+a provision excluding persons who were unable to read or write English
+or some other language. President Cleveland exercised his veto, as did
+later presidents when similar measures were carried in 1913, 1915 and
+1917, but in the latter year Congress was able to muster sufficient
+strength to pass the act over the President's veto. One of the main
+purposes of the measure seems to have been the restriction of the labor
+supply, and hence it enlisted the support of the American Federation of
+Labor and other similar organizations.[6]
+
+The ameliorative measures already mentioned have by no means prevented
+the boycott and the strike. Indeed they have not, except in rare cases,
+directly affected the two great causes of industrial disputes--hours
+and wages for adult male laborers. Many formidable and violent strikes
+have occurred since 1896, such as those of the shirt-waist makers in
+New York in 1909, the textile operatives in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in
+1912, and the Colorado coal miners in 1913. On the whole, however, it
+seems that the labor unions have developed somewhat greater
+conservatism and that their influence has been against violence in
+strikes.
+
+Few aspects of the labor problem have been the cause of more earnest
+thought than the search for peaceful methods of settling industrial
+controversies. In 1898, by the Erdman Act, the federal government
+provided a means for arbitrating disputes on interstate railways. The
+Newlands Act of 1913 superseded this by the creation of a formal Board
+of Mediation and Conciliation, and many disputes were decided under the
+terms of these laws. The Department of Labor mediated in many
+industrial disputes, and in 1916 when the four railway brotherhoods
+threatened to strike for an eight-hour day, Congress itself intervened
+with a piece of special legislation, the Adamson law, which was framed
+to settle the questions under dispute.[7] In some cases, profit-sharing
+plans have been put into force; in others, disputes have been referred
+to impartial boards of outsiders; and in yet others, machinery has been
+established for continuous conference between representatives of the
+employees and employers. Neither federal and state boards and
+commissions, however, nor the efforts of individual employers have been
+sufficient fully to insure industrial peace.
+
+The increased activity of the state and federal governments in the
+fields of economic legislation, as indicated in the passage of labor
+laws, was also illustrated in two important measures passed in 1906.
+The adulteration of foods had been brought to a state of dangerous
+perfection, and drugs had been commonly advertised and sold all over
+the country which had none of the powers ascribed to them by their
+makers. Since the eighties, many states had forbidden the sale of
+impure or tainted food, but the laws were varied and difficult to
+enforce, and it appeared that reliance must be placed on the federal
+government. As early as 1890 a federal law had provided for the
+inspection of meats which were to be exported, but otherwise little
+progress had been made. In 1906 Upton Sinclair published _The Jungle_,
+a novel which purported to describe the ghastly conditions under which
+the meat packers of Chicago conducted their business. Sinclair's book,
+together with a campaign of education conducted by the muckrake
+periodicals against harmful patent medicines aroused public interest to
+such a degree, that two important laws were passed. One provided for
+federal inspection of meats intended for interstate commerce, so as to
+make sure that they were obtained from healthy animals and slaughtered
+under sanitary conditions. The other act concerned foods and drugs, and
+prohibited the sale of these commodities if they contained any
+injurious drugs, chemicals or preservatives, while a later amendment
+forbade false statements on labels attached to medical compounds. As a
+result of the provisions of the law in regard to patent medicines, many
+concerns which had been selling drugs that were falsely advertised as
+having curative effects were compelled to retire from business.
+
+Innovations in the field of politics and government since 1896 have
+been as marked as in the field of social and economic legislation.
+Possibly the most outstanding development has been the rapid expansion
+of the range and variety of the activities of the federal government.
+The unification of the economic life of the nation, as has been shown,
+compelled a program of federal economic legislation, and helped
+inculcate a feeling of greater political solidarity. When fires and
+floods and other disasters occurred which were too great for a single
+city or state to take care of, when state laws became confusing because
+of their variety, when railroads crossed a dozen states and
+corporations that were chartered in New Jersey did business in Maine,
+Florida and California, only at the federal capital could the requisite
+authority be found, which would give the needed relief. As the theory
+of _laissez faire_ gradually broke down, moreover, giving way to the
+belief that the government ought to be the servant of the mass of the
+people, it was inevitable that the people should themselves turn more
+to legislation as a remedy for their grievances. To Washington,
+therefore, hurried the proponents of every reform.
+
+This tendency was not only counter to the probable intention of the
+framers of the Constitution, but it trenched upon the powers
+specifically granted to the states. The tenth amendment stated in so
+many words that "The powers not delegated to the United States ... are
+reserved to the States." It was necessary for the federal government to
+act, however, or else to leave problems that had become national in
+character to the chaos that results from legislation in nearly fifty
+states. State laws concerning railroads, for example, as well as
+marriage and divorce, child labor and trusts are even now in a maze. No
+solution of the problem seemed possible other than constant stretching
+of the terms of the Constitution. In 1906, one of the most conservative
+statesmen in the country, Elihu Boot, even went so far as to utter a
+warning that if the states did not use their powers to better advantage
+a "construction of the Constitution will be found to vest the power
+where it will be exercised-in the National Government." The burden thus
+shifted from state to nation was somewhat lightened by the appointment
+of numerous commissions to which was entrusted the administration of
+specific laws or the accumulation of specific data. The earliest of
+these was the Interstate Commerce Commission; later, others were
+appointed to administer laws concerning banking, the tariff and the
+trusts.
+
+With the expansion of the power of the federal government went the
+elevation of the office of chief executive. Cleveland's use of the veto
+power had given an indication of the possibilities of the presidential
+office in obstructing undesirable legislation; his action in bringing
+about the repeal of the purchase clause of the Sherman silver law in
+1890 had shown the more positive force which a determined officer could
+exert. Roosevelt's activity in carrying his anti-trust program to the
+people, and his mediation in the coal strike carried the prestige of
+the presidency to greater heights. President Taft was by no means
+radical in his interpretation of the powers and possibilities of his
+office; nevertheless his conception of it was far removed from the
+conservative philosophy of President McKinley, and he even suggested in
+a message to Congress that the cabinet officers be given seats,
+although without votes, in the Senate and House. His successor
+augmented rather than diminished the powers of the presidential office.
+
+The Senate, on the contrary, lost both in power and in prestige. Many
+reasons for the increasing popular distrust of the Senate after the
+middle nineties can be given. There was a widespread belief that a
+controlling fraction of the body had achieved membership through
+wealth, through the assistance of corporate interests and because of
+skill in the manipulation of political wires. The charge was common
+that a small coterie of powerful strategists held the Senate in their
+hands and with it the control of important legislation. Most of all,
+and especially in the West, many thoughtful people believed that the
+state legislatures were easily influenced to choose inferior or
+untrustworthy men as senators. Whatever the reasons, however, there
+grew increasingly after 1870 and particularly after 1893 a demand for
+the popular election of senators. Between the latter year and 1911, at
+six different times resolutions were presented to Congress proposing an
+amendment to the Constitution which should secure popular election. At
+length Congress gave way, adopted an amendment, and sent it to the
+states. Within ten months thirty-six states had agreed, and after May
+31, 1913, senators were elected by the people.
+
+The demand for greater popular control over the choice of senators was
+a part, merely, of a somewhat general political trend. Distrust of the
+state legislatures had long been observable, and new state
+constitutions had been notable for detailed prohibitions placed upon
+law-making bodies. The West, which had gone to greatest extremes in
+framing new state constitutions, was also the testing-ground for the
+initiative, referendum and recall. The first of these devices--the
+initiative--is a plan by which a specified percentage of the voters may
+initiate legislation--that is, propose a law and require the officials
+of the state to submit it to the electorate. If the people accept the
+proposal, it becomes law as if enacted by the legislature. Under the
+referendum system, any measure already accepted by the legislature is
+held in abeyance on petition of a specified number of voters, until
+presented to the people for approval or rejection. Both the initiative
+and the referendum had been commonly used in Switzerland before being
+adopted in South Dakota in 1898. In less than two decades they had been
+accepted in twenty-one states, all but four of which were west of the
+Mississippi, and in one of the four eastern states, Maryland, only the
+referendum was tried. In Oregon, which made the most complete trial of
+these methods of legislation, both the initiative and the referendum
+were extended to the municipalities. The reasons for the innovation
+were to be found in the determination to discover a means of compelling
+negligent or boss-controlled state legislatures to respond to public
+opinion.[8]
+
+The recall is a process by which any public official may be withdrawn
+from his office by popular vote before the expiration of his term. Los
+Angeles adopted the plan in 1903 and was imitated by a small number of
+other western cities; Oregon in 1908 applied the device to all state
+officers, and in one form or another it has been adopted in ten states
+(1920). During the campaign of 1912 Roosevelt proposed that the voters
+be allowed to ratify or reject the decision of the courts on the
+constitutionality of legislation. The results of the suggestion were
+negligible.
+
+More significant than the recall as an indication of the prevailing
+desire to increase popular control over the processes of government was
+the adoption of direct primaries. Under this expedient the nominees of
+a party for office are chosen directly by the party voters, rather than
+by a party convention. Wisconsin first used the system in 1903 and from
+that state it spread rapidly. At the present time most states have some
+form of direct nomination. The peculiar circumstances surrounding the
+campaign for the Republican nominations in 1912 gave force to the
+demand for presidential preference primaries which were held in about a
+fourth of the states. Only the future can tell with assurance whether
+the demand is more than temporary.
+
+The agitation for women's suffrage was another example of the
+increasing desire for popular control of government. Suffrage for women
+was first granted by Wyoming in 1869 when its territorial government
+was organized, but the movement lagged thereafter until the early years
+of the twentieth century. At that time increasing numbers of states
+began to grant political privileges to women, and finally in 1919
+Congress passed a proposed constitutional amendment expressly stating
+that sex should not be a bar to the suffrage.[9]
+
+Accompanying the increased popular control of government after 1896 was
+a gradual demand for a higher level of political ethics. The
+revelations of the insurance investigations of 1905 were significant of
+this change. Early in that year certain newspapers made charges against
+the Equitable Life Assurance Company which were taken up by the New
+York legislature and referred to a committee for investigation. The
+committee's task was the examination of the affairs of life insurance
+companies doing business in the state of New York; its attorney was
+Charles E. Hughes. The results of the investigation amazed the country.
+The exorbitant salaries paid to officers, the unreasonable expenses
+incurred and the disregard of the rights of the policy holders were of
+concern chiefly to persons doing business with the companies. But it
+also appeared that several of the larger concerns had divided the
+country into districts, and had systematically influenced legislation
+affecting either insurance or financial interests to which they or
+their officers were related; enormous sums were expended and records
+not kept, or so kept as to conceal the real purposes of the
+expenditure. The report of the committee showed that Chauncey M. Depew,
+a member of the United States Senate, was paid $20,000 a year for legal
+services, without his rendering any return that seemed to warrant the
+payments made. The contributions of the companies to the Republican
+campaign funds were very heavy--$50,000 by one company in 1904. It
+appeared from testimony that Democrats also sought contributions from
+the companies but were refused. The final report of the committee
+unsparingly condemned these abuses and embodied a program of
+legislation for their reform, which was put into effect. The public
+received an education in the connection of corporations with politics,
+and Hughes himself at once became a figure of national importance, the
+favorite of the reform element, and was launched upon a career that
+made him governor of New York, a member of the United States Supreme
+Court and candidate for the presidency.[10]
+
+Laws regulating campaign expenditures had long been on the statute
+books although they had been little heeded, but as the result of the
+insurance investigation, New York in 1906 forbade contributions by
+corporations for political purposes. In 1907 Congress passed a similar
+law concerning federal campaigns, and most of the states have since
+passed laws placing restrictions on the use of campaign funds. In the
+campaign of 1908 Bryan requested that the Democratic National Committee
+receive no contributions from corporations, that no sums in excess of
+$10,000 be received from any source and that a list of contributors be
+published in advance of the election. By a law enacted in 1911 Congress
+compelled a statement of the amounts of money spent by committees, and
+limited the amounts which might be spent by candidates for Congress. In
+1919 the Chairman of the Republican National Committee announced that
+the party would raise funds for the next campaign in amounts from $1 to
+$1,000. Both parties were discovering that public sentiment opposed
+large contributions from individuals and corporations, because they
+expect a _quid pro quo_ after the election.[11]
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The best brief general accounts of recent conditions are in F.A. Ogg,
+_National Progress_, with an excellent bibliography, which may be
+supplemented by the _American Year Book_. On hours and conditions of
+labor, J.R. Commons and J.B. Andrews, _Principles of Labor Legislation
+_(1916). The decision in Lochner _v._ New York is in _United States
+Reports_, vol. 198, p. 45. For the courts and economic legislation,
+C.G. Haines, _American Doctrine of Judicial Supremacy _(1914), already
+referred to. An excellent historical account of the workmen's
+compensation idea is by A.F. Weber in _Political Science Quarterly_
+(June, 1902). Ida M. Tarbell, _New Ideals in Business_ (1917),
+describes the accomplishments of the industrial leaders rather than of
+the rank and file.
+
+Some of the political innovations are discussed in A.L. Lowell, _Public
+Opinion and Popular Government_ (1913); _Proceedings of the American
+Political Science Association_, V, 37, "The Limitations of Federal
+Government"; Elihu Boot, _Addresses on Government and Citizenship
+_(1916), "How to Preserve the Local Self-Government of the State." The
+most complete account of the historical development of the power of the
+president is in Edward Stanwood, _History of the Presidency, II
+_(1916), Chap. V. The fullest account of the movement for popular
+election of senators is G.H. Haynes, _The Election of Senators _(1906).
+The initiative, referendum and recall have given rise to a literature
+of their own. Convenient volumes are: C.A. Beard and B.E. Shultz,
+_Documents on the State-wide Initiative_, _Referendum and Recall_
+(1912); W.B. Munro, _The Initiative, Referendum and Recall_ (1912);
+J.D. Barnett, _Operation of the Initiative, Referendum, and Recall in
+Oregon_ (1915).
+
+_American Political Science Review _(Aug., 1915), "Presidential
+Preference Primaries." The articles in A.C. McLaughlin and A.B. Hart,
+_Cyclopaedia of American Government_ (3 vols., 1914), are a convenient
+source on most topics considered in this chapter.
+
+On the use of money in politics: _Report of the Legislative Insurance
+Investigating Committee _(10 vols., 1905-1906), Armstrong-Hughes
+committee; _Testimony before a Sub-committee of the Committee on
+Privileges and Elections, United States Senate, 62d Congress, 2d
+session, pursuant to Senate Resolution 79_ (Clapp Report).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] Above, pp. 320-323.
+
+[2] Below, p. 508.
+
+[3] Above, p, 442.
+
+[4] An act of 1906 had been declared unconstitutional.
+
+[5] It should be said, however, that the meaning of this law is far
+from clear and is yet (1920) to be interpreted by the courts.
+
+[6] Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt also favored it. See Ogg,
+_National Progress_, 123-130.
+
+[7] Below, p. 571.
+
+[8] By 1920 twenty-three states had adopted the referendum or the
+initiative and referendum.
+
+[9] The amendment reads: Section 1. The right of citizens of the United
+States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or
+by any State, on account of sex. Section 2. Congress shall have power,
+by appropriate legislation, to enforce the provisions of this article.
+The amendment was ratified by the required number of states and
+proclaimed in force August 26, 1920.
+
+[10] The election of Senator Isaac Stephenson of Wisconsin occasioned
+another outbreak of reform sentiment. Investigation betrayed the fact
+that he had expended $107,793.05 in his primary campaign. The salary of
+a senator at that time was $7,500 per annum.
+
+[11] An investigation of federal campaign expenditures conducted in
+1912-1913 by a committee headed by Senator Moses Clapp uncovered much
+that had hitherto been only the subject of rumor. The Standard Oil
+Company, for instance, contributed $125,000 in 1904. Archbold, the
+vice-president of the company, testified that he told Bliss, the
+Republican treasurer, "We do not want to make this contribution unless
+it is thoroughly acceptable and will be thoroughly appreciated by Mr.
+Roosevelt"; and that Bliss "smilingly said we need have no possible
+apprehension on that score." Archbold complained later when the
+administration attacked the company, but Roosevelt declared that he was
+unaware of the contribution at the time. The Republican fund in 1908
+was $1,655,000. The testimony of Norman E. Mack, Chairman of the
+Democratic National Committee, indicated his perfect willingness to
+accept money wherever he could get it, and that he refused to receive
+contributions from corporations only because of Bryan's scruples.
+Roosevelt declared, on the authority of an insurance officer, that the
+Democrats in the campaign of 1904 were after all the corporation funds
+they could get.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+LATER INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS[1]
+
+At the close of the war with Spain it was commonly remarked that the
+United States had become a world power; books and periodicals written
+on the history of the period were based upon the assumption that
+America had swung out into the current of international affairs and
+that the traditional isolation of this country had become a thing of
+the past. Time must be appealed to, however, for answers to fundamental
+questions concerning the character of this change. Did the United
+States become a world power in the sense that the majority of its
+people threw off that policy of steering clear of permanent alliances
+which had been expressed by Washington in his farewell address, in
+favor of the policy of participation in world affairs on a footing with
+the larger European states? Did the people of the United States after
+1898 take a constant and informed interest in world politics and
+international relations? Or did the people, after a slight excursion
+into the West Indies and the Philippines, return to the traditional
+attitude of "splendid isolation"? Was the extent to which the United
+States became a world power sufficient to make probable its entry into
+a European war?
+
+A cardinal principle of the foreign policy of the United States has
+always been its attachment to international peace, particularly through
+the practice of arbitration. The great hopes raised by the two Hague
+Conferences were striking proofs of this fact. In 1899, at the
+suggestion of Czar Nicholas II of Russia, twenty-six leading powers
+conferred at The Hague, in order to discover means of limiting
+armaments and ensuring lasting peace. A second conference was held in
+1907 at the suggestion, in part, of President Roosevelt. At this
+gathering forty-four states were represented, including most of the
+Latin-American republics. During the two conferences many questions
+relating to international law were discussed, and the conclusions
+reached were expressed in the form of "Conventions," which the several
+powers signed. In the main these agreements related to the rights and
+duties of nations and individuals in time of war. Most important among
+the agreements was one for the pacific settlement of international
+disputes, according to which, in certain less important controversies,
+the states concerned would appoint a "commission of inquiry" which
+would study the case and give its opinion of the facts involved. It was
+also agreed to organize a Permanent Court of Arbitration to be
+available at all times for the peaceful settlement of differences.
+Strictly speaking this body was not a Court, but a list of judges to
+which each nation was to contribute four, and when any countries became
+involved in a controversy they could draw arbitrators from the list.
+Moreover the powers agreed "if a serious dispute threatens to break out
+between two or more of them, to remind these latter that the Permanent
+Court is open to them."
+
+The United States was a party to four of the fifteen cases presented to
+the Court between 1902 and 1913. The first controversy was between the
+United States and Mexico and involved "The Pious Fund," a large sum of
+money which was in dispute between Mexico and the Roman Catholic Church
+of California, and the second concerned claims of the United States,
+Mexico and eight European countries against Venezuela. As the Court was
+successfully appealed to in case after case, high hopes began to be
+entertained that the "Parliament of Man" had at last been established.
+Elihu Root, the Secretary of State, asserted in a communication to the
+Senate in 1907 that the Second Conference had presented the greatest
+advance ever made at a single time toward the reasonable and peaceful
+regulation of international conduct, unless the advance made at The
+Hague Conference of 1899 was excepted.
+
+In the meantime, in 1904, under President Roosevelt's leadership,
+treaties were arranged with France, Germany, Great Britain and other
+nations, under which the contracting parties agreed in advance to
+submit their disputes to The Hague Court, although excepting questions
+involving vital interests, independence or national honor. While the
+Senate was discussing the treaties, it fell into a dispute with the
+President in regard to its constitutional rights as part of the
+treaty-making power, and although there was general agreement on the
+value of the principle of arbitration, yet the Senate insisted upon
+amending the treaties, whereupon the President refused to refer them
+back to the other nations. Secretary Root revived the project, however,
+in 1908 and 1909 and secured amended treaties with a long list of
+nations, including Austria-Hungary, France and Great Britain. President
+Taft signed treaties with France and England in 1911 which expanded the
+earlier agreements so as to include "justiciable" controversies even if
+they involved questions of vital interest and honor, but again the
+Senate added such amendments that the project was abandoned. Bryan,
+Secretary of State from 1913 to 1915, undertook still further to expand
+the principles of arbitration, and during his term of office many
+treaties were submitted to the Senate, under which the United States
+and the other contracting parties agreed to postpone warfare arising
+from any cause, for a year, in order that the facts of the controversy
+might be looked into. Many of these treaties were ratified by the
+Senate.
+
+The attitude of the American people toward the pacific settlement of
+international disputes found expression in many ways in addition to the
+arrangement of treaties. At Lake Mohonk, yearly conferences were held
+at which leading citizens discussed phases of international peace.
+Andrew Carnegie and Edwin Ginn, the publisher, devoted large sums of
+money to countrywide education and propaganda on the subject. The
+leaders of the movement and the membership of the organizations
+included so many of the most prominent persons of their time--public
+officials, university presidents and men of influence as to prove that
+the traditional American reliance upon international arbitration was
+more firmly rooted in 1914 than ever before in our history.
+
+The attitude of the United States toward purely European controversies
+was illustrated in our action on the Moroccan question. In 1905-1906 a
+controversy broke out between Germany and France in relation to
+Morocco, and in January of the latter year a conference was held at
+Algeciras in southern Spain in which ten European nations and the
+United States took part. The result of the meeting was an "Act" which
+defined the policy of the signatory powers toward Morocco. The Senate,
+in ratifying the Act, asserted that its action was not to be considered
+a departure from our traditional policy of aloofness from European
+questions.
+
+[Illustration:
+Caribbean interests of the United States]
+
+The outstanding incident in our relations with that part of America
+south of the republic of Mexico was the controversy with Colombia over
+the Panama Canal strip. The project for a canal across the Isthmus of
+Panama was as old as colonization in America. For present purposes,
+however, it is not necessary to go farther into the past than the
+Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850, by the terms of which the United States
+and Great Britain agreed that neither would obtain any control over an
+isthmian canal without the other. As time went on, however, American
+sentiment in favor of a canal built, owned and operated by the United
+States alone grew so powerful that the Hay-Pauncefote treaty of 1901
+was arranged with Great Britain. This agreement permitted a canal
+constructed under the auspices of the United States. Sentiment in
+Congress was divided between a route through Nicaragua and one through
+that part of the Republic of Colombia known as Panama, but in 1902 an
+act was passed authorizing the President to acquire the rights of the
+New Panama Canal Company, of France, on the isthmus for not more than
+$40,000,000, and also to acquire a strip of land from Colombia not less
+than six miles wide.[2] In case the President was unable to obtain
+these rights "within a reasonable time and upon reasonable terms," he
+was to turn to the Nicaragua route. President Roosevelt was himself in
+favor of the Panama project.
+
+The Hay-Herran convention with Colombia was accordingly drawn up and
+signed in January, 1903, giving the United States the desired rights on
+the isthmus, but the Senate of Colombia rejected the treaty. Thereupon
+the New Panama Canal Company became alarmed because it would lose
+$40,000,000 in case the United States turned from Panama to Nicaragua,
+and its agents busied themselves on the isthmus in the attempt to
+foment a break between Colombia and its province of Panama; the people
+of Panama became aroused because their chief source of future profit
+lay in their strategic position between the two oceans; and the
+President was concerned because Congress would soon meet and might
+insist on the Nicaragua route or at least greatly delay progress. He
+hoped for a successful revolt in Panama which would enable him to treat
+with the province rather than with Colombia, and he even determined to
+advise Congress to take possession forcibly if the revolt did not take
+place.
+
+The administration meanwhile kept closely in touch with affairs in
+Panama, and having reason to suspect the possibility of a revolution
+sent war vessels to the isthmus on November 2, 1903, to prevent troops,
+either Colombian or revolutionary, from landing at any point within
+fifty miles of Panama. Since the only way by which revolution in Panama
+could be repressed was through the presence of Colombian troops, the
+action of the American government made success highly probable in case
+a revolt was attempted. On the next day the plans of the Canal Company
+agents or of some of the residents of Panama came to a head; early in
+the evening a small and bloodless uprising occurred; and while the
+United States kept both sides from disturbing the peace, the insurgents
+set up a government which was recognized within two days, and Philippe
+Bunau-Varilla, a former chief engineer of the Company, was accredited
+to the United States as minister. A treaty was immediately arranged by
+which the United States received the control of a zone ten miles wide
+for the construction of a canal, and in return was to pay $10,000,000
+and an annuity of $250,000 beginning nine years later, and to guarantee
+the independence of Panama. The Secretary of State, John Hay, described
+the process of drawing up the treaty in a private letter of November
+19, 1903:
+
+    Yesterday morning the negotiations with Panama were far from
+    complete. But by putting on all steam, getting Root and Knox and
+    Shaw together at lunch, I went over my project line by line, and
+    fought out every section of it; adopted a few good suggestions:
+    hurried back to the Department, set everybody at work drawing up
+    final drafts--sent for Varilla, went over the whole treaty with him,
+    explained all the changes, got his consent, and at seven o'clock
+    signed the momentous document.
+
+Although the Senate ratified the treaty, the action of the President
+was the cause of a storm both in that body and throughout the nation.
+In self-defence Roosevelt condemned Colombia's refusal to ratify the
+Hay-Herran treaty and asserted that no hope remained of getting a
+satisfactory agreement with that country; that a treaty of 1846 with
+Colombia justified his intervention; and that our national interests
+and the interests of the world at large demanded that Colombia no
+longer prevent the construction of a canal. On the other hand the
+President's critics called attention to the unusual haste that
+surrounded every step in the "seizure" of Panama; condemned the
+disposition of war vessels which prevented Colombia from even
+attempting to put down the uprising; and insinuated that the
+administration was in collusion with the insurgents. Roosevelt's
+successors in the presidency felt there was some degree of justice in
+the claim of Colombia that she had been unfairly treated by her big
+neighbor and several different attempts were made to negotiate treaties
+which would carry with them a money payment to Colombia. On July 29,
+1919, the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate unanimously
+reported to that body the favorable consideration of a treaty providing
+for a money payment of $25,000,000, but other matters intervened and no
+further progress resulted.[3]
+
+The work of constructing the waterway was delayed by changes of plan
+until 1906, when a lock canal was decided upon, and shortly afterward a
+start was made. So huge an undertaking--the isthmus is forty-nine miles
+wide at this point--was an engineering task of unprecedented size, and
+involved stamping out the yellow fever, obtaining a water supply,
+building hospitals and dwellings and finding a sufficient labor force,
+as well as the more difficult problems of excavating soil and building
+locks in regions where land-slides constantly threatened to destroy
+important parts of the work. At length, however, all obstacles were
+overcome and on August 15, 1914, the canal was opened to the passage of
+vessels.
+
+The final diplomatic question relating to the canal concerned the rates
+to be charged on traffic passing through. By the terms of the
+Hay-Pauncefote treaty with Great Britain, the United States agreed that
+the canal should be free and open to all nations "on terms of entire
+equality." In 1912 Congress enacted legislation exempting American
+coast-wise vessels from the payment of tolls, despite the protest of
+Great Britain. As President Wilson was of the opinion that our action
+had been contrary to our treaty agreement, he urged the repeal of the
+act upon his accession in 1913, and succeeded in accomplishing his
+purpose.
+
+The construction of the Canal under American auspices committed the
+United States to new responsibilities in the Caribbean. Her coaling
+station in Cuba, the possession of Porto Rico and the protection of the
+isthmus made it a matter of national safety to preserve stable
+governments in Central America and the West Indies. The infiltration of
+American capital into the region served to ally economic with political
+interest, for like European investors, our capitalists have taken a
+part in the exploitation of South American sugar, fruit, coffee, oil
+and asphalt. With the islands and shores of the Caribbean Sea alone,
+American trade doubled in the decade after 1903. Orderly government
+south of the United States became accordingly essential to the welfare
+of our outlying possessions, and to the commercial interests of a group
+of investors. The most important international questions that have
+arisen in Spanish America related to Venezuela in 1902 and Santo
+Domingo in 1905.
+
+Venezuela had long granted concessions to foreign investors--Germans,
+English, Italians and others--in order to develop her mines, timber and
+railroads, but unsettled conditions in the country frequently resulted
+in the non-fulfillment of the obligations which had been entered into.
+Germany, for example, claimed that the government of Venezuela had
+guaranteed dividends on the stock of a railroad built by German
+subjects and had failed to live up to the contract. Having in mind the
+possible use of force to compel Venezuela to carry out her alleged
+obligations, Germany consulted our state department to discover whether
+our adherence to the Monroe Doctrine would lead us to oppose the
+contemplated action. The attitude of President Roosevelt in 1901 was
+that there was no connection between the Monroe Doctrine and the
+commercial relations of the South American republics, except that
+punishment of those nations must not take the form of the acquisition
+of territory. In 1902 Germany, Great Britain and Italy proceeded to
+blockade some of the ports of Venezuela, and the latter thereupon
+agreed to submit her case to arbitration. Apparently, however, Germany
+was unwilling to relinquish the advantage which the blockade seemed to
+promise, and in the meantime Roosevelt became fearful that the result
+of the blockade might be the more or less permanent occupation of part
+of Venezuela. He therefore told the German ambassador that unless the
+Emperor agreed to arbitration within ten days, the United States would
+send a fleet to Venezuela and end the danger which Roosevelt feared.
+The pressure quickly produced the desired results, and during the
+summer of 1903 many of the claims were referred to commissions. The
+three blockading powers believed themselves entitled to preferential
+treatment in the settlement of their claims, over the non-blockading
+nations, while the latter held that all of Venezuela's creditors should
+be treated on an equality. This portion of the controversy was referred
+to the Hague tribunal, which subsequently decided in favor of the
+contention raised by Germany, Great Britain and Italy, and eventually
+all the claims were greatly scaled down and ordered paid.[4]
+
+The Venezuela case made evident the possibility that European creditors
+of backward South American nations might use their claims as a reason
+for getting temporary control over harbors or other parts of these
+countries. There was also ground for the fear that temporary control
+might become permanent possession. Hence in the Santo Domingo case, the
+United States adopted a new policy. The debts of Santo Domingo were far
+beyond its power to pay; its foreign creditors were insistent. An
+arrangement was accordingly made by which the United States took over
+the administration of the custom houses, turned over forty-five per
+cent. of the income to the Dominican government for current expenses,
+and used the remainder to pay foreign claims. The plan worked so well
+that its main features were continued and imitated in the protectorates
+over Haiti (1915) and Nicaragua (1916).
+
+The progress which has been made in composing the jarring relations
+among the American states is due in part to the Pan American Union and
+to the Pan American Conferences. The Union is an organization of
+twenty-one American republics which devotes itself to the improvement
+of the commercial and political relations of its member states. The
+first Pan American Conference, held at Washington in 1889, has already
+been mentioned.[5] At the second, at Mexico City in 1901, the American
+republics which had not already done so agreed to the conventions
+signed at The Hague in 1899. At the third conference at Rio de Janeiro
+in 1906 and the fourth in Buenos Aires in 1910, its field of effort was
+further broadened, and in the latter year a recommendation was passed
+that the Pan American states bind themselves to submit to arbitration
+all claims for pecuniary damages.
+
+President Wilson continued unbroken the policy of protectorates which
+President Roosevelt had initiated in the case of San Domingo. His
+statements of general policy were conciliatory and evidently designed
+to allay suspicion, and he constantly expressed the view that the
+American states were cooperating equals. And having asserted that the
+United States had no designs upon territory, and nothing to seek except
+the lasting interests of the peoples of the two continents, he gave
+practical evidence of his purposes by urging that all unite to
+guarantee one another their independence and territorial integrity,
+that disputes be settled by investigation and arbitration, and that no
+state allow revolutionary expeditions against its neighbors to be
+fitted out on its territory.[6]
+
+American relations with Great Britain between 1896 and 1914 were such
+as to lend themselves to amicable settlement. The question of the
+boundary between Alaska and Canada, to be sure, contained some of the
+elements of trouble. The treaty of 1825, between Russia and Great
+Britain, had established the boundary between Alaska and Canada in
+terms that were somewhat ambiguous, the most important provision being
+that the line from the 56th degree of north latitude to the 141st
+degree of west longitude should follow the windings of the coast, but
+should be drawn not more than ten marine leagues inland. The coast at
+this point is extremely irregular, and the few important towns of the
+region are at the heads of the bays. With the discovery of gold in the
+Klondike region in 1897 and the consequent rush of population to the
+coast settlements, the question of jurisdiction became important.
+
+The claim of Great Britain was that the word "coast" should be
+interpreted to include adjacent islands. Hence the ten league line
+would follow the general direction of the shore but would cut across
+the inlets and headlands and thus leave the towns in the possession of
+Canada. The American contention was that the line should follow closely
+the windings of the shore of the mainland, thus giving the United
+States a continuous strip of coast. The controversy was referred in
+1903 to a board composed of three Americans, two Canadians and the Lord
+Chief Justice of England. On all the important points the English
+representative concurred with the Americans and a line was subsequently
+drawn in general conformity with our contention.[7]
+
+The most complicated negotiation of the period, as well as one of the
+most complicated in our history, concerned the North Atlantic Coast
+fisheries. Under the treaty of 1818 relating to matters remaining over
+from the War of 1812, the United States possessed certain rights on the
+fishing grounds off Newfoundland and Labrador. From then on there was
+intermittent negotiation concerning the meaning of the terms of the
+treaty and the justice of fishing regulations made by Canada. In 1908
+the United States and Great Britain made a general arbitration treaty,
+under the terms of which the fisheries question was referred to members
+of the Court of Arbitration at The Hague.[8] The award, made in 1910,
+upheld the rights of American fishermen on the coasts of Newfoundland,
+and recommended the establishment of a permanent fishery commission to
+settle all future controversies. This was accomplished in 1912 and an
+irritating and long-standing dispute was put to rest.
+
+"Dollar diplomacy" was the chief novelty in our relations with China.
+The expression was used in President Taft's administration, when his
+Secretary of State, P.C. Knox, devoted much attention to promoting
+loans, contracts and concessions in Central and South America, and more
+particularly in China. The argument for dollar diplomacy was that it
+opened new fields for the use of American capital, and thus indirectly
+benefited the whole people. The President also believed that
+investments in China would further American influence there and react
+favorably in continuing the open-door policy which had been initiated
+by Secretary Hay. The objection most commonly made was that the
+government became bound up in the interests of investors and might be
+compelled to interpose with armed force when difficulties arose between
+the investor and the state where the investment was made.
+
+An opportunity for large investments in China was presented during
+1912-1913. In the former year a revolution in that distracted country
+had come to an end and a republic had been set up with Yuan Shih-kai as
+President. Since the new government was in need of funds, it undertook
+to borrow through an associated group of bankers from six foreign
+nations, the United States among them. The financial interests agreed
+to the loan, but insisted on having a hand in the administration of
+Chinese finance, so as to ensure repayment. At this point President
+Wilson's administration began. The bankers at once asked him whether he
+would request them to participate in the "six-power" loan, as President
+Taft had done. Wilson declined to make the request, fearing that at
+some future time the United States might be compelled to interfere in
+Chinese financial and political affairs, whereupon the American bankers
+withdrew and the six-power group subsequently disintegrated.
+
+Relations with Japan have been a cause for negotiation on several
+occasions. During the Russo-Japanese War, which came to a close in
+1905, American sympathies were mainly with the Japanese. The
+correspondence which brought about a cessation of hostilities was
+initiated by President Roosevelt, and the peace conference was held in
+Portsmouth, New Hampshire. During the course of the sessions American
+sympathies shifted somewhat to the Russian side, and when the Japanese
+did not receive all that they demanded of Russia they felt somewhat
+dissatisfied.
+
+A subject which seemed at times to contain unpleasant possibilities was
+the restriction of Japanese immigration into the United States. The
+western part of the country, especially California, has objected
+vigorously to the presence of the Japanese on the coast, and as Japan
+refused to agree to such a treaty as that which restricts Chinese
+immigration, recourse was had to the Root-Takahira agreement of 1908,
+by which the Japanese government itself undertook to prevent the
+emigration of laborers to the United States. It was more difficult to
+reach an agreement concerning Japanese who were already living in the
+United States. In 1913 the legislature of California had before it a
+law forbidding certain aliens from holding land in the state. As the
+act would apply almost solely to the Japanese, the federal government
+was placed in an embarrassing position. Under existing treaties the
+Japanese were granted equal rights with other aliens, but the states
+were able to modify the practical operation of treaty provisions, as
+California planned to do, by declaring certain aliens ineligible to
+citizenship and then placing particular restrictions upon them. The
+Secretary of State, William J. Bryan, went to California and attempted
+to persuade the state authorities to alter their land laws. Although
+the law was eventually passed, it was modified to the extent of
+allowing Japanese to lease agricultural lands for terms not greater
+than three years.
+
+In 1917, Robert Lansing, the American Secretary of State, and Viscount
+Ishii, special ambassador of Japan, reached an important agreement
+concerning American relations in the Orient. By it the United States
+admitted the interest of Japan in China, but the two placed themselves
+on record as mutually opposed to the acquisition by any government of
+special rights in China that would affect the independence or the
+territorial integrity of that country. Nevertheless Japan had already
+forced China in 1915 to grant her territorial and economic concessions
+that constituted a grave menace to Chinese independence, and final
+settlement between the two awaited later events.
+
+It is impossible at the present time to give an accurate account of
+American relations with Mexico during the decade preceding 1920. Mexico
+and Mexican affairs are but ill understood in the United States; and
+the purposes and acts of the chief figure in the most important events,
+President Wilson, will not be fully known until papers are made public
+and explanations presented that only he can give. His conduct of
+Mexican affairs, moreover, had to face constant change on account of
+the outbreak and progress of a European war in 1914, and many critical
+decisions had to be arrived at during 1915-1916 when political
+partisanship in the United States was at fever heat and when the most
+bitter opponents of the administration were ready to pounce upon every
+act and hold it up to public scorn. Nor is the exact character of some
+of the pressure brought to bear upon the President fully known.
+American capital in vast amounts had gone into Mexico as into other
+parts of Latin America. Mining companies, railroad, ranching and
+plantation companies, and private individuals had invested in a land
+that has been called "the storehouse of the world," because of its
+fabulous resources in mineral wealth and fertile soil. In 1912
+President Taft said that American investments had been estimated at one
+billion dollars. President Wilson in 1916 warned the public that agents
+of American property owners in Mexico were scattered along the border
+originating rumors which were unjustified by facts, in order to bring
+about intervention for the benefit of investors. For these reasons most
+accounts of Mexican relations, whether they uphold or condemn the steps
+taken by the administration, are rendered defective by prejudice or
+lack of information. It is possible, therefore, to give only a bare
+narrative of a few of the most important events following 1910.
+
+The strong hand of Porfirio Diaz ruled Mexico from 1877 to 1880 and
+from 1884 to 1911. The government was autocratic; the resources of the
+country were in the hands of foreigners; and while a few magnates were
+wealthy, the mass of the people were poor and ignorant. The country was
+infested with bands of robbers, but Diaz managed to control them and
+even made some of the leaders governors of states. Such was the country
+that is separated from Arizona and New Mexico by an imaginary line and
+from Texas by a narrow river that shrinks in summer almost to a bed of
+sand.
+
+In 1910 Francisco Madero organized a revolt, compelled Diaz to flee to
+Europe in 1911, and was himself chosen President. Taft meanwhile had
+sent troops to the border, stray bullets from across the line killed a
+few American citizens and the demand for intervention began. Madero was
+soon overthrown by General Victoriano Huerta, who became provisional
+president. Shortly afterward Madero was shot under circumstances that
+pointed to Huerta as the instigator of the assassination, but his
+friends kept the fires of revolt alive, and Governor Carranza of
+Coahuila, the state across the border from northwest Texas, refused to
+recognize the new ruler. It was at this juncture that Wilson succeeded
+Taft. General Huerta was promptly recognized by the leading European
+nations but President Wilson refused to do so, on the ground that the
+new government was founded on violence, in defiance of the constitution
+of Mexico and contrary to the dictates of morality. He then sent John
+Lind to Mexico to convey terms to Huerta--peace, amnesty and a free
+election at which Huerta himself would not be a candidate. When the
+latter refused the proposal, President Wilson warned Americans to leave
+Mexico and adopted the policy of "watchful waiting," hoping that Huerta
+would be eliminated through inability to get funds to administer his
+government. In the meanwhile the destruction of lives and property
+continued.
+
+War was barely avoided in the spring of 1914 when a boat's crew of
+American marines was imprisoned in Tampico. An apology was made, but
+General Huerta refused to order a salute to the United States flag, and
+troops were accordingly landed at Vera Cruz, where slight encounters
+ensued. At this juncture Argentina, Brazil and Chile, "the ABC powers"
+made a proposal of mediation which was accepted. The conference averted
+war between the United States and Mexico, although failing to solve the
+questions at issue. Shortly afterward, however, Huerta retired from the
+field unable to continue his dictatorship, and the American troops were
+withdrawn.
+
+The end was not yet however. Carranza and his associate, Villa, fell to
+quarreling. Bands of ruffians made raids across the border, and Mexico
+became more than before a desolate waste peopled with fighting
+factions. At President Wilson's suggestion six Latin-American powers
+met in Washington in 1915 for conference, and decided to recognize
+Carranza as the head of a _de facto_ government. Diplomatic relations
+were then renewed after a lapse of two and a half years. In a message
+to Congress the President reviewed the imbroglio, but expressed doubts
+whether Mexico had been benefited.
+
+His fears soon proved to be well founded. In 1916 Villa crossed into
+New Mexico and raided the town of Columbus. With the consent of
+Carranza the United States sent troops under General Pershing across
+the line to run down the bandits, but the only result was to drive the
+Villistas from the region near the border. Renewed raids, this time
+into Texas, indicated the need of larger forces and the state militia
+were called upon, but after nearly a year of service they were
+withdrawn early in 1917. Not long afterward Carranza was elected
+president for a term of four years, but in 1920 another revolt ended in
+his assassination. The country is in a condition of wretchedness, and
+neither life nor property is safe from bands of marauders, President
+Wilson has patiently attempted to give Mexico a chance to work out her
+own salvation without hindrance from other countries and without
+exploitation by investors,--but the problem remains unsettled.[9]
+
+In view of some aspects of the foreign relations of the United States
+since 1914, it is apparent that such diplomatic incidents as those
+concerned with boundaries, fisheries and Latin-American protectorates
+were not the most important forces in determining the outlook of
+America upon Europe. In spite of the huge immigration of Europeans into
+America since the Civil War, the United States has seldom drawn upon
+European experience and has never sought to model itself on European
+lines. American legislators have not commonly studied either English or
+continental practices; our institutions and our constitutional
+limitations have been so peculiarly our own that slight attention has
+been paid to the outside world. Even the ancient resentment against
+England had dwindled by 1914, leaving the United States without any
+traditional "enemy." Tradition, as well as geographical isolation,
+tended to keep us apart from the currents of European action.
+
+Nevertheless America was being inter-related with the rest of the world
+through means with which the diplomats had little to do. In 1867 the
+Atlantic cable had finally been placed in successful operation, and
+forty years afterward the globe was enmeshed in 270,000 miles of
+submarine telegraph wires. In 1901 wireless telegraphic messages were
+sent across the ocean, and within a few years private and press notices
+were being sent across the Atlantic, vessels were commonly equipped
+with instruments, and international regulations concerning
+radio-telegraphy were adopted by the chief powers of the world. Most
+important of all was the constant passage of merchant vessels shuttling
+back and forth between America and Europe, and weaving the two into one
+commercial fabric. With Great Britain, with Germany, with France, Italy
+and the Netherlands, during 1913, the United States exchanged products
+valued at nearly two and a half billion dollars. This was an amount
+more than twice as great as the entire trade with Europe twenty years
+before. Over half a billion dollars' worth was with Germany, to which
+country we sent cotton, copper, food-stuffs, lard and furs in return
+for fertilizers, drugs, dyes, cotton manufactures and toys. American
+corporations had branches in Germany, while German manufacturers
+invested hundreds of millions of dollars in factories here. So huge a
+volume of commerce concerned the welfare not only of the ordinary
+commercial classes--ship owners, exporters and investors--but the much
+larger number of producers, manufacturers, miners, meat-packers, and
+farmers who directly and indirectly supplied the materials for export.
+
+In the meantime a change was taking place in the attitude of America
+toward world affairs. Inaccurate as it was to describe the United
+States as a world power at the time of the Spanish War, nevertheless
+the war itself and the colonial responsibilities which it entailed
+helped to a small degree to break down the isolation of America;
+frequent communication with Europe, and the expansion of American
+commerce tended in the same direction.
+
+The international relations of the United States for the twenty years
+immediately preceding 1914 may then be briefly summarized. The one
+international problem which interested the greatest numbers of people
+was the best method of arriving at international peace. Other problems,
+except the Mexican question, were simple and inconspicuous, and the
+majority of Americans knew little of European politics or international
+relations. Only in the fields of communication and commerce was the
+United States becoming increasingly and intimately related to the
+remainder of the world, and the extent to which this change
+supplemented the effect of the war with Spain in broadening the
+American international outlook was a matter of conjecture.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The general texts mentioned at the close of Chapter XIII continue to be
+useful.
+
+On the Hague Conferences reliance should be placed upon G.F.W. Holls,
+_The Peace Conference at the Hague_ (1900), by the secretary of the
+American delegation; A.D. White, _Autobiography of Andrew D. White_ (2
+vols., 1905), by a member of the delegation; J.W. Foster, _Arbitration
+and the Hague Court_ (1904); P.S. Beinsch, in _American Political
+Science Review_, II, 204 (Second Conference).
+
+The best brief account of the acquisition of the canal strip is in
+Latané; Theodore Roosevelt's story is in his _Autobiography_ and his
+_Addresses and Presidential Messages_. On the Caribbean, C.L. Jones,
+_Caribbean Interests of the United States_ (1916). The Venezuela
+arbitrations are in _Senate Documents_, 58th Congress, 3rd session, No.
+119 (Serial Number 4769). The Alaskan boundary question is clearly
+discussed in Latané, with a good map, and J.W. Foster, _Diplomatic
+Memoirs_ (2 vols., 1909). _The Proceedings in the North Atlantic Coast
+Fisheries Arbitration_ are in _Senate Document_ No. 870, 61st Congress,
+3rd session (12 vols, 1912-1913): more briefly in G.G. Wilson, _Hague
+Arbitration Cases_ (1915). S.K. Hornbeck, _Contemporary Politics in the
+Far East_ (1916), is useful for Asiatic relations. Ogg, Fish, and the
+_American Year Book_ provide material on Mexican affairs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The Presidents and Secretaries of State during this period were as
+follows:
+
+    McKinley, 1897-1901; John Sherman, William R. Day, John Hay.
+    Roosevelt, 1901-1909; John Hay, Elihu Root, Robert Bacon.
+    Taft, 1909-1913; P.C. Knox.
+    Wilson, 1913-1921; W.J. Bryan, Robert Lansing, B. Colby.
+
+[2] The French company had a concession on the isthmus and had already
+done considerable work.
+
+[3] Roosevelt, after his retirement from office was widely reported as
+having said in an address at the University of California: "If I had
+followed traditional, conservative methods, I would have submitted a
+dignified state paper of probably two hundred pages to Congress, and
+the debate on it would have been going on yet; but I took the Canal
+Zone and let Congress debate." Cf. Jones, _Caribbean Interests_,
+238-239.
+
+[4] For the Roosevelt "threat," together with another version of the
+story, cf. Thayer, _Hay_, II, 284-289 and _North American Review_,
+Sept., 1919, 414-417, 418-420.
+
+[5] Above, p. 289.
+
+[6] The latest acquisition of the U.S. in the Caribbean Sea was the
+Virgin Islands which were purchased from Denmark in 1916.
+
+[7] The American members of the Commission were Elihu Root, who was
+then Secretary of War, Senator H.C. Lodge, and ex-Senator George
+Turner. The English member was the Lord Chief Justice, Baron
+Alverstone; the Canadians were Sir Louis Amable Jetté, Lieutenant
+Governor of Quebec, and Allen B. Aylesworth of Toronto.
+
+[8] The American member of the tribunal was Judge George Gray. The
+closing argument for the United States was made by Elihu Root. Robert
+Lansing was one of the associate counsel.
+
+[9] The number of Americans killed in Mexico as given by the ambassador
+in 1919 was as follows: 1911, 10; 1912, 6; 1913, 24; 1914, 30; 1915,
+26; 1916, 46; 1917, 39; 1918, 31. N.Y. _Times_, July 20, 1919. For the
+revolution of 1920 consult N.Y. _Times_, May 16 ff.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+WOODROW WILSON
+
+A definite account of the eventful years following 1913 can be written
+only after time has allayed partisanship; after long study of the
+social, economic and political history has separated the essential
+from the trivial; after papers that are now locked in private files
+have been opened to students; and after the passage of years has given
+that perspective which alone can measure the wisdom or the folly of a
+policy. It will be little less difficult to make a just appraisal of
+the chief American participants in those years, and particularly of
+President Woodrow Wilson. At present it is possible only to avoid
+partisanship so far as it can be done, read with open mind whatever
+documents are available, and refrain from either praise or condemnation.
+On all sides it is agreed that during his administration Wilson
+became one of the three or four world-figures, and for that reason
+his characteristics, as well as the events of his presidency demand
+unusual attention.
+
+Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia, in 1856. His ancestors
+were Scotch-Irish and his father an educator and Presbyterian
+clergyman. After graduating from Princeton College he practiced law,
+studied history and politics, and taught these subjects at several
+different institutions. Subsequently he became a professor at
+Princeton and later its President. He was a prolific and successful
+writer. His book on _Congressional Government_, for example, went
+through twenty-four impressions before he became President of the
+United States. _The State_, an account of the mechanism of government
+in ancient and modern times, and some of his portrayals of American
+history were hardly less in demand. His election as Governor of New
+Jersey in 1910 and his election to the presidency two years later have
+already been mentioned.
+
+The outstanding characteristic of Wilson is a finely-organized,
+penetrating intelligence. Somewhat like a silent chess-player he
+thinks many moves in advance, a fact which makes it difficult to judge
+a single act of his without a knowledge of the whole plan. Before
+coming to the presidency he had long pondered on the proper and
+possible function of that office, and had drawn in imagination the
+outlines and many of the details of the role which he was to play.
+Years of careful study had drilled him in the accumulation of facts.
+As a specialist in polities and history he was accustomed to make up
+his mind on the basis of his own researches, and to change his
+judgments without embarrassment when new facts presented themselves.
+His literary style is characterized by precision, a close texture and
+frequently by suppressed emotion. He thinks on an international scale
+and with a profundity that often dwarfs associates who are by no means
+pygmies themselves. An unbending will, an alert conscience, stubborn
+courage, restrained patience, political sagacity, a thoroughgoing
+belief in democracy and above all an instinctive understanding of the
+spiritual aspirations of the common people made him the most powerful
+political figure in America within a brief time after his accession to
+the presidency. On the other hand, his aloofness from counsel during
+the later part of his presidency exceeded that of Cleveland, and his
+abnormal self-reliance was greater than that of Roosevelt.
+
+In reviewing the history of the years following 1913, it is necessary
+to have a sense of the immensity of the problems involved, as well
+as a restrained judgment and some knowledge of the chief actors.
+Beginning in 1914, the great nations of Europe were constantly menaced
+by appalling dangers; their leaders were daily confronted with
+decisions of the utmost importance. Because of the close commercial,
+industrial and financial bonds between the two continents, America
+could not fail to be affected. She too was compelled to take her part
+in a drama which was far greater than any in which she had before
+engaged. Both the President and Congress were confronted with problems
+the solution of which would vitally affect not only the people of
+America, but the people of the world; never before had their decisions
+been so subject to the possibilities of mistakes which would certainly
+be momentous and might be tragic.
+
+When Wilson and his party came into power in 1913, as the result of
+the schism among the Republicans, their position was by no means
+secure. The President had been elected by a distinct minority in the
+popular vote and his practical political experience had been less than
+that of any chief executive since Grant. His party had been in power
+so little since the Civil War that it had no body of experienced
+administrators from which to pick cabinet officers, and no corps of
+parliamentary leaders practiced in the task of framing and passing a
+constructive program. The party as a whole was lacking in cohesion
+and had perforce played the role of destructive critic most of the
+time for more than half a century; its principles were untested in
+actual experience, and although its majority in the House was large,
+in the Senate its margin of control was so narrow as to suggest the
+near possibility of the failure of a party program. Wilson was under
+no illusions as to the circumstances of his election and he realized
+that both he and his party were on probation.
+
+The appointment of the cabinet occasioned unusual interest. Bryan, the
+one Democrat who had a large and devoted personal following, became
+Secretary of State. His influence in nominating Wilson had been very
+great and the adherence of his admirers was necessary if the party was
+to be welded into an effective organization. Several of the other
+members of the cabinet proved themselves to be men of unusual
+capacity, and their ability to cooperate with one another provided
+the "teamwork" which the President was anxious to obtain.[1]
+
+His conception of the part which the chief executive ought to play
+was a definite one. He looked upon the President as peculiarly the
+representative of the whole people in the federal government, as the
+leader of the party in power and as commissioned by the voting
+population to carry out the platform of principles upon which the
+party and its leader were elected. He believed that the unofficial
+leaders who are better known as "bosses" existed partly because of the
+absence of official leaders. As Governor of New Jersey he had acted on
+the principles that he had outlined for the chief executive of the
+nation, and upon his accession to the presidency he began at once to
+put into effect a similar program.
+
+Congress was called for a special session on April 7, 1913, in order
+to revise the tariff. It was a dangerous task--one which had
+discredited the Democrats in 1894 and divided the Republicans in
+1909--but plans had been laid with care in order to avoid previous
+mistakes. The Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means in the
+House, Oscar W. Underwood, had begun the preparation of a bill during
+the session before and had discussed it with Democratic members of the
+Senate Committee on Finance, and with the President.
+
+At the opening of the session Wilson broke the precedent established
+by Jefferson in 1801, and read his message personally to Congress,
+instead of sending it in written form to be read by a clerk. In
+substance the message expressed the President's conviction that the
+appearance of the chief executive in Congress would assist in
+developing the spirit of cooperation, and outlined the tariff problem
+which they were together called upon to settle. He declared that the
+country wished the tariff changed, that the task ought to be completed
+as quickly as possible and that no special privileges ought to be
+granted to anybody. He advocated a tariff on articles which we did not
+produce and upon luxuries, but he urged that otherwise the schedules
+be reduced vigorously but without undue haste. Other considerations
+were more important, however, than the substance of the message.
+Previous documents of this kind had been long and filled with a wide
+variety of recommendations concerning both international and domestic
+relations; Wilson's speech occupied but a few moments, it focused the
+attention of Congress upon one subject, and fixed the eyes of the
+country upon the problem. The nation knew that one task was in hand,
+and knew where to lay the blame if delay should ensue. It was a great
+responsibility that the President had assumed, but he assumed it
+without hesitation.
+
+Underwood presented his bill at once and it passed the House without
+difficulty, but in the Senate the Democratic majority of six was too
+small to guarantee success in the face of the objections of Louisiana
+senators to the proposal for free sugar, and the usual bargaining for
+the protection of special interests. When the lobby appeared--the
+group that had so mangled the Wilson-Gorman bill and discredited the
+Payne-Aldrich Act--the President issued a public statement warning the
+country of the "extraordinary exertions" of a body of paid agents
+whose object was private profit and not the good of the public. So
+vigorous an action resulted in hostility to Wilson, but Congress found
+itself unusually free from objectionable pressure. Hence while experts
+differed in regard to the wisdom of one part or another of the bill,
+it was not charged that its schedules bore the imprint of favoritism
+for any particular private interests. Discussion in the Senate was so
+extended that the Underwood act did not finally pass and receive the
+President's signature until October 3.
+
+The general character of the measure is indicated by the number of
+changes made in the tariffs as they existed at the time of the passage
+of the act. On 958 articles the duties were reduced; on 307 they were
+left unchanged; and on eighty-six (mainly in the chemical schedule),
+they were increased. Despite the numerous reductions, the Underwood
+law retained much of the protective purpose of preceding enactments.
+Attempts were made to decrease the cost of living by considerable
+reductions on certain agricultural products and by placing others on
+the free list; wool was to be free after December 1, 1913, and the
+duty on sugar was to be reduced gradually and taken off completely on
+May 1, 1916; duties on cotton goods and on woolens ("Schedule K") were
+heavily reduced. Underwood represented an iron manufacturing section
+of Alabama, but he showed an uncommon attention to the general
+interest by favoring large reductions on pig-iron and placing iron ore
+and steel rails on the free list. An important part of the law was a
+provision for an income tax, which had been made possible by the
+Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution proclaimed on February 25,
+1913. Incomes over $3,000 ($4,000 in the case of married persons),
+were to be taxed one per cent., with an additional one per cent. on
+incomes of $20,000 to $50,000, and similar graded "surtaxes" on higher
+incomes, reaching six per cent. on those above $500,000. The board
+which the Republicans had established for the scientific study of the
+tariff had been allowed to lapse by the Democrats, but was revived in
+1916 through the appointment of a bi-partisan Commission of six
+members with twelve-year terms.
+
+On June 23, 1913, after the tariff bill had been piloted around the
+chief difficulties in its way, the President again addressed
+Congress-this time on currency legislation. Again he laid down certain
+principles-a more elastic currency, some means of mobilizing bank
+reserves, and public control of the banking system. Before mentioning
+the further history of this recommendation, however, it is necessary
+to have in mind the main facts in the development of the monetary
+issue since 1900. Complaint had been common since that year. One
+difficulty lay in the fact that the volume of the currency could not
+quickly increase and decrease as busy times demanded more or quiet
+times required less of the circulating medium. At those parts of the
+year, for example, when the crops were being moved there was a greater
+demand for currency than the banks could conveniently meet. They
+could, to be sure, buy United States bonds and issue national bank
+notes upon them as security, but this was a slow and costly process.
+The dangers of the existing inelastic arrangement were illustrated in
+the panic of 1907.
+
+In that year occurred a financial crisis which resulted in business
+failures, unemployment and the indictment of prominent figures in the
+commercial world; it was precipitated by a gamble in copper stocks. An
+unsuccessful attempt to corner the stock of a copper company led to
+the examination of the Mercantile National Bank of New York, with
+which the speculators had intimate connections. Meanwhile the
+president of the bank and all the directors were forced to resign. One
+of the associates of a director in the Mercantile was the president of
+the Knickerbocker Trust Company, and depositors in the latter bank
+thereupon became frightened, and $8,000,000 were withdrawn in three
+hours. The alarm then spread to the depositors of the Trust Company of
+America--the president of the Knickerbocker was one of its
+directors--and $34,000,000 were withdrawn by the now thoroughly
+anxious depositors, who stood in line at night in order to be ready
+for the next day. The panic spread to other parts of the nation;
+country banks withdrew funds from the city banks, and they from New
+York; and at length the government came to the aid of the distressed
+institutions and deposited $36,000,000 between October 19 and 31.
+Nevertheless, at the time when depositors were trying to get their
+money there was sufficient currency in existence to satisfy all needs.
+The defect lay in the lack of machinery for pooling resources in such
+a way as to relieve any institution that was in temporary straits. The
+experts pointed also to the unscrupulous manipulation of the supplies
+of currency by New York financiers. There was widespread comment on
+the fact that if the magnates did not actually constitute a "money
+trust" they were nevertheless able to expand and contract the
+available supply to such an extent as to serve their own ends and
+embarrass the public.
+
+In the meanwhile many experts, among them Senator Nelson W. Aldrich,
+had been studying the entire banking system. The result of this work
+was the Aldrich-Vreeland Act of 1908 providing a temporary method for
+making the supply of currency more flexible and also arranging for a
+National Monetary Commission to investigate the currency and banking
+systems in this and other countries. The Commission published
+thirty-eight volumes of information and recommendations, which were a
+storehouse of facts concerning the problem, although no legislation
+resulted. All that Taft did was to pass the task along to Wilson.
+
+As has been seen, President Wilson seized the opportunity at once.
+Senator Owen and Carter Glass, Chairmen of the Senate and House
+Committees on Banking and 'Currency, together with William G. McAdoo,
+the Secretary of the Treasury, and the President himself drafted the
+Federal Reserve bill. This measure received careful attention, being
+the cause of extended hearings and debate in Congress and of
+discussion in banking circles. The special session wore on and came to
+an end, but the regular session began at once (December 1), and
+consideration of the measure continued without interruption. At length
+on December 22 the House acted favorably, thirty-four Republicans,
+eleven Progressives, and one Independent assisting the Democrats in
+passing the bill; on the following day the Senate passed it, one
+Progressive and three Republicans voting with the majority. In many
+details the act as passed differed from the original plan, but in its
+essential points it was not amended. Although its precise form was the
+work of a few men, the project in general, of course, represented the
+labors of many persons extending over many years, and for that reason
+embodied the best that American experts could give.
+
+The Act provided for the establishment of Federal Reserve Banks, to be
+placed in districts--the number being eventually fixed at twelve. The
+capital for each Reserve Bank was to be supplied by the banks in its
+district which became member banks. In other words the Reserve Banks
+were to act as banks for their members, but not for private
+individuals. In control of the twelve was a Federal Reserve Board,
+composed of the Secretary of the Treasury, the Comptroller of the
+Currency and five persons appointed by the president for terms of ten
+years. It was at this point that the chief controversies raged between
+the bankers and the proponents of the administration measure. The
+bankers desired one central bank, which the administration opposed
+because it feared centralized control over the currency supply; and
+the bankers disliked the proposal for a Reserve Board appointed by the
+president, because they apprehended the entrance of politics into the
+appointments. The President and his supporters were determined,
+however, not to allow the bankers to appoint the Board or any portion
+of it, because they wished the system to be operated solely in the
+public interest.
+
+Greater elasticity was given to the currency supply through the
+issuance of federal reserve notes, at the discretion of the Federal
+Reserve Board, to the several regional Federal Reserve Banks. These
+notes were to be obligations of the government and were expected to
+replace the former national bank notes. When a local bank requires
+more currency it may deposit with the Federal Reserve Bank such
+valuable commercial paper as may be acceptable--for example,
+promissory notes of reliable business firms--and receive at once a
+supply of federal reserve notes. When business is brisk and large
+supplies of currency are demanded, the local banks will deposit
+whatever paper may be necessary to meet their needs; when the
+emergency has passed they will withdraw notes from circulation, return
+them to the reserve bank and receive their paper again.[2] The second
+great purpose of the new system was to supply central reservoirs for
+the storage of the reserves of the member banks. Each local bank is
+required to keep certain prescribed balances in the reserve bank of
+its district, and the federal government may also deposit funds in it.
+In conformity with strict regulations the reserves thus accumulated in
+a Federal Reserve Bank may be directed here and there in the district
+as needed, and even from district to district, under the control of
+the Federal Reserve Board. Moreover they are not available for those
+speculative ventures which have caused so much trouble in the past.[3]
+The operation of the law has apparently more than met the expectation
+of its friends. It had hardly been established when a war broke out in
+Europe, but the unusual financial situation which resulted in America
+was cared for without great strain.
+
+The third major plank in the Democratic platform of 1912 called for
+legislation concerning trusts, and the President accordingly turned
+his attention to that topic in his address to Congress on January 20,
+1914. He declared that there was no intent to hamper business as
+conducted by enlightened men, but that, on the contrary, the
+antagonism between business and government had passed. He recommended
+the prohibition of interlocking directorates by which railroads, banks
+and industrial corporations became allied in one monopolistic group,
+and he suggested that the processes and methods of harmful restraint
+of trade be forbidden item by item in order that business men might
+know where they stood in relation to the law. Finally, he believed
+that the country demanded a commission which should act as a clearing
+house for facts relating to industry and which should do justice to
+business where the processes of the courts were inadequate. The
+results of this undertaking were the Federal Trade Commission act of
+September 26, 1914, and the Clayton Anti-trust act of October 15.
+
+The former of these laws created a Commission of five persons to
+administer the anti-trust laws and to prevent the use of unfair
+methods by any persons or corporations which were subject to the
+anti-trust laws. Whenever it had reason to believe that such
+expedients were being used, the Commission was to issue an order
+requiring the cessation of the practice. If the order was not obeyed,
+the Commission was to apply for assistance to the circuit court of
+appeals in the district where the offense was alleged to have been
+committed. The purpose of the provision was evidently to prevent
+unfair practices rather than to punish them. Another section of the
+law empowered the Commission to gather information concerning the
+practices of industrial organizations, to require them to file reports
+in regard to their affairs, and to investigate the manner in which
+decrees of the Courts against them were carried out. Under direction
+of the president or Congress, the Commission could investigate alleged
+violations of the law, and on its own initiative it might report
+recommendations to Congress for additional legislation.[4]
+
+The Clayton act specifically prohibited many of the practices common
+to industrial enterprises. Sellers of commodities were forbidden to
+discriminate in price between different purchasers--after making due
+allowance for differences in transportation costs; corporations were
+forbidden to acquire any of the stock of other similar industries,
+where the effect would be substantially to lessen competition; and
+directors of banks and corporations were prohibited, with stated
+exceptions, from serving in two or more competing organizations. The
+Clayton act also settled, at least for the time, several of the
+complaints raised by the labor interests, especially at the time of
+the Pullman strike. Labor and agricultural organizations were
+specifically declared not to be conspiracies in restraint of trade;
+injunctions were not to be granted in labor disputes unless necessary
+to prevent irreparable injury; and trials for contempt of court were
+to be by jury, except when the offense was committed in the presence
+of the court. The law also prohibited the railroads from dealing with
+concerns in which their directors were interested, except under
+specified conditions.
+
+The success of the President in pushing his party program made his
+prestige the outstanding fact in politics. His leadership was
+indisputable and it was evident that he regarded a party platform as a
+serious program, to the fulfilment of which the party was committed by
+its election. While the trust legislation was under discussion,
+however, he asked for an act which required all the strength that he
+could muster.
+
+It will be remembered that the Panama Canal act of 1912 had exempted
+American coast-wise traffic through the canal from the payment of
+tolls. The law had been passed under a Republican, President Taft, and
+both the Progressive and Democratic platforms of 1912 had favored
+exemption. On March 5, 1914, Wilson appeared before Congress and urged
+the repeal of the act on the ground that it was a violation of that
+part of the treaty with Great Britain in which this country agreed
+that the canal should be open to all nations upon an equality, and
+that it was based on a mistaken economic policy. He was opposed by
+Underwood and Champ Clark, two of the most powerful Democratic
+leaders, but he had the aid of Senator Root, a distinguished
+Republican who had been Secretary of State under President Roosevelt,
+and in the end he was victorious. The division in the party was
+quickly healed and forgotten.
+
+The Congressional elections of 1914 greatly reduced the Democratic
+majority in the House, although leaving control with that party, but
+they slightly increased its margin in the Senate. European affairs and
+the election of 1916 occupied political attention during the second
+half of the administration, nevertheless the President and Congress
+proceeded with their program of legislation. Important acts were those
+providing for the development of the resources of Alaska, the Newlands
+act for the arbitration of disputes among railway employees, a law
+providing for federal aid in the building of state highways, measures
+giving a larger amount of self-government to the Philippines and Porto
+Rico, and one establishing a series of Federal Farm Loan Banks
+intended to enable the agricultural population to get capital at low
+rates of interest.[5] The major items, as well as the smaller ones in
+the Democratic program were in line with many of the proposals made by
+the Progressives in their platform in 1912. Attracted by these
+accomplishments and by the forceful leadership of the President large
+numbers of the Progressives made the transition into the Democratic
+party, and from 1913 to 1916 much of the political strategy of both
+Democrats and Republicans was devoted to attracting the insurgent wing
+of the Republican organization.
+
+The enactment of such a body of legislation, with the resulting
+appointment of many officials and clerks, brought the President face
+to face with the same civil service problem that had caused so much
+trouble for Cleveland. Upon their accession in 1913 the Democrats had
+been out of power so long that they exerted the pressure, usual under
+such circumstances, for a share in the offices. The merit system,
+however, was even more firmly entrenched than in 1897 when Cleveland
+had made such additions to the classified lists, for both Roosevelt
+and Taft had extended the merit principle to certain parts of the
+consular and diplomatic service. Roosevelt had also made considerable
+extensions in the application of the system to deputy collectors of
+internal revenue, fourth-class postmasters, and carriers in the rural
+free-delivery service; Taft had also increased the number of employees
+who were appointed under the merit system, notably about 36,000
+fourth-class postmasters not touched by his predecessor. Some of the
+acts passed early in President Wilson's administration--the Federal
+Reserve law, for example--expressly excepted certain employees from
+civil service examinations. Bryan, as Secretary of State, showed a
+lack of devotion to the cause of reform in the conduct of his
+department. On the other hand the President took a most important step
+in relation to postmasters of the first, second and third classes,
+which had always been appointed by the president with the advice and
+consent of the Senate, and had been among the plums in the gift of the
+executive that had been most sought after. On March 31, 1917, Wilson
+announced that thereafter the nominees for postmasters of the first
+three classes would be chosen as the result of civil service
+examination.
+
+While the United States was absorbed, in these various ways, in the
+task of internal construction, an event was occurring in a town in
+Bosnia which was destined to affect profoundly the course of American
+history. On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir-apparent
+to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was assassinated by a
+youth of Serbian blood and sympathies in Sarajevo. In Austria the act
+was looked upon as an incident in a revolutionary movement intended to
+detach a part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and unite it with
+Serbia. A month later Austria declared war on Serbia, and in a brief
+time, such was the state of the European alliances, Austria and
+Germany were opposed to Serbia, Russia, Belgium, France, Montenegro
+and Great Britain in a devastating war. In August, Japan joined the
+"Allies," as the nations on Serbia's side were known, and Turkey, in
+November, took the side of the Teutonic powers. The act that brought
+Belgium into the war was of interest to the United States. Germany had
+declared war on Russia, the friend of Serbia, and expected that
+France, Russia's ally, would step into the fray. Being thoroughly
+prepared for war, Germany believed that she could crush France before
+the latter could take any effective steps. The most convenient path
+into France lay through Belgium, a small, neutral nation with no
+interest in the conflict, and the German armies were thereupon poured
+across the boundary. High German authority freely admitted the wrong
+of the act, but excused it on the ground of military necessity.
+Belgium felt that she could not do otherwise than resist the invader
+and was thus drawn into the vortex. Her danger helped bring Great
+Britain into the conflict.
+
+The relation of the United States to the conflict seemed remote, and
+President Wilson on August 4 issued a formal proclamation of
+neutrality, which was soon followed by an address to the people of the
+country urging them to be neutral both in thought and in act. For a
+time it was not difficult for the country to obey the injunction.
+Although stories of the ruthlessness, of the German soldiery in
+Belgium poured into the columns of American periodicals, the people
+found difficulty in believing them because they had long admired the
+efficiency and virility of the Germans. Scarcely a year before the war
+broke out, ex-Presidents Roosevelt and Taft had extolled the German
+Emperor as an apostle of peace, and President Butler of Columbia
+University had declared that the people of any nation would gladly
+elect him as their chief executive. More than a month and a half after
+the invasion of Belgium, Roosevelt published an article in _The
+Outlook_ in which he expressed pride in the German blood in his veins,
+asserted that either side in the European conflict could be sincerely
+taken and defended, and continued:
+
+    When a nation feels that the issue of a contest in which ... it
+    finds itself engaged will be national life or death, it is
+    inevitable that it should act so as to save itself.... The rights
+    and wrongs of these cases where nations violate the rules of
+    abstract morality in order to meet their own vital needs can
+    be precisely determined only when all the facts are known and
+    when men's blood is cool.... Of course it would be folly to jump
+    into the gulf ourselves to no good purpose; and very probably
+    nothing that we could have done would have helped Belgium. We
+    have not the smallest responsibility for what has befallen her.
+
+In view of the mass of conflicting rumors concerning the war, which
+reached American attention, it was natural to take the neutral
+position adopted by Roosevelt, but it was inevitable, because of our
+racial diversities, that sympathies and opinions should soon differ
+widely. Within a short time, pamphlets were published containing the
+correspondence among the several European powers which had taken place
+just before the outbreak of the war. These and other documents were
+widely studied in the United States and led to the belief that
+England, France and Russia had been the real peace lovers and that
+Germany had been the aggressor.
+
+The immediate economic effect of the war, in the meanwhile was the
+unsettlement of American financial and industrial affairs, but when
+the English navy obtained the mastery of the seas, the vessels of the
+Teutonic powers were driven to cover in neutral ports or kept
+harmlessly at home, and American trade with neutral nations and the
+Allies took on new life. Moreover the latter were in need of food,
+munitions and war materials of all kinds and they turned to American
+factories. Manufacturers who could accept "war orders" began at once
+to make fortunes; wages and prices rose, and it became evident that
+the United States would be profoundly affected by the struggle.
+England's control of the sea, moreover, early presented other
+problems. According to international practice, both sides in the
+European conflict might purchase munitions from neutrals, of which the
+United States was the largest, but on account of her weakness on the
+sea Germany was unable to take advantage of this opportunity, while
+the Allies constantly purchased whatever supplies were needed. At
+first, the German government protested through diplomatic channels,
+but our government was able to show not only that international
+practice approved the course followed by the United States, but also
+that Germany had herself followed it in previous wars.
+
+There then followed propaganda on a large scale by German agents
+under the direction of Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, which was intended to
+influence public opinion to demand the prohibition of the shipment of
+munitions to the Allies. As this activity failed of its purpose,
+resort was then had to fraudulent clearance papers by which military
+supplies for German use were shipped from the United States without
+conforming to our customs regulations; bombs were placed in ships
+carrying supplies to England; fires were set in munitions factories;
+strikes and labor difficulties were fomented by German agents and at
+length the government had to ask for the recall of the Austrian
+Ambassador, Dr. Dumba, and the German military and naval _attachés_
+at Washington, Captain Franz von Papen and Captain Karl Boy-Ed.
+
+Relations with the Allies, in the meantime, were far from
+satisfactory. The unprecedented scale on which the war was being
+fought made huge supplies of munitions, food and raw materials such as
+copper and cotton absolute necessities. England was able to shut off
+the direct shipment into Germany of stores having military value, but
+this advantage was of little use so long as the ports of Holland and
+the Scandinavian countries were open to the transit of such supplies
+indirectly to Teutonic soil. When England attempted to regulate and
+restrict trade with these countries, the United States was the chief
+sufferer. Ships were held up and their cargoes examined-during 1915,
+for example, copper valued at $5,500,000 was seized while on the way
+from the United States to neutral nations. On December 26, 1914, the
+United States protested against the number of vessels that were
+stopped, taken into British ports and held, sometimes, for weeks; and
+in reply England pointed out the large increase in the amount of
+copper and other materials sent to countries near Germany, and
+declared that the presumption was strong that these stores were being
+forwarded to the enemy.
+
+With her navy driven from the seas, Germany began to feel the effects
+of the blockade, and accordingly turned to the submarine as the hope
+for victory. On February 4, 1915, Germany declared the English channel
+and the waters around Great Britain a war zone, in which enemy
+merchant vessels would be destroyed "even if it may not be possible
+always to save their crews and passengers." Great Britain replied on
+March 11 by an order that merchant vessels going into Germany or out
+of her ports, as well as merchant vessels bound for neutral countries
+and carrying goods bound for the enemy, must stop at a British or
+allied port. At these points the cargoes were looked over and any war
+materials or goods which were regarded as "contraband" were seized.
+Even though the owners were eventually reimbursed for the cargoes
+taken, the delay and the interference with trade were burdensome, and
+the United States accordingly protested that England was establishing
+an illegal blockade and that the United States would champion the
+rights of neutrals. Some slight retaliatory legislation aimed at the
+Allies was passed by Congress, but for the most part interest in this
+controversy died in the face of the growing irritation with Germany.
+The German declaration of February 4, 1915, in regard to submarine
+warfare caused an energetic protest by the United States on the ground
+that an attack on a vessel made without any determination of its
+belligerent character and the contraband character of its cargo would
+be unprecedented in naval warfare. The American note declared Germany
+would be held to a "strict accountability" for any injury to American
+lives and property. Nevertheless, the results of the submarine
+campaign began to appear at once, and in ten weeks sixty-three
+merchant ships belonging to various nations were sunk, with a loss of
+250 lives. On May 7 the United States was astounded to hear that the
+passenger ship _Lusitania_ had been torpedoed, and 1,153 persons
+drowned, including 114 Americans. The allied and neutral nations were
+profoundly stirred, and from that moment there grew an increasing
+demand in the United States for war with Germany. The President called
+for a disavowal of the acts by which the _Lusitania _and other vessels
+had been sunk, all possible reparation, and steps to prevent the
+recurrence of such deeds.
+
+Within a few days of the _Lusitania _catastrophe and before the
+protest of our government was made public, President Wilson spoke in
+Philadelphia, and in the course of his remarks said, "There is such a
+thing as a man being too proud to fight." The address had no relation
+to the international situation, and moreover the objectionable phrase
+carried an unexpected and different meaning when separated from its
+context and linked to the _Lusitania_ affair. The words were seized
+upon by the President's critics, however, as an indication of the
+policy of the government in the crisis and were severely condemned. On
+the other hand the formal protest was received with marked
+satisfaction. It was understood to be the work of Wilson himself, who
+practically took over the conduct of the more important foreign
+affairs. When the German government replied without meeting the
+demands of the President, he framed a second note which brought the
+possibility of war so near that Secretary Bryan resigned rather than
+sign it.[6] A second reply merely prolonged the controversy and Wilson
+thereupon renewed his demands and declared that a repetition of
+submarine attacks would be regarded as "deliberately unfriendly." The
+statement brought the nation appreciably nearer war, but if the
+comments of the newspaper press may be relied upon as an index of
+public opinion, the President had again expressed the feelings of the
+people. In the meanwhile German submarine warfare was modified in the
+direction desired by the United States. Instead of sinking merchant
+vessels on sight and without warning, the commanders of submarines
+stopped them, visited and searched them, and gave the passengers and
+crews opportunity to escape. On August 19, 1915, the _Arabic _was sunk
+without warning, but the German government in conformity with its new
+policy disavowed the act, apologized and agreed to pay an indemnity
+for American lives lost. The negotiations concerning the _Lusitania_
+continued to drag on, but otherwise relations between Germany and the
+United States had reached the point where peace could be maintained if
+no further accident or provocation intervened.
+
+Despite the general approval of the President's firm stand against
+Germany, there was an inclination in some quarters to do everything
+possible to avoid a conflict, even if the effort necessitated the
+relinquishment of rights that had hitherto been well recognized. In
+February, 1916, Representative McLemore introduced a resolution
+requesting the President to warn American citizens to refrain from
+traveling on armed belligerent vessels, whether merchantmen or
+otherwise and to state that if they persisted they would do so at
+their own peril. The House, according to the Speaker, was prepared to
+pass the resolution. The positions taken on this subject by the
+administration had not been entirely consistent, but the President was
+now holding that Americans had the right under international law to
+travel on such vessels and that the government could not honorably
+refuse to uphold them in exercising their right. "Once accept a single
+abatement of right," he asserted, "and many other humiliations would
+certainly follow, and the whole fine fabric of international law might
+crumble under our hands piece by piece." Moreover he felt that the
+conduct of international relations lay in the hands of the executive
+and that divided counsels would embarrass him in dealing with Germany.
+He therefore asked the House to discuss the McLemore resolution at
+once and come to a vote. Under this pressure the House gave way and
+tabled the resolution, ninety-three Republicans joining with 182
+Democrats against thirty-three Democrats and 102 Republicans.
+
+On March 24 the French channel steamer _Sussex_ was sunk, with the
+loss of several Americans, and the submarine issue was thus brought
+forward again. The President accordingly appeared before Congress and
+reviewed the entire controversy. "Again and again," he reminded his
+hearers, "the Imperial German Government has given this Government its
+solemn assurances that at least passenger ships would not be thus
+dealt with, and yet it has again and again permitted its undersea
+commanders to disregard those assurances with entire impunity." He
+asserted that America had been very patient, while the toll of lives
+had mounted into the hundreds, and informed Congress that he was
+presenting a warning that "unless the Imperial German Government
+should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its
+present methods of warfare against passenger and freight carrying
+vessels this Government can have no choice but to sever diplomatic
+relations with the Government of the German Empire altogether." The
+_Lusitania _notes, the _Sussex_ address and other speeches made by the
+President wore read all over the United States and, indeed, throughout
+a great part of the world. He was attempting the novel and daring
+experiment of framing a foreign policy in public view, and was thus
+becoming the recognized spokesman of the neutral world.
+
+Our international relations were in a disturbed and critical condition
+when the presidential campaign of 1916 came on. The Republicans and
+the Progressives planned to meet in Chicago on June 7 for the
+nomination of candidates, in the hope that the two parties might unite
+upon a single nominee and platform, and thus defeat Wilson who was
+sure to be the Democratic candidate. At first, however, the two wings
+of the Republican party were in complete disagreement. As far as
+principles went they had not thoroughly recovered from the schism of
+1912. For their candidate the Progressives looked only to Roosevelt,
+whom the Republicans would not have. Roosevelt himself refused to
+enter any fight for a nomination and announced, "I will go further and
+say that it would be a mistake to nominate me unless the country has
+in its mood something of the heroic." After conferences between
+Republican and Progressive leaders which failed to bring about
+unanimity, the Republican convention nominated Justice Charles E.
+Hughes of the Supreme Court, and the Progressives chose Roosevelt.
+Hughes was a reformer by nature, recognized as a man of high
+principles, courageous, able and remembered as a vigorous and popular
+governor of New York.
+
+The Republican platform called for neutrality in the European war;
+peace and order in Mexico, preparedness for national defence, a
+protective tariff and women's suffrage. It also advocated some of the
+economic legislation favored by the-Progressives in 1912. The
+Progressive platform laid most emphasis on preparation for military
+defence-a navy of at least second rank, a regular army of 250,000 and
+a system for training a citizen soldiery. It also urged labor
+legislation, a protective tariff and national regulation of industry
+and transportation. The Republican platform severely denounced the
+administration, but the Progressives stated merely their own
+principles.
+
+In the course of his actions after the nomination, however, Roosevelt
+indicated his belief that the public welfare demanded the defeat of
+the Democrats. He declared that he did not know Hughes's opinions on
+the vital questions of the day and suggested that his "conditional
+refusal" be put into the hands of the National Progressive Committee
+and that a statement of the Republican candidate's principles be
+awaited. If these principles turned out to be satisfactory then
+Roosevelt would not run; otherwise a conference could be held to
+determine future action. Subsequently Roosevelt issued a declaration
+expressing his satisfaction with Hughes, condemning Wilson and urging
+all Progressives to join in defeating the Democrats. Such an action
+would, of course, spell the doom of the Progressives as a political
+organization, but he declared that the people were not prepared to
+accept a new party and that the nomination of a third party candidate
+would merely divide the Republicans and ensure a Democratic victory.
+The action of Roosevelt commended itself to a majority of the National
+Committee, but a minority were displeased and supported Wilson.
+
+The Democrats met at St. Louis on June 14 and renominated President
+Wilson in a convention marked by harmony and enthusiasm. For the first
+time in many years the party could point to a record of actual
+achievement and it challenged "comparisons of our record, our keeping
+of pledges, and our constructive legislation, with those of any party
+at any time." After recalling the chief measures passed during the
+administration, the party placed itself on record as favoring labor
+legislation, women's suffrage, the protection of citizens at home and
+abroad, a larger army and navy and a reserve of trained citizen
+soldiers.[7]
+
+The campaign turned upon the question whether the country approved
+Wilson's foreign policy, rather than upon the record of the Democratic
+party and its platform of principles, and in such a contest each side
+had definite advantages. As the candidate of the party which had been
+in power most of the time for half a century, Hughes had the support
+of the two living ex-presidents and the backing of a compact
+organization with plenty of money. He had been out of the turmoil of
+politics for six years as a member of the Supreme Court and hence had
+not made enemies. His party was strong in the most populous portions
+of the country and in the East where dissatisfaction with the
+President's foreign policy was strongest. In particular the unhappy
+Mexican difficulty, which has already been mentioned, had not been
+settled, and it was an easy matter for Hughes to point out real or
+alleged inconsistencies and mistakes in his opponent's acts. Wilson
+had been elected four years before by a minority vote and had served
+through a term of years that had brought forward an unusual number of
+perplexing questions on which sincere men disagreed, and had,
+therefore, aroused a host of enemies. On the other hand, he had the
+advantage of being in power, and his supporters could urge the danger
+of "swapping horses while crossing a stream." He had a foreign policy
+which the people knew about, experience in the Presidency and a record
+for leadership in constructive accomplishment.[8]
+
+The particular characteristics of the campaign were mainly the results
+of the activities of Hughes, Roosevelt and Wilson. In his speech
+accepting the nomination Hughes attacked the record of the
+administration in regard to the civil service, charged the President
+with interfering in Mexican affairs without protecting American
+rights, and asserted that if the government had shown Germany that it
+meant what it said by "strict accountability" the Lusitania would not
+have been sunk. He also announced that he favored a constitutional
+amendment providing for women's suffrage. Later he made extended
+stumping tours in which he reiterated his attacks on the
+administration, but he disappointed his friends by failing to reveal a
+constructive program. Roosevelt, meanwhile, assisted the Republican
+candidate by a series of speeches, one of the earliest of which was
+that of August 31, in Maine. That state held its local elections on
+September 11 and it was deemed essential by both parties to make every
+effort to carry it so as to have a good effect on party prospects
+elsewhere. Roosevelt's speech typified his criticisms of the
+administration. He declared that Wilson had ostensibly kept peace with
+Mexico but had really waged war there; he asserted that the President
+had shown a lack of firmness in dealing with Mexico and had kissed the
+hand that slapped him in the face although it was red with the blood
+of American women and children; he compared American neutrality in the
+European War with the neutrality of Pontius Pilate and believed that
+if the administration had been firm in its dealings with Germany there
+would have been no invasion of Belgium, no sinking of vessels and no
+massacres of women and children.
+
+Wilson followed the example of McKinley in 1896 and conducted his
+campaign chiefly through speeches delivered from the porch of "Shadow
+Lawn," his summer residence in New Jersey. In this way he emphasized
+the legislative record of the Democrats, defended his foreign policy
+and attacked the Republicans as a party, although not referring to
+individuals. An important part of his strategy was an attempt to
+attract the Progressives to his support. He met his opponent's
+vigorous complaints in regard to his attitude toward Mexico and the
+European War by pressing the question as to the direction in which the
+Republicans would change it. As Hughes was apparently unwilling to
+urge immediate war on Germany, he could only retort that a firm
+attitude in the beginning would have prevented trouble, and there the
+matter rested throughout the campaign. Supporters of Wilson also
+defended his foreign policy, summing up their contentions in the
+phrase, "He kept us out of war."
+
+Foreign policy as a political issue was pressed temporarily into the
+background by the sudden demand of the railroad brotherhoods for
+shorter hours and mote pay, threatening a nation-wide strike if their
+plea was unheeded. Neither party wished to risk the labor vote by
+opposing the unions, and the public did not desire a strike, much as
+it deprecated the attitude of the labor leaders in threatening trouble
+at this juncture. The President took the lead in pressing a program of
+railroad legislation, part of which was a law granting the men what
+they desired. This was immediately passed, although the remaining
+recommendations were laid aside. In the House the Republicans joined
+with the Democrats in putting the law through, although nearly thirty
+per cent. of the members refrained from voting at all, but in the
+Senate party lines were more strictly drawn. In many quarters the
+President was vigorously condemned on the ground that he had
+"surrendered" to a threat. Hughes joined in the dissent, but somewhat
+dulled its effect by giving no evidence of opposition until the law
+was passed and by stating that he would not attempt to repeal it if
+elected. During the closing days of the campaign Hughes issued a
+statement declaring that he looked upon the presidency as an executive
+office and stated that if chosen he would consider himself the
+administrative and executive head only, and not a political leader
+commissioned with the responsibility of determining policies. At the
+close of the campaign, also, the benefits of a protective tariff were
+urged as a reason for electing Hughes.
+
+[Illustration:
+Election of 1916, by Counties]
+
+The result of the balloting on November 7 was in doubt for several
+days because the outcome hinged on the votes of California and
+Minnesota, either of which would turn the scale. In the end Wilson was
+found to have received 9,128,837 votes and Hughes, 8,536,380. The vote
+in the electoral college was 277 to 254. The outcome was remarkable in
+several respects. Each candidate received a larger popular vote than
+had ever before been cast; Wilson won without New York or any of the
+other large eastern states, finding his support in the South and the
+Far West; each side was able to get satisfaction from the result, the
+Republicans because their party schism was sufficiently healed to
+enable them to divide the House of Representatives evenly with their
+opponents, and the Democrats because their candidate was successful in
+states which elected Republican senators and governors by large
+majorities.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+In the nature of the case, any bibliography which concerns the events
+of so recent and important a period is of temporary value only. Ogg
+presents an excellent one, but many important volumes have been
+printed since 1917, his date of publication.
+
+A reliable account of the chief events is contained in the _American
+Year Book_. The numerous biographies of President Wilson are written
+under the difficult conditions that surround the discussion of recent
+events. Available ones are: E.C. Brooks, _Woodrow Wilson as President_
+(1916), eulogistic, but contains extracts from speeches; W.B. Hale,
+_Woodrow Wilson, The Story of His Life_ (1912); H.J. Ford, _Woodrow
+Wilson_ (1916); A.M. Low, _Woodrow Wilson, an Interpretation_ (1918),
+a friendly and substantial analysis by an English newspaper
+correspondent; W.B. Dodd, _Woodrow Wilson and His Work_ (1920),
+sympathetic, written in the spirit of the investigator, and the best
+life up to the time of its publication. Better than any biography is a
+careful study of Wilson's addresses and speeches, editions of which
+have been prepared by A.B. Hart, J.B. Scott, A. Shaw and others.
+
+Periodical literature concerning the legislative program of the first
+Wilson administration is especially abundant. On the tariff, in
+addition to Taussig, consult: _Quarterly Journal of Economics_ (1913),
+"The Tariff Act of 1913"; _Journal of Political Economy_ (1914), "The
+Tariff of 1913." On the federal reserve system, _Political Science
+Quarterly_ (1914), "Federal Reserve System"; _Quarterly Journal of
+Economics_ (1914), "Federal Reserve Act of 1913"; _American Economic
+Review_ (1914), "Federal Reserve Act"; _Journal of Political Economy_
+(1914), "Banking and Currency Act of 1913"; H.P. Willis, _The Federal
+Reserve_ (1915); E.W. Kemmerer, _The A B C of the Federal Reserve
+System_ (1918). On the anti-trust acts, _Political Science Quarterly_
+(1915), "New Anti-Trust Acts"; _Quarterly Journal of Economics_
+(1914), "Trust Legislation of 1914"; _American Economic Review_
+(1914), "Trade Commission Act." For the early stages of the European
+conflict see the references under Chapter XXV.
+
+The best accounts of the election of 1916 are in the _American Year
+Book_, and in Ogg. Other readable accounts are: _Nineteenth Century_
+(Dec., 1916), "The Re-Election of President Wilson"; W.E. Dodd,
+_Woodrow Wilson_ (1920).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] The cabinet, 1913-1920, was as follows: Secretary of State, W.J.
+Bryan (to 1915), R. Lansing (to 1920), B. Colby; Secretary of the
+Treasury, W.G. McAdoo, C. Glass, D.F. Houston; Secretary of War, L.M.
+Garrison, N.D. Baker; Attorney-General, J.C. McReynolds, T.W. Gregory,
+A.M. Palmer; Postmaster-General, A.S. Burleson; Secretary of the Navy,
+J. Daniels; Secretary of the Interior, F.K. Lane, J.B. Payne;
+Secretary of Commerce, W.C. Redfield, J.W. Alexander; Secretary of
+Labor, W.B. Wilson.
+
+[2] On Apr. 23, 1920, the amount of federal reserve notes outstanding
+was $3,068,307,000.
+
+[3] On Apr. 23, 1920, the reserves deposited by member banks reached a
+total of $2,083,568,000.
+
+[4] The Commission superseded the Bureau of Corporations.
+
+[5] The appointment of Louis D. Brandeis to the Supreme Court brought
+to that body a well-known proponent of the newer types of social and
+economic theory. At first the opposition to confirming his nomination
+in the Senate, based upon certain facts in his career and allegations
+concerning them, was uncommonly pronounced. Dissent diminished,
+however, in the face of investigation, and the nomination was
+confirmed by a large majority on June 1, 1916.
+
+[6] Bryan remained in sympathy with the administration in other
+respects, and aided in the campaign of 1916.
+
+[7] Despite Roosevelt's refusal to run, the Progressive
+Vice-Presidential candidate continued the campaign. The Socialist
+Labor party, the Socialist party and the Prohibitionists also
+presented candidates.
+
+[8] The Republican campaign fund was $2,445,421 contributed by 34,205
+persons; the Democratic fund, $1,808,348 given by 170,000 persons.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+THE UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD WAR
+
+The reelection of Wilson in November, 1916, could hardly be interpreted
+in any other light than as an approval of his patient foreign policy.
+Nevertheless, for the ensuing five months the problem of our
+international relations, and especially the question whether we ought
+to enter the World War, continued to divide the American people into
+hostile camps. The opponents of the President, led by Roosevelt,
+contended that Wilson was lacking in "patriotism, courage and
+foresight"; that the failure of the administration to protest against
+Germany's march across Belgium was due to timidity and a "mean
+commercial opportunism" which caused the President to act in the spirit
+of refusing to perform a duty unless there was a pecuniary profit to be
+gained thereby; and that the interchanges of diplomatic notes with the
+German government were "benevolent phrase-mongering" which did not
+accomplish anything. When Germany used the submarine to sink vessels
+despite the President's "strict accountability" note and when the
+administration did not then take forceful action against the offender,
+his opponents declared that the President meant "precisely and exactly
+nothing" by his words. Late in 1915 Wilson became convinced of the
+necessity of an increase in our means of defense, and in order to
+arouse Congress to action he went out into the Middle West where he
+addressed large audiences on "preparedness." After long discussion
+Congress passed the National Defense Act by the provisions of which the
+military strength of the country was to be expanded to 645,000 officers
+and men during a period of five years. The President's conversion to
+preparedness was interpreted as a tardy recognition of an obvious duty,
+and his plan deprecated as no more than a "shadow program." And later,
+as his attitude became more warlike, the opposition declared that he
+had at last acted because of "pressure" and "criticism," rather than
+because of a definite and positive purpose of his own. In brief, then,
+a considerable portion of the country insisted upon America's early
+entrance into the European conflict, and judged Wilson to be a timid
+politician who lacked a courageous foreign policy and who was being
+driven toward war by the force of public opinion.
+
+On the other hand, the traditional American disinclination to become
+entangled in foreign complications was the decisive force with the
+majority. In an address which the President delivered in New York he
+said that he received a great many letters from unknown and
+uninfluential people whose one prayer was, "Mr. President, do not allow
+anybody to persuade you that the people of this country want war with
+anybody." There were, moreover, Americans who still retained the
+traditional dislike of England and who hesitated to support an alliance
+with that nation; others did not relish association with Russia, which
+had long been looked upon as the arch-representative of autocracy; and
+others were indifferent or confused or inclined to the German side.
+
+The attitude of the President, meanwhile, constantly found expression
+in addresses to Congress and the people, which were so widely read and
+discussed and which had so great an influence in forming public opinion
+that the more prominent of them must be mentioned. Beginning with the
+proclamation of neutrality on August 18, 1914, and a speech at
+Indianapolis on January 8, 1915, he asserted the belief that the United
+States should remain neutral, not only because it was the traditional
+policy to stand aloof from European controversies but also because "it
+was necessary, if a universal catastrophe was to be avoided, that a
+limit should be set to the sweep of destructive war ... if only to
+prevent collective economic ruin and the breakdown throughout the world
+of the industries by which its populations are fed and sustained." He
+also hoped that the time might quickly come when both sides would
+welcome mediation by a great people that had preserved itself neutral,
+self-possessed and sympathetic with the burdens of the warring powers.
+Before the close of 1915 he gave up his earlier opposition to military
+preparation, as has been seen, and while the project for a larger
+defensive force was being discussed, he made a significant address on
+May 27, 1916, to the League to Enforce Peace. With the causes and
+objects of the war, he declared, America was not concerned; the
+"obscure fountains" of its origins we were not interested to explore;
+in its spread, however, it had so "profoundly affected" America that we
+were no longer "disconnected lookers-on," but deeply concerned. "We are
+participants," he asserted, "whether we would or not, in the life of
+the world. The interests of all nations are our own also. We are
+partners with the rest." Oddly enough the statement that the origins of
+the war and the purposes for which it was started did not concern us
+was widely circulated, and misinterpreted as indicating a lack of
+sympathy with the ideals for which the Allies were fighting at the time
+speech, while the remainder of the address, which was far more
+significant, was largely overlooked. Nevertheless the declaration that
+the war had become our concern was an important part of Wilson's series
+of utterances on the issues of the day, and demands emphasis at this
+point because the President was representative, in holding this
+opinion, of a great body of his countrymen. The conviction that the
+European war had become our affair was deepened in the minds of many
+Americans when news arrived late in 1916, that the Teutonic military
+authorities were seizing and deporting Belgian workmen and compelling
+them to labor in German fields and factories.
+
+In December, President Wilson again claimed the attention of the world
+by his reply to a proposal by Germany that peace negotiations be entered
+upon. He declared--and his note was sent to all belligerents--that the
+leaders of the two sides had stated their objects in general terms only:
+
+But, stated in general terms, they seem the same on both sides. Never
+yet have the authoritative spokesmen of either side avowed the precise
+objects which would, if attained, satisfy them and their people that
+the war had been fought out.
+
+The support of America in the war had long since become the great stake
+for which both sides in the conflict were playing, and the crisis of
+the game was at hand. On January 22, 1917, Wilson addressed the Senate
+and stated the results of his action. The reply of the Germans, he
+declared, had merely stated their readiness to meet their antagonists
+in conference to discuss terms of peace; the Allies had detailed more
+definitely the arrangements, guarantees and acts of reparation which
+would constitute a satisfactory settlement. He proceeded then to add
+that the, United States was deeply concerned in the terms of peace
+which would be made at the close of the conflict, and to enumerate some
+of those for which Americans would be most insistent: equality of
+rights among nations; the recognition of the principle that territories
+should not be handed about from nation to nation without the consent of
+the inhabitants of the territories; an outlet to the sea for every
+nation where practicable; the freedom of the seas; and the limitation
+of armaments. The interchange of notes had made two things clear; that
+the concern of the United States in the war was intimate, and that
+the people of this country would know definitely the purposes of the
+conflict before they decided to enter it.
+
+On January 31, Germany announced an extension of her submarine warfare.
+A wide area surrounding the British Isles, France, and Italy, and
+including the greater part of the eastern Mediterranean Sea was
+declared to be a barred zone. All sea traffic, neutral as well as
+belligerent, the note warned, would be sunk, except that one American
+ship would be allowed to pass through the zone each week provided that
+it followed a designated, narrow lane to the port of Falmouth, England,
+that it was marked with broad red and white stripes, and carried no
+contraband. The President promptly broke off relations with Germany,
+sent the German ambassador home and appeared before Congress to state
+to that body and to the people the reasons for his decision. He
+recounted the substance of his earlier correspondence with Germany in
+regard to submarine warfare and recalled the promise of the German
+government that merchant vessels would not be sunk without warning and
+without saving human lives. He declared that the American government
+had no alternative but to sever relations, although refusing to believe
+that Germany would ruthlessly use the methods which she threatened,
+until convinced of her determination by "overt acts." Information of
+the move made by the United States was sent to American diplomatic
+representatives in neutral countries with the suggestion that they take
+similar action. Shortly afterward the President requested Congress to
+pass legislation enabling him to supply armament and ammunition to
+merchant vessels, and an overwhelming majority of both houses was ready
+to accede to the request. A small minority in the Senate, however, was
+able, under existing rules, to prevent Congressional action, although
+the President found authority in existing statutes and was able to
+proceed.[1]
+
+Every important event in March, 1917, tended toward war between the
+United States and Germany. On the first day of the month the State
+Department made public a note from the German Secretary of State to the
+German minister in Mexico which suggested a German-Mexican alliance in
+case of the entry of the United States into the war. Germany was to
+contribute financial support to Mexico and the latter was to recover
+Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, which had been lost to the United States
+many years before. Knowledge of this intrigue gave a distinct impetus
+to the war spirit in all parts of the country. On March 5, President
+Wilson was inaugurated for the second time and took occasion to state
+again the attitude of the United States toward the war. Although
+disclaiming any desire for conquest or advantage, and reaffirming the
+desire of the United States for peace, he expressed the belief that we
+might be drawn on, by circumstances, to a more active assertion of our
+rights and a more immediate association with the great struggle. Once
+more he stated the things for which the United States would stand
+whether in war or in peace: the interest of all nations in world peace;
+equality of rights among nations; the principle that governments derive
+their just powers from the consent of the governed; the freedom of the
+seas; and the limitation of armaments. Later in the month information
+reached America that there had been a revolution in Russia, that the
+Czar had been compelled to abdicate and that a republican government
+had been established. The news was gladly heard in the United States as
+it seemed to presage the overthrow of autocracy everywhere. On March
+22, the new Russian government was formally recognized by the United
+States and later a loan of $100,000,000 was made.
+
+In the meanwhile the "overt acts" which the President and the American
+people hoped might not be committed became sufficiently numerous to
+prove that Germany had indeed entered upon the most ruthless use of the
+submarine. Seven American vessels were torpedoed, with the loss of
+thirteen lives, and many more vessels of belligerent and neutral
+nations were sunk, in most cases without warning. The President
+accordingly summoned Congress to meet in special session on April 2.
+When that body assembled he again and for the last time explained the
+character of German submarine warfare, charging that vessels of all
+kinds and all nations, hospital ships as well as merchant vessels were
+being sunk "with reckless lack of compassion or of principle."
+International law, he complained, was being swept away; the lives of
+non-combatant men, women and children destroyed; America filled with
+hostile spies and attempts made to stir up enemies against us; armed
+neutrality had broken down in the face of the submarine, and he
+therefore urged Congress to accept the state of war which the action of
+Germany had thrust upon the United States. Such action, he believed,
+should involve the utmost cooperation with the enemies of
+Germany--liberal loans to them, an abundant supply of war material of
+all kinds, the better equipment of the navy and an army of at least
+500,000 men chosen on the principle of universal liability to service.
+An important part of the President's address was that in which he
+distinguished between the German people and the German government. With
+the former, he asserted, we had no quarrel, for it was not upon their
+impulse that their government acted in entering the war. But the
+latter, the Prussian autocracy, "was not and never could be our
+friend." Once more he disclaimed any desire for conquest or dominion:
+
+    We are glad ... to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and
+    for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for
+    the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men
+    everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world
+    must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the
+    tested foundations of political liberty.
+
+The response of Congress was prompt and nearly unanimous. In the House
+by a vote of 373 to fifty, and in the Senate by eighty-two to six, a
+resolution accepting the status of war was quickly passed and proclaimed
+by the President on April 6.[2] His position was a strong one. His
+patience and self-control, to be sure, had been carried to the extreme
+where they seemed like cowardice and lack of policy to the more
+belligerent East; but they had convinced the more pacific West that he
+could not be hurried into war without adequate reasons. All sections and
+all parties were united as the country had never been united before. His
+insistence that the United States had no ulterior motives in entering
+the war and his constant emphasis on ideals and the moral issues of the
+conflict placed the struggle on a lofty plane, besides giving him and
+his country at that time a position of leadership in the world such as
+no man or nation had ever hitherto enjoyed. Moreover the evolution
+through which the President went, from adherence to the traditional
+aloofness from European affairs to throwing himself enthusiastically
+into the conflict, was an evolution through which most of his countrymen
+were passing. Every public address which the President delivered, every
+message to Congress, every request to the legislative branch of the
+government was read widely, disagreed to or received with enthusiasm in
+one quarter or another and discussed everywhere with interest and
+energy. The result was the education of America in a new foreign policy.
+It was no slight matter to discard the traditions of a century and a
+quarter, and the brevity and inconsiderable size of the controversy was
+the marvel, rather than its length and bitterness.[3]
+
+America had need of her unity and her enthusiasm. The size of the
+conflict, the number of men that must be raised and trained, the
+quantity of materials required, the amount of money needed, and, above
+all, the mental readjustment necessary in a nation that had hitherto
+buried itself in the pursuits of peace--all these considerations
+emphasized the importance of the task that the United States was
+undertaking. Into Washington there poured a bewildering stream of offers
+of assistance; organizations had to be built up over night to take hold
+of problems that were new to this country; men found themselves hurried
+into tasks for which they must prepare as best they might, and under
+crowded working conditions, changing circumstances and confusion of
+effort that beggar description. In many cases, America could learn
+valuable lessons from European experience, and to that end commissions
+of eminent statesmen and soldiers were sent to this country to give us
+the benefit of their successes and failures.
+
+An important step had already been taken in the creation of the Council
+of National Defense on August 29, 1916, an act which indicated a
+realization that the United States might at any time be drawn into the
+European struggle. The body was composed of six members of the Cabinet,
+with the Secretary of War as chairman, and was assisted by an Advisory
+Commission composed of seven experts in the various industries that
+would be most essential to the prosecution of the war. The Council
+furnished the means of coordinating the industries of the country and
+getting them into touch with the executive departments of the
+government. State councils of defense were likewise organized to arouse
+the people to the performance of their share in the nation's work, to
+circulate information and to assist the several agencies of the federal
+government. A National Research Council mobilized the scientific talent
+of the country and brought it to bear on certain of the problems of
+warfare. A Naval Consulting Board examined inventions offered to the
+Navy Department. The Committee on Public Information furnished condensed
+war news to town and country papers, circulated millions of pamphlets
+explaining the causes of the war and upholding America's purposes in it,
+and directing speakers who aided in campaigns for raising money and
+educating the people in their duty during the crisis. The War Industries
+Board developed plans for the production of the multifarious supplies
+needed. The United States Shipping Board took hold of the problem of
+building sufficient ships to transport troops and cargoes, and to
+replace vessels sunk by submarines. By means of a Committee on Labor the
+laboring men gave their support to the conduct of the war and agreed to
+delay controversies until the war was over.
+
+The exhausted condition of the supplies of food among the Allies, and
+the size of the armies which America decided to raise, made the Food
+Administration one of importance. At the time when the United States
+entered the war there was a dangerous shortage of food in Europe due to
+the decrease in production and to the lack of the vessels necessary to
+bring supplies from distant parts of the world. The problem centered
+mainly in wheat, meat, fats and sugar. The demand upon the United States
+was not only large but increasing. Accordingly, legislation was passed
+on August 10, 1917, which made it unlawful to destroy or hoard food; it
+provided for the stimulation of agriculture; and it authorized the
+President to purchase and sell foods and fix the price of wheat. Wilson
+appointed as the chief of the Food Administration Herbert C. Hoover,
+whose experience with the problem of Belgian relief enabled him to act
+promptly and effectively. Hoover's one great purpose was to utilize all
+food supplies in such a way as would most help to win the war. He
+cooperated with the Department of Agriculture which had already started
+a campaign for stimulating the cultivation of farms and gardens on all
+available land. Food administrators were appointed in the states and
+local districts. Speakers, posters, libraries and other agencies were
+utilized to urge the people to eat less wheat, meats, fats and sugar in
+order that more might be exported to the Allies. Millions of housewives
+hung cards in their windows to indicate that they were cooperating with
+the United States Food Administration. "Wheatless" and "meatless" days
+were set apart. These voluntary efforts were supplemented by government
+regulation, and dealers in food products were compelled to take out
+federal licenses which enabled the Administration to control their
+operations and to prevent prices from going to panic levels. The Food
+Administration established a Grain Corporation which bought and sold
+wheat; it placed an agency in Chicago to buy meat for ourselves and the
+Allies; it called a conference of the sugar refiners, who agreed to put
+in its hands the entire supply of that commodity. In a word, by
+stimulating voluntary efforts and by means of government regulations,
+the Food Administration increased production, decreased consumption, and
+coordinated the purchase of food for the army, the navy, the Allies, the
+Red Cross and Belgian relief. The Food Administration was hardly
+established before it became necessary to organize a Fuel Administration
+to teach economy in the use of coal, to stimulate production, adjust
+disputes between employers and employees, fix prices and control the
+apportioning of the supply among the several parts of the country.
+
+The vital relation of the transportation system of the country to the
+winning of the war was apparent at the start. As soon as war was
+declared, therefore, nearly 700 representatives of the railroads formed
+a Railroads' War Board to minimize the individual and competitive
+activities of the roads, coordinate their operation, and produce a
+maximum of transportation efficiency. The attempt of the railroad
+executives, however, quickly broke down. In the first place, as has been
+seen, our entire body of railroad legislation is based upon the idea of
+separating the several systems and compelling them to compete rather
+than cooperate. The habits and customs thus formed could hardly be done
+away with in an instant. In the second place the cost of labor and
+materials was constantly mounting, and the demand for more equipment was
+insistent. The railroads could meet these greater costs only by raising
+rates, a process which involved obtaining the assent of the Interstate
+Commerce Commission and required a considerable period for its
+accomplishment. The roads were also embarrassed by an unprecedented
+congestion of traffic on the eastern seaboard, from which men and
+cargoes must be shipped to Europe. Accordingly, on December 26, 1917,
+the President took possession of the railroad system for the government
+and appointed the Secretary of the Treasury, William G. McAdoo, as
+Director General. As rapidly as possible the railroads were merged into
+one great system. The entire country was divided into districts at the
+head of which were placed experienced railroad executives. Terminals,
+tunnels and equipment were used regardless of ownership in the effort to
+get the greatest possible service out of existing facilities. The
+passenger service was greatly reduced in order to free locomotives and
+crews for freight trains, duplication of effort was done away with where
+possible, officials who were not necessary under the new plan were
+dropped, and equipment was standardized. Existing legislation allowed
+the government to change freight and passenger rates, and on May 25,
+1918, these were considerably raised. The winter of 1917-1918 was
+memorable for its severity, and placed great difficulties in the way of
+the railroads; nevertheless, between January 1, 1918, and November 11 of
+the same year nearly six and a half million actual and prospective
+soldiers were carried for greater or smaller distances.
+
+An important part of American preparation for war was the attention paid
+to the "morale" organizations, which were designed to maintain the
+courage and spirit of the fighting man. As far as legislation could do
+it, the most flagrant vices were kept away from the camps. Moreover the
+Commissions on Training Camp Activities attempted to supply wholesome
+entertainment and associations. Under their direction, various
+organizations established and operated theatres, libraries and
+writing-rooms, encouraged athletics in the camps, and offered similar
+facilities for soldiers and sailors when on leave in towns and cities
+near by. The Red Cross conducted extensive relief work both in this
+country and abroad; surgical dressings were made, clothing and comfort
+kits supplied, and money contributed. In France, Belgium, Russia,
+Roumania, Italy and Serbia the Red Cross conducted a fight against the
+suffering incident to war.
+
+The legislation which established the system of allotments, allowances
+and War Risk Insurance was also designed in part to maintain the
+_morale_ of the army and navy. The pay of the "enlisted man" or private
+was $30.00 per month. In the case of men with dependents, an "allotment"
+of $15.00 was to be sent home and the government thereupon contributed
+an "allowance" which normally amounted to $15.00 or more, and was graded
+according to the number of the man's dependents and the closeness of
+their relationship to him. Provision was made also for compensation for
+officers and men injured or disabled in the line of duty, and for
+training injured men in a vocation. In addition, the War Risk Insurance
+plan provided means by which both officers and men could at low cost
+take out government insurance against death or total disability. In this
+way, it was hoped, some of the distresses of war would be alleviated so
+far as possible and a repetition of the pension abuses of the Civil War
+somewhat guarded against.
+
+The total direct money cost of the war from April, 1917, to April, 1919,
+was estimated by the War Department at $21,850,000,000, an average of
+over a million dollars an hour, and an amount sufficient to have carried
+on the Revolutionary War a thousand years. In addition, loans were
+extended to the Allies at the rate of nearly half a million dollars an
+hour. This huge amount was raised in part through increased taxes.
+Income taxes were heavily increased; levies were made on such profits of
+corporations as were in excess of profits made before the war, during
+the three years 1911-1913; additional taxes were laid upon spirits
+and tobacco, on amusements and luxuries; and the postage rates were
+raised. In part, also, the cost of the war was defrayed through loans. A
+portion of the amount borrowed was by the sale of War Savings This
+expedient was designed doubtless not merely to encourage persons of
+small means to aid in winning the war--a beginning could be made with
+twenty-five cents--but also to encourage thrift among all classes. Most
+of the borrowed money, however, was raised through the five "Liberty
+Loans," a series of popular subscriptions to the needs of the
+government. In each case the government called upon the people to
+purchase bonds, ranging from two billions at first to six billions at
+the time of the fourth loan. There were four and a half million
+subscribers for the first loan, but after a little experience the number
+was readily increased until 21,000,000 people responded to the fourth
+call. Popular campaigns such as never had been seen in America,
+campaigns of publicity, house-to-house canvassing and appeals to the
+win-the-war spirit resulted in unprecedented financial support. Isolated
+communities in the back country and people of slender means in the
+cities, no less than the great banks and wealthy corporations cooperated
+to make the Liberty loans of social and economic as well as financial
+importance.
+
+Evidence seems to be sufficient to indicate that the resources of the
+United States were thrown into the conflict none too soon. When it was
+determined to place armed guards on merchant ships, Rear Admiral W.S.
+Sims was sent to Great Britain to keep the Navy Department informed on
+problems connected with the possible entry of the United States into the
+conflict. After the American declaration of war the Admiral was placed
+in charge of the naval forces of the United States abroad and thereafter
+worked in close cooperation with our European associates. The German
+submarine policy had been put fully into effect; no solution of the
+submarine menace had been reached; and English officials were fearful
+that England could not last longer than November 1. In taking this view
+the British were probably in harmony with the Germans who expected to
+crush England before the weight of the United States could be felt.
+Although insufficient for so great a conflict, the American navy was
+thoroughly prepared for active service, and six destroyers were sent to
+European waters for a prolonged stay, within eighteen days of the
+declaration of war. This early force was quickly followed by others
+until, at the close of the war, 5,000 officers and 70,000 enlisted men
+were serving abroad. A three-year naval construction program which had
+been adopted in 1916 was pushed forward and somewhat expanded; new craft
+were commandeered wherever they could be found; private citizens loaned
+vessels or leased them at nominal sums; and German ships interned in
+American ports were taken over. Existing stations for the training of
+seamen were enlarged and new ones established, and schools were set up
+in colleges and at other points for radio operators, engineers and naval
+aviators. By such means the number of vessels in commission was
+increased from 197 to 2,003 and the personnel from 65,777 to 497,030.
+
+The most dreaded enemy of the navy, the submarine, was successfully met
+by two devices. When transports and merchant-vessels were being sent
+across the ocean, they were gathered into groups or convoys and were
+protected by war vessels, especially torpedo-boat destroyers. The depth
+charge was also used with telling effect. This consisted of a heavy
+charge of explosive which was placed in a container and dropped into the
+sea where the presence of a submarine was expected. The charge was
+exploded at a pre-determined depth by a simple device, and any
+under-seas craft within 100 feet was likely to be destroyed or to have
+leaks started that would compel it to come to the surface and surrender.
+
+Aside from combatting the submarine, the greatest activity of the navy
+was the transportation of men and supplies to France. First and last
+more than 2,000,000 troops were carried to Europe, and although Great
+Britain transported more than half the men, yet 924,578 made the passage
+through the danger zones under the escort of United States cruisers and
+destroyers. The cargo fleet was substantially all American. The
+transportation of supplies alone required the services of 5,000 officers
+and 29,000 enlisted men, and involved the accumulation of a vast fleet,
+the acquisition of docks, lighters, tugs, and coaling equipment, as well
+as the establishment of an administrative organization, at the precise
+time when the shipping facilities of the world were being strained to
+the breaking point by submarines.
+
+On the other side of the ocean naval bases were established in England,
+Ireland, Scotland, France and Italy; a considerable force operated from
+Gibraltar and others from Corfu, along the Bay of Biscay, in the North
+Sea and at Murmansk and Archangel. Besides cooperating with the navy of
+the Allies in keeping the Germans off the seas, the American navy laid
+about four-fifths of the great mine barrage which extended from the
+Orkney Islands to Norway, a distance of 230 miles. This astonishing
+enterprise--America alone laid 56,000 mines--together with a similar
+chain laid across the Strait of Dover was intended to pen the submarine
+within the North Sea.
+
+In the main the raising of an army for European service rested upon the
+act of May 18, 1917. It provided for the Increase of the regular army
+from approximately 200,000 to 488,000; for the expansion of the strength
+of the National Guard; and for the selection of a National Army by draft
+from men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty years inclusive. The
+determination to raise a draft army was based upon the belief that in
+this way successive and adequate supplies of men could be found without
+disproportionate calls on any section of the country and without undue
+disturbance of the industrial life of the nation. Although the plan ran
+counter to American practice during most of our history, the draft army
+became deservedly popular as a democratic and efficient method of
+finding men. Officers were supplied mainly through training camps, of
+which the best known was that at Plattsburg, New York. A novelty in the
+new army was a plan for the appointment and promotion of officers on a
+scientific rating system which took account of ability and experience,
+thereby doing away with some of the favoritism formerly connected with
+our military system. At a later time an organization was perfected by
+which enlisted men were grouped according to their ability and
+occupations, so that each division of the army might have assigned to it
+the number of mechanics, carpenters, clerks and the like that it might
+require. For the housing and training of the enlarged National Guard,
+sixteen tent-camps were established in the South; and for the National
+Army, sixteen cantonments, built of wood and capable of housing 40,000
+men each. A cantonment comprised 1,000 to 1,200 buildings, and was
+virtually a city with highways, sewers, water supply, laundries and
+hospitals.[4] The problem of obtaining supplies was as great as that of
+housing and training the army. An entire city was erected in West
+Virginia for the making of part of the smokeless powder required; the
+British Enfield rifle was modified to use American ammunition so that
+machinery already making arms for England could be utilized with a
+minimum of change; and European experience having indicated the value of
+the machine gun, a new and improved type was invented by John M.
+Browning. In many cases, however, it was impossible immediately to equip
+both the soldiers in training here, and those who could be sent abroad.
+Hence surplus equipment of certain kinds was supplied by France and
+England. Furthermore, actual combat had emphasized the vital importance
+of aviation and had developed warfare with poisonous gases and with
+tanks, so that it became necessary to establish new branches of the
+service to meet these needs.
+
+Shortly after the declaration of war, General John J. Pershing, who had
+already experienced active operations in the Philippines and on the
+Mexican border, was sent to France to act as Chief of the American
+Expeditionary Force--the A.E.F. as it was commonly called. General
+Pershing was followed by a division of regulars in June, 1917, and by
+the "Rainbow" division of the National Guard, a body composed of
+guardsmen from various states so as to distribute widely the honor of
+early participation in the war. In France the American troops were
+detailed either for the Service of Supply or for combat. The former,
+with headquarters at Tours, developed port facilities, constructed ship
+berths, built railroads and warehouses, and took care of the
+multifarious duties that have to be performed behind the lines.
+Divisions destined for combat were usually given one or two months of
+training in France before going to the front, and were then kept for
+another month in a quiet sector before engaging in more active service.
+
+[Illustration:
+The Western Front]
+
+Between April, 1917, when America declared war, and approximately a year
+later when her weight began to be felt, the Allies suffered reverses
+that were thoroughly disheartening and were almost disastrous. Russia,
+who had conducted a powerful offensive in 1916, began to retreat in the
+summer of 1917 and was thereafter no longer a military factor.[5] Italy
+had driven back the Austrians in the summer of 1916, but in the fall of
+1917 was compelled to conduct a retreat that became all but a disaster.
+Allied conferences were accordingly held in Paris in November and
+December, 1917, for the purpose of bringing about closer unity in the
+prosecution of the war. Nation after nation, on the other hand, had
+severed relations or declared war on the Teutonic powers until a great
+part of the world had ranged itself on the side of the Allies. In March,
+1918, the Germans precipitated a series of crises--the final ones as it
+turned out. In that month they began a terrific drive on a fifty-mile
+front against their opponents in the western theatre of the war. In
+order to meet this thrust the Allies decided to give over the supreme
+command of all their forces to Marshal Ferdinand Foch, chief in command
+of the French army, and General Pershing thereupon offered him all the
+American troops in France. American efforts were redoubled, in the face
+of the new danger, and forces were transported across the ocean in
+numbers which had not been anticipated and which soon began to give the
+Allies a substantial advantage. One vessel, the _Leviathan_, landed in
+France the equivalent of a German division each month. The enemy,
+nevertheless, continued to advance and on May 31 were at
+Chateau-Thierry, only forty miles from Paris, where the American Third
+Division assisted in preventing any further forward movement. The
+leading military experts in the United States, meanwhile, with the
+support of a large portion of the public were demanding a still larger
+army and the Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker, accordingly laid before
+Congress a plan which developed eventually into the "Man Power" act of
+August 31, 1918. It changed the draft ages and added more than
+13,000,000 registrants to the available supply of men. A clause of this
+law, designed in part to provide further supplies of officers, allowed
+the Secretary of War to send soldiers to educational institutions at the
+public expense, thus establishing the Students' Army Training Corps.[6]
+
+[Illustration:
+Strength of the American Expeditionary Force
+July 1, 1917-Nov. 1, 1918]
+
+At the time when General Pershing placed his forces at the disposal of
+Marshal Foch, the Americans numbered 343,000 and were used mainly to
+relieve the French and British at quiet parts or "sectors" on the
+western front. In April, 1918, however, the First Division was placed in
+a more active position, and on May 28 took Cantigny; the Second Division
+was on the Marne River early in June, and later in the month helped
+prevent a German advance at Belleau Wood. Other forces were sent to
+operate with the British, a regiment was sent to Italy, and a small
+force to northern Russia and Siberia. In mid-July the Germans renewed
+their attacks but were shortly turned back again at Chateau-Thierry, and
+Marshal Foch judged this to be the time for the Allies to make a general
+offensive movement. On the 18th the First and Second Divisions, with
+picked French troops, made a successful drive toward Soissons. On August
+30 the Americans were given a permanent portion of the front, and two
+weeks later came the first distinctly American action in the reduction
+of the St. Mihiel salient--a wedge driven by the Germans into the allied
+line. Infantry, artillery, aircraft, tanks and ambulances were
+gathered--about 600,000 men all told--mostly under cover of darkness.
+Preceding the drive a heavy artillery fire was directed upon the enemy
+for four hours, during which brief period thirty times as many rounds of
+ammunition were fired as were used by the Union forces at Gettysburg in
+three days. Then at five o'clock in the morning, on September 12, the
+troops fell upon an enemy which had been demoralized by the artillery,
+and routed them. The American losses were 7,000--injuries for the most
+part--and the gains, 16,000 prisoners, 443 guns and a great quantity of
+war materials, together with an advantageous position for further
+advance. The "American Army was an accomplished fact."
+
+The most important action in which the Americans participated was the
+Meuse-Argonne offensive. The goal of this attack was the
+Carignan-Sedan-Mézières railroad, which ran parallel to the front and
+comprised the main supply line of the enemy. The drive began late in
+September and continued with greater or less intensity and with
+increasing success until November 11, when it became evident that the
+Germans were in serious difficulties. Their line was cut, and only
+surrender or an armistice could prevent thorough-going disaster.[7]
+
+While the allied armies were first stemming the German advance and later
+making their counter-offensive, the statesmen were attempting to
+preserve the morale of the Allies and break down that of the enemy by
+means of a wide-spread peace offensive. Because of his position as
+President of the United States and his skill in the expression of the
+purposes of the Allies, Wilson became by common consent the spokesman of
+the enemies of Germany, much as he had earlier been the representative
+of the neutral nations. In August, 1917, the Pope proposed peace on the
+basis of "reciprocal condonation" for past offenses, and the reciprocal
+return of territories and colonies. In reply Wilson contended that the
+suggested settlement would not result in a lasting peace. Peace, he
+believed, must be between peoples, and not between peoples on the one
+hand and "an ambitious and intriguing government" on the other. "We
+cannot," he declared, "take the word of the present rulers of Germany as
+a guarantee of anything that is to endure unless explicitly supported by
+such conclusive evidence of the will and purpose of the German people
+themselves as the other peoples of the world would be justified in
+accepting." The reply continued, of course, the attempt made in the
+address to Congress calling for a declaration of war--the attempt to
+drive a wedge between the German people and their rulers, but for the
+moment the attempt was fruitless.
+
+On January 8, 1918, President Wilson again explained the attitude of the
+United States, in an address to Congress in which he gave expression to
+the famous "fourteen points." "The program of the world's peace," he
+stated, must include: the beginning of an era of "open diplomacy" and
+the end of secret international understandings; the freedom of the seas
+in peace and war; the removal of economic barriers between nations; the
+reduction of armaments; the impartial adjustment of colonial claims; the
+evacuation of territories occupied by Germany, such as Russia, Belgium,
+France and the Balkan states; the righting of the wrong done to
+Alsace-Lorraine, the provinces wrested from France by Germany in 1871;
+an opportunity for peoples subject to Austria and Turkey to develop
+along lines chosen by themselves; the establishment of a Polish state
+which should include territories inhabited by indisputably Polish
+populations; and an association of nations to guarantee the safety of
+large and small states alike. Both Austria and Germany replied to this
+address, but not in a manner to make possible a cessation of warfare. In
+setting these replies before Congress, as well as in later speeches both
+to that body and to public audiences, the President reiterated the peace
+program of the Allies.
+
+In the meanwhile conditions in the Teutonic countries were reaching a
+serious point. Germany, Austria, Bulgaria and Turkey were facing an
+enraged world. Their man power was almost exhausted, the numbers of
+killed and wounded in Germany alone being estimated at 6,000,000 men;
+famine, agitation and mutiny were at the door and revolution on the
+horizon; food was scarce and of poor quality; Austria was
+disintegrating; signs were evident of dissensions in the German
+government and suggestions were even made that the Kaiser abdicate.
+Allied pressure in the field together with insistent emphasis on the
+Allied distrust of the German government were at last having their
+combined effect; the Teutonic morale was breaking down. On October 4 the
+German chancellor requested President Wilson to take steps toward peace
+on the basis of the "fourteen points." An interchange of notes ensued
+which indicated that the Teutonic powers were humbled and that the
+Chancellor was speaking in behalf of the people of Germany. The
+Inter-allied Council then met at Versailles and drew up the terms of an
+armistice which were delivered to Germany on November 7. That nation was
+already in a tumult, in the midst of which demonstrations in favor of a
+republic were prominent, and while the German government was considering
+the terms of the armistice the Kaiser abdicated and fled to Holland, and
+a new cabinet was formed with a Socialist at the head. The end was
+evidently at hand and on November 11 the world was cheered with the news
+that Germany had signed the armistice and the war was over.[8]
+
+As far as the United States was concerned the questions of greatest
+public interest after the close of the conflict, fell into two
+categories: one connected with the complicated question of the exact
+terms of settlement between the Allies and the Teutonic powers,
+including modifications of the foreign policy of the United States; the
+other, that concerning the readjustments necessary in the internal
+affairs of the nation--economic, social and moral, as well as political.
+Any adequate discussion of these matters requires so much more
+information and perspective than can now be had, that only the barest
+outlines can be given.
+
+The conference for the determination of the settlements of the war was
+to meet in Paris. The American representatives were to include Robert
+Lansing, the Secretary of State, Henry White, who had represented the
+United States in many diplomatic matters, especially as ambassador to
+Italy and to France, Colonel Edward M. House, a trusted personal advisor
+of the President, and General Tasker H. Bliss, the American military
+representative on the Inter-allied Council. President Wilson himself was
+to head the delegation.
+
+In November, 1918, shortly before the departure of the President for
+Paris, occurred the Congressional elections, which were destined to have
+an important effect on the immediate future. Until late October the
+usual display of partisan politics had been, on the surface at least,
+uncommonly slight. On the 25th, however, the President urged the country
+to elect a Democratic Congress, declaring that the Republican leaders in
+Washington, although favorable to the war, had been hostile to the
+administration, and that the election of a Republican majority would
+enable them to obstruct a legislative program. The Republicans asserted
+that the request was a challenge to the motives and fidelity of their
+party, and a partisan and mendacious accusation. As a result of the
+ensuing contest the control of both Senate and House were won by the
+Republicans. It is impossible to judge whether the President's appeal
+recoiled seriously against his own party or whether the tendency to
+reaction against the administration at mid-term, which has been so
+common since the Civil War, was the decisive force. In any case,
+however, Wilson was compelled to go to Paris encumbered with the
+handicap of political defeat at home.
+
+Nevertheless he was received with unbounded enthusiasm by the French
+people and at once became one of the central figures among the leaders
+at Paris. Not only did the American delegates work in conjunction with
+the representatives of the Allies, but Wilson became a member of an
+inner council, the other participants in which were Premier Lloyd George
+of England, Premier Georges Clemenceau of France and Premier Orlando of
+Italy. The "Big Four," as the group was known, led the conference and
+made its most important decisions. The day of the aloofness of the
+United States from international affairs, which had been ended only
+temporarily by the war with Spain, was apparently brought to a final
+close.[9]
+
+At length the treaty with Germany was completed, President Wilson
+returned to America, and on July 10, 1919, he appeared before the Senate
+to outline the purposes and contents of the agreement and to offer his
+services to that body and to its Committee on Foreign Relations in order
+to enable them intelligently to exercise their advisory function as part
+of the treaty-making power. The Treaty was seen to contain two general
+features: a stern reckoning with Germany which commended itself to all
+except a small minority of the Senate; and a plan for a League of
+Nations which provided for concerted action on the part of the nations
+of the world to reduce armaments and to minimize the danger of war.
+President Wilson's interest in the League was intense and of long
+standing. He had hoped--and in this he was supported doubtless by the
+entire American people--that the European conflict might be a "war to
+end war," and to this conclusion he believed that a world association
+was essential. Public interest in the project was indicated by the
+efforts put forth in its behalf by Ex-President Taft, George W.
+Wickersham, who had been Attorney-General in the Taft cabinet, President
+Lowell of Harvard University, and other influential citizens.
+
+[Illustration:
+The Cost of Food
+Jan. 1913-Jan. 1920]
+
+Although interest in the Treaty and the League of Nations overshadowed
+all other issues, nevertheless many problems relating to internal
+reconstruction pressed forward for settlement. It was commonly, if not
+universally felt that somehow the United States would be different after
+the war, but in what ways and to what degree remained to be determined.
+Reconstruction in the world of industry was complicated by the
+demobilization of several millions of men from the army and navy, as
+well as the freeing of a still larger number of both men and women from
+various kinds of war work.[10] When the armistice was signed, the
+industries of the country were under contract with the War Department to
+provide supplies valued at six billion dollars, and these contracts had
+to be terminated with as little dislocation of industrial life as might
+be consistent with the necessity of stopping the production of materials
+which the government could not use. The laboring classes had loyally
+supported the war and had largely relinquished the use of the strike for
+the time being. In the meantime the cost of living had doubled, while
+wages in most industries had not responded equally. After the war,
+therefore, it was inevitable that the laboring classes should become
+restive under prevailing economic conditions. No more important question
+faced the country, a keen observer declared, than that concerning the
+wages of the laboring man: "How are the masses of men and women who
+labor with their hands to be secured out of the products of their toil
+what they will feel to be and will be in fact a fair return!"
+
+The huge purchases of war materials in the United States by European
+nations had transformed this country to a creditor nation to which the
+chief countries of the world owed large interest payments. The situation
+was a distinct contrast to the past, for the industrial development of
+the country especially since the Civil War, had been made possible in
+considerable measure by capital borrowed in European countries.
+Hitherto, therefore, the United States had been a debtor nation sending
+large yearly interest payments abroad. Moreover, America was being
+increasingly looked to for raw materials as well as manufactured
+articles, and was likely to become more than ever an exporting nation.
+
+The mobilization of the large armies required for the war proved the
+need of energetic reforms in fields that had earlier been too much
+neglected. The fact that so many as twenty-nine per cent. of the young
+men examined for the army between the ages of twenty-one and thirty had
+to be rejected because of physical defects was a cause of astonishment.
+The need of greater efforts in behalf of education was proved by the
+large number of illiterates discovered, and the necessity of training
+immigrants in the fundamentals of American government was so clearly
+demonstrated as to give rise to wide-spread plans for Americanization.
+
+More definite were the effects of the war on the prohibition movement.
+For many years a small but growing minority of reformers had urged the
+adoption of means for stopping the use of intoxicating liquors and they
+had been successful in procuring constitutional amendments in about half
+the states by the close of 1916. The war presented an opportunity for
+further progress. In September, 1918, they procured the passage of a
+resolution in Congress allowing the President to establish zones around
+places where war materials were manufactured; liquors were not to be
+sold within these areas. Soon afterward the manufacture of beer and wine
+was forbidden until the conclusion of the war, on the ground that the
+grains and fruits needed for the production of these beverages could
+better be used as foods. In the meantime a federal constitutional
+amendment establishing prohibition had been referred to the states for
+ratification. By January 16, 1919, it had received the necessary
+ratification by three-fourths of the states and took effect a year
+later.[11]
+
+The railroads constituted another difficult problem. Agreement seemed to
+be general that they could not be relinquished by the government to
+private control without significant changes in existing legislation, and
+several forces, especially the insistence of the President and of the
+opponents of government ownership, combined to spur Congress to act on
+the matter at an early date. The Esch-Cummins law of February 28, 1920,
+was an important addition to the body of interstate commerce
+legislation. It enlarged and increased the powers of the Interstate
+Commerce Commission; it authorized the Commission to recommend
+government loans to the railroads; established a Railroad Labor Board to
+settle disputes between the carriers and their employees; empowered the
+Commission to require the joint use of track and terminal facilities in
+emergencies; forbade the construction of new lines and the issuance of
+stocks and bonds without the consent of the Commission; directed the
+preparation and adoption of plans for the consolidation of the railway
+properties into a limited number of systems; permitted pooling under the
+authorization of the Commission; and provided for the accumulation of
+reserve funds and a fund for purchasing additions to railway equipment.
+Whether a final solution of the transportation problem or not, the new
+act embodied much of the experience gained since the passage of the law
+of 1887.
+
+In the field of politics and government an important part of
+reconstruction was the readjustment of relations between the federal
+executive and Congress. During the war it was inevitable that the
+President should provide most of the initiative in legislation; but it
+was likewise inevitable that the legislative branch should reassert
+itself as soon as possible. The fact that the consideration of the
+Treaty of Versailles necessarily concerned the Senate rather than the
+House of Representatives, gave the upper chamber an opportunity to
+attempt the repression of executive power to the proportions which had
+characterized it immediately before the war. Moreover if the members of
+the Senate should imitate the example of their predecessors in the
+conflict with President Johnson in 1867, that body might attempt to
+regain for itself the primacy in the federal government which had been
+partially lost under Cleveland's regime and completely superseded
+through Roosevelt's development of the presidential office.
+
+The course of the Treaty in the Senate was such as to stimulate any
+friction which might result from the difficult process of
+reconstruction. Despite the early sentiment favorable to prompt
+ratification, that part of the Treaty which related to a League of
+Nations met a variety of opposing forces. Some of them were based on
+personal, political and partisan considerations, and some of them
+founded upon a sincere hesitancy about adventuring into new and untried
+fields of international effort. In the main, party lines were somewhat
+strictly drawn in the Senate, the Democrats favoring and the Republicans
+opposing ratification of the treaty as it stood.[12] All debates in the
+Senate relating to the treaty were for the first time in our history
+open to the public, and popular interest was keen and sustained. Among
+people outside of Congress party lines were more commonly broken than in
+the Senate, and members of that body were deluged with petitions and
+correspondence for and against ratification. At length it appeared that
+a considerable fraction of the Senate desired ratification without any
+change whatever, a smaller number desired absolute rejection and a
+"middle group" wished ratification with certain reservations which would
+interpret or possibly amend portions of the plan for a League of
+Nations--portions which they felt were vague or dangerous to American
+interests. After long-continued discussion, the friends of the project
+were unable to muster the necessary two-thirds for ratification, and its
+enemies failed to obtain the majority required to make amendments, and
+the entire matter was accordingly postponed, pending the results of the
+presidential election of 1920.
+
+The United States, therefore, found itself after the close of the World
+War in much the same position that it had been in more than half a
+century earlier at the end of the Civil War. The unity of purpose and
+the devotion to ideals which had overcome all difficulties during the
+combat had seemingly, at least, given way to partisan diversity of
+endeavor, to strife for supremacy in government and to the avoidance of
+the great problems of reconstruction. Time, patience and controversy
+would be necessary to bring about a wise settlement. The United States
+was face to face with the greatest problems that had arisen since the
+Civil War.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+The opposition to the Wilson foreign policy is best expressed in
+Theodore Roosevelt, _Fear God and Take Your Own Part_ (1916).
+Roosevelt's condonation of the invasion of Belgium is in _The Outlook_
+(Sept., 1914), "The World War." Wilson's changing attitude toward the
+war is explained in A.M. Low, _Woodrow Wilson, an Interpretation_
+(1918), but is best followed in his addresses and messages. The early
+stages of the war and American interest in it are described in Ogg; _The
+American Year Book_; J.B. McMaster, _The United States in the World War
+_(1918); J.W. Gerard, _My Four Years in Germany_ (1918), superficial but
+interesting and written by the American Ambassador; Brand Whitlock,
+_Belgium_ (2 vols., 1919), verbose, but well written by the United
+States minister to Belgium; Dodd, already mentioned; J.S. Bassett, _Our
+War with Germany_ (1919), written in excellent spirit. The President's
+address calling for a declaration of war is contained in the various
+editions of his addresses, and in _War Information Series_, No. 1, "The
+War Message and Pacts Behind It," published by the Committee on Public
+Information.
+
+The subject of federal agencies for the prosecution of the war is fully
+discussed in W.F. Willoughby, _Government Organization in War Time and
+After_ (1919); there is no adequate account of the Committee on Public
+Information. On the government and the railroads, consult F.H. Dixon in
+_Quarterly Journal of Economics_ (Aug., 1919), "Federal Operation of
+Railroads during the War." E.L. Bogart, _Direct and Indirect Costs of the
+Great World War_ (1918), is useful.
+
+Combat operations are described in the general histories of the war
+already mentioned, and in "Report of General Pershing" in War
+Department, _Annual Report_, 1918.
+
+Accounts of the Peace Conference, the Treaty and the League of Nations
+labor under the attempt to prove President Wilson right or wrong, in
+addition to such insurmountable difficulties as lack of information and
+perspective. J.S. Bassett, _Our War with Germany_ (1919), has some
+temperate chapters; Dodd is friendly to Wilson, but not offensively
+partisan; R.S. Baker, _What Wilson did at Paris_ (1919) is readable;
+J.M. Keynes, _The Economic Consequences of the Peace_ (1920), is
+interesting and designed to prove a point; see also C.H. Haskins and
+R.H. Lord, _Some Problems of the Peace Conference_ (1920); the account
+in the _American Year Book_ for 1919 lacks something of its usual
+non-partisan balance. On the League of Nations a thorough study is
+S.P.H. Duggan, _The League of Nations_ (1919). Material opposing the
+treaty may be found in _The New Republic_, _The Nation_, and the _North
+American Review_; favorable to it is the editorial page of the New York
+_Times_, whose columns contain the best day-to-day accounts of the
+debates in the Senate.
+
+A full bibliography is A.E. McKinley (ed.), _Collected Materials for the
+Study of the War_ (1918).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[1] As a result of this incident the Senate decided to limit somewhat
+its rule allowing unlimited debate. Under the "closure" rule adopted
+March 8, 1917, a two-thirds majority may limit discussion on any measure
+to one hour for each member.
+
+[2] War was declared against Austria on December 7, 1917. The United
+States was followed immediately by Cuba and Panama, and before the close
+of the year by Siam, Liberia, China and Brazil. Many other Central and
+South American states severed relations with Germany and before the
+close of the struggle several of them declared war.
+
+[3] The purpose and effect of Wilson's patient foreign policy were
+briefly expressed by Joseph H. Choate, a Republican advocate of early
+entry into the war, in a speech in New York on April 25, 1917. Choate
+declared that a declaration of war after the _sinking of the Lusitania_
+would have resulted in a divided country and remarked: "But we now see
+what the President was waiting for and how wisely he waited. He was
+waiting to see how fast and how far the American people would keep pace
+with him and stand up for any action that he proposed."
+
+[4] An official of the War Department estimated that the lumber used in
+the sixteen cantonments if made into sidewalks would go four times
+around the world.
+
+[5] Roumania had entered the conflict in August, 1916, but had been
+immediately overrun, her capital Bucharest taken in December, and that
+country rendered no longer important before the entrance of America.
+
+[6] The earlier draft law resulted in about 11,000,000 registrants. The
+draft ages were 21-30 years. Under the later law the ages were 18-45.
+
+The so-called Training Detachments had already been established,
+providing for the training of mechanics, carpenters, electricians,
+telegraphers, and other necessary skilled artisans at a number of
+colleges and scientific institutions.
+
+Almost coincidently with the expansion of the army came an epidemic of
+the Spanish influenza. Hitherto the health of the army had been
+extraordinarily good, but the epidemic was so widespread and so
+malignant in its attack that during eight weeks there were more than
+twice as many deaths as in the entire army for the year preceding.
+
+[7] By November 11, 26,059 prisoners and 847 guns had been captured and
+at one point near Sedan the American advance had covered twenty-five
+miles. 1,200,000 American troops had been engaged and the weight of the
+ammunition fired was greater than that used by the Union armies during
+the entire Civil War. In November the American army held twenty-two per
+cent. of the western front. The losses of the A.E.F. during the entire
+period of its activities up to November 18, 1918, were by death 53,160;
+the wounded numbered 179,625.
+
+[8] An armistice had been signed with Turkey on October 31, and with
+Austria on November 4.
+
+[9] Something little short of a revolution in American international
+relations was taking place when the President of the United States
+received in Paris lists of callers such as that mentioned in the
+newspapers of May 17, 1919:
+
+    Prince Charron of the Siamese delegation; Dr. Markoff, of the
+    Carpatho-Russian Committee; M. Ollivier, President of the French
+    National Union of Railwayman; M. Jacob, a representative of the
+    Celtic Circle of Paris; Messrs. Bureo and Jacob of the Uruguyan
+    delegation; Turkhan Pasha, the Albanian leader; Enrique Villegas,
+    former Foreign Minister of Chile; Foreign Minister Benez and M.
+    Kramer, of the Czecho-slovak delegation, to discuss the question
+    of Silesia and Teschen; Deputy Damour, concerning the American
+    commemorative statue to be erected in the Gironde River; a
+    delegation from the Parliament of Kuban, Northern Caucasus; the
+    Archbishop of Trebizond, Joseph Reinach, the French historian, and
+    Governor Richard L. Manning of South Carolina.
+
+[10] The Secretary of War estimated the total of all these groups at
+13,650.000
+
+[11] The Eighteenth Amendment is as follows: Section 1. After one
+year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or
+transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof
+into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all
+territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes
+is hereby prohibited.
+
+Section 2. The Congress and the several states shall have concurrent
+power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
+
+Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been
+ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the
+several states, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from
+the date of the submission hereof to the states by the Congress.
+
+[12] As the Congress that which had been elected in 1918, the Senate was
+controlled by the Republicans.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The United States Since The Civil War
+by Charles Ramsdell Lingley
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK U.S. SINCE THE CIVIL WAR ***
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+This file should be named 8uscw10.txt or 8uscw10.zip
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